Sentio Superbook
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I ordered that thing [1] at the Kickstarter about 3 years ago. It
seemed to be an interesting idea at that time: a notebook-shaped device
which actually works as an extension of one's smartphone. So a battery,
a keyboard, a screen and not much more. No actual CPU, GPU or memory.
One might think about it as about a modern reincarnation of the failed
Palm Foleo. The main difference is that the Palm was connected by the
Bluetooth and here the phone is attached via the USB cable (which is
used also to charge the phone). And. of course, the Foleo had its own
CPU, memory and some storage so if actually was self-sufficient. This
one is actually useless without the phone.
After three years I have little use for such device. I planned to use
if with cooperation on my nVidia Shield tablet but it's too old now to
be used as such. And I don't use the smartphone at all (not even
speaking about an Android device - I had the Ubuntu Touch based phone).
So it is going to be a Christmas present for my sister who owns a
fairly modern Android phone.
I was only to able to test the Superbook with my Gemini PDA (the
android clamshell device). One has to install the Sentio Desktop
application from the Google Store and to enable some strange remote
display app. Then it works as expected: the desktop resembles a normal
desktop OS a bit but it is still as limited as the Android.
But it is probably OK. It allows the users to use the Word or the Excel
on a big (11") screen with normal sized keyboard (the keyboard is
rather average one but it is usable). I was unable to use the touchpad
but it might be because the Gemini has many GUI customisation which
might be incompatible with Sentio's ones.
I think that for an ordinary Android use it might be an useful thing.
The device allows to use desktop-style software much easily that on the
phone itself. The OS limitation are still the same so the user knows
what he or she can do and what is not allowed.
The hardware quality is adequate to its price ($99 or so): it's
all-plastic (thought the finish looks very good), there is no magnet to
keep the lid closed (it holds well in closed position but there is an
ugly gap between the screen and the bottom part of the device).
The screen is acceptable (I cannot judge about its colors as I have
nothing modern to compare - but it is not better that my old SGI 1600SW
LCD, I think). The keyboard is acceptable, too. It's not too weak and I
can type on it without too much errors. Only the cursor keys are
producing very strange clicks.
There are even some ports (all are on the left side): a full-size USB
port, an USB-C port (to connect the phone) and the round hole for a
charger (they have had some issues with charging of the device itself
via the USB-C so they have added a non-USB charger).
The device is said to have battery life of 8 hours. It also charges the
connected phone via the USB-C so the battery life will be charger is a
big and hungry phone is attached.
There is no dock for the phone, it has to lie near the notebook (they
offered some way to attach the hone to the side of the screen but it
looked too strangely so I did not order this option).
I still think that it is not a bad idea because:
* to upgrade this "notebook" only the phone has to be upgraded
* it is a smart way to have actually only one device
* it might offer enough functionality for many users
But the execution of the idea is not so good. The device is too cheap,
there is no smart way to hide the connected phone and it is still an
Android-only solution. But still, it actually is that the poor Foleo
promised to be: a phone companion device.
And sorry, there will be no pictures - I already packed the device as a
present and only after then I realised that I took no picture :-(
P.S. It seems funny to me that I'm writing about the latest hardware on
the Silicon Graphics Indigo (@ 33MHz). But I think that the text will
be the same even if I will use faster computer. ;-)
References:
[1]
https://www.sentio.com
