New smartphones are now being released with the kind of price tags we are used to seeing for most mid range laptops/tablets. They are continually getting more powerful, with more features and no doubt will continue to increase in cost. However, the one thing they will never be able to replace is the desktop experience of using a laptop for your work. The screen will always be too small and the keyboard will always be too difficult for prolonged typing (I miss you Blackberry!).
The Superbook by Andromium Inc.
Andromium Inc, a company founded by Google and Y Combinator alumni, has the answer which could finally set the smartphone free and make it the all in one tool we all need.
The Superbook is a laptop shell with the following specs:
- 11.6″ LCD display at 768p (1080p upgrade available!)
- 7.6″ x 11.3″ x 0.7″ (19.3 cm x 28.7 cm x 1.8cm)
- 2.0lb / 0.9kg
- Supports Type-C and Micro-B smartphones
- 8+ hour battery life
- Simultaneously charges smartphone
- QWERTY keyboard (Android OS layout)
- Android-specific navigation keys (Home, Back, Menu, Recent)
- Multi-touch trackpad
Notice anything missing? Thats right, no internal power specs. That is because the Superbook is a laptop accessory for your Android smartphone. You plug your phone into the shell and use the unique Andromium App to deliver a full desktop experience directly from your smartphone!
The real beauty of this is most of your Android apps will work on the Superbook straight away and the team are developing an open SDK to allow developers to optimise their apps to work with Andromium.
The Superbook will work with any modern-day Android device. Your smartphone just needs to support USB-OTG, and the real beauty is every time you upgrade your handset Superbook is still there for you so no need to buy a new laptop along with a new handset.
The Superbook is totally dependent on your Smartphone even for connectivity, making use of it’s data or wifi connections along with internal storage of files. This really is the accessory needed to release the power of modern day phones!
If you are interested you need to be quick. The Superbook is currently on Kickstarter with a little over 20 hours of the campaign remaining. You can get a basic Superbook for $99 (UK shipping is estimated to be an additional $35) in this time with shipping expected to begin Feb 2017.
This has the potential to help every tech-savvy traveller, and I am so excited to see if it takes off.