Hi everyone, I'm so excited to inform you it's now possible to use your high-end Android-based smartphone as a Desktop PC. By this I mean, you can have your smartphone in your pocket wherever you go, and of course, use is it for the usual stuff, make calls, listen to music, send SMS etc. When you need the feel and power of a desktop PC, you simply connect your smartphone to a keyboard and monitor, and viola - you have a desktop. How's this possible? The answer is UBUNTU FOR ANDROID . Ever heard of this revamped version of the popular free and open source Desktop PC OS? If you have a multi-core Android-based smartphone, then go for Ubuntu for android, and you have a phone that doubles as a phone and desktop. How excited are you. See screen-shot below:
It's actually possible for quite some time now, but I don't think it's too exciting. The screen is just too small to do things you couldn't do on your phone anyway. Most programs have an Android alternative nowaday anyways, so it's not really needed for most people.
Hi, thanks for your response. Actually, I think you don't quite understand the idea behind Ubuntu for android. It's not a particular device I am speaking about, it's the ability to turn your usual multi-core android-based phone into a full desktop PC once you have access to a conventional monitor and keyboard. When you use your device as a phone, it runs android OS, but once it's connected to a monitor and a keyboard, it runs the ubuntu OS, giving you the full power of a desktop PC. Thanks again for stopping by.
Wow that's cool. Correct me if I'm wrong but the way I understand it you still have to buy some extra peripheral in order for you to connect a monitor and keyboard, possible a mouse also, to your smart phone right? Have you tried that before?
Awesome post! Looks pretty cool, but I'm sure this has some negatives too... Won't this dramatically reduce the life expectancy of your phone? As far as the apps that you can run on Ubuntu, you really need to manage your expectations, right? Text editors, and that's pretty much it I guess. Still, if you can grab a small monitor and keyboard, what a killer setup for travelling...
Hey that's cool but yeah, you would still need to have some sort of connectors and other stuff to hook it up on a monitor right? But that's really, correct me if I'm wrong but you would need a powerful enough phone to do this right? Like a Dual or Quad core phone?
I think that this would work really well on a tablet, but less on a smartphone due to a small screen size. I recently tried this on my Galaxy Note 3 (quite a big screened smartphone with a 5.7 inch display) and I still found the size to be just a bit too small for desktop OS us. I might try this on a tablet when I have the free time to see if the experience improves. As for the idea of using this as a desktop/laptop replacement I think isn't that great as you'll need a keyboard and mouse, which you'll have to carry around if you are going to use it as a portable PC, and that's probably less convenient that just bringing a small laptop. As for desktop replacement, for the price of a faster smartphone you can actually buy a higher performing PC anyway.
Thanks a lot for sharing this! I have heard of Ubuntu before, but I haven't really tried using it. This is a great post though. I have a hard time at work because we don't have our own computers. It's amazing to know that I can use my smartphone as a PC. Thanks very much again!
My Droid Bionic from a few years ago was supposed to be able to do this. There was an optional device that looked like a laptop, but it was merely a screen and a keyboard that you plugged your phone into, and the whole thing would function like a Chromebook. Needless to say the phone was riddled with bugs, kept losing it's 4G connection - which they didn't fix that issue for over a year, and the add-on device was just too expensive for what it did, it was $250. You would likely only get a year or two's worth of use out of it max, before the version of Android on it would become outdated and slow, and you would be ready to get a new phone. I'm guessing you would need some sort of USB to Micro USB adapter, preferably a splitter of some sort too, to be able to hook up the keyboard and monitor (unless you could use a bluetooth connection for the keyboard? I've never heard of using bluetooth for a monitor connection though). The other thing is I don't have the slightest idea of how to use Ubuntu. I installed it on a spare laptop a few years ago, but could not find my way around it at all.
