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You can use whatever keyboard you like, whatever input device you like, but there is no inherent reason why your computer has to be an ATX desktop form factor a

You can use whatever keyboard you like, whatever input device you like, but there is no inherent reason why your computer has to be an ATX desktop form factor and anchored to the wall. If you could accomplish everything you currently do on your computer right now, with your phone and plugging your phone into a base station, then there would literally be no reason to have a desktop at all. We are only about 1-2 years away from this reality.

unimpressive 15y ago
Well. I'd say it's more like five years away from any sort of mainstream acceptance. Not that I'm some anti-hipster, but I don't think it will become mainstream right away BECAUSE: 1) People without smart phones exist. I'm one of them. 2) Nobody is going to be satisfied with phone hardware to control both their phone and their sit-down setup. At least not for a few more generations of Moore's law, and Moore's laws current method for increasing power, stacking cores, is a battery vampire. People who want their phones to actually run for a non-trivial length of time will end up under-utilizing their hardware while on the go. (Hardware that they still payed money for.) 3) So lets say we still have the sit-down setup in the form of the base station. This brings up it's own set of questions: [A] Where is data stored? What if someone steals your phone? What if you don't have one? [B] Where does the computing power come from, is this just a shell for the phone or does it have some power on board? Now we can wrangle over these questions for a while, but I'm quite confident the answers are "The base has an internal HD" and "The base has computer parts inside." at which point I have to ask; how is this that different from what we have now? I mean, sure my desktop is a little heavier to move than a "base" might be. But unless this base is going to be like the old 90's laptop bases (Huge flat thing with peripherals that plugs into a smaller top.) I can't really see myself moving it. If it has a full fledged keyboard, monitor, and mouse, I can't see myself moving it. If it doesn't, then it's a laptop. With all the problems laptops entail. (Which can only be fixed by "desktopifying" it.) Of course, marketing conquers all. That is what everyones always going after right, true marketing? Or was that true love? I think it was the marketing...
- Joeri 15y ago
  If you're working with a keyboard and mouse, and looking at a big screen, and you have a rich multi-tasking environment that does what you need it to do, does it matter if it's running on a smartphone that's connected via bluetooth to a keyboard/mouse and via DLNA to a screen? Why the need to have a big box containing your CPU, if a little one will do? Desktop PC's will always find a niche, but they're already a niche today. Laptops by far outsell desktops, and smartphones+tablets by far outsell laptops. Right now you have to be a geek to buy a desktop, because regular people don't buy those anymore. I don't know anyone "normal" who bought a desktop in the last two years. The idea to buy anything other than a laptop simply doesn't arise. This happened in 5 years. Why couldn't a smartphone-centric transition happen in 5 years as well?

unimpressive 15y ago

Well. I'd say it's more like five years away from any sort of mainstream acceptance. Not that I'm some anti-hipster, but I don't think it will become mainstream right away BECAUSE: 1) People without smart phones exist. I'm one of them. 2) Nobody is going to be satisfied with phone hardware to control both their phone and their sit-down setup. At least not for a few more generations of Moore's law, and Moore's laws current method for increasing power, stacking cores, is a battery vampire. People who want their phones to actually run for a non-trivial length of time will end up under-utilizing their hardware while on the go. (Hardware that they still payed money for.) 3) So lets say we still have the sit-down setup in the form of the base station. This brings up it's own set of questions: [A] Where is data stored? What if someone steals your phone? What if you don't have one? [B] Where does the computing power come from, is this just a shell for the phone or does it have some power on board? Now we can wrangle over these questions for a while, but I'm quite confident the answers are "The base has an internal HD" and "The base has computer parts inside." at which point I have to ask; how is this that different from what we have now? I mean, sure my desktop is a little heavier to move than a "base" might be. But unless this base is going to be like the old 90's laptop bases (Huge flat thing with peripherals that plugs into a smaller top.) I can't really see myself moving it. If it has a full fledged keyboard, monitor, and mouse, I can't see myself moving it. If it doesn't, then it's a laptop. With all the problems laptops entail. (Which can only be fixed by "desktopifying" it.) Of course, marketing conquers all. That is what everyones always going after right, true marketing? Or was that true love? I think it was the marketing...

Joeri 15y ago
If you're working with a keyboard and mouse, and looking at a big screen, and you have a rich multi-tasking environment that does what you need it to do, does it matter if it's running on a smartphone that's connected via bluetooth to a keyboard/mouse and via DLNA to a screen? Why the need to have a big box containing your CPU, if a little one will do? Desktop PC's will always find a niche, but they're already a niche today. Laptops by far outsell desktops, and smartphones+tablets by far outsell laptops. Right now you have to be a geek to buy a desktop, because regular people don't buy those anymore. I don't know anyone "normal" who bought a desktop in the last two years. The idea to buy anything other than a laptop simply doesn't arise. This happened in 5 years. Why couldn't a smartphone-centric transition happen in 5 years as well?