TR Forums

My laptop has been lying somewhere now, neglected especially since I installed an SSD in my main PC (i just can't go back to computers without SSDs). Also the battery only lasts 5 mins.
On the other hand, my HTC One S is turning out to be extremely useful. I use it for pretty much everything I used my laptop for. With MXPlayer it can even play every video file out there with subs, and the 2 krait CPUs manage even to decode 720p 10bit h.264 videos in software.

Now, a Bluetooth keyboard will cost around the same amount as a new battery for that old laptop. Meanwhile I already get pretty good battery life on my phone. I will also need an Agility 3 for the laptop if I'm not gonna lose hair using it. So I'm thinking of leaving the laptop behind, despite the nice 500gb HDD, but has anyone here done something similar and experienced some gotchas?

With linux installer providing a debian chroot in my phone, I can really use it as a computer now.

Go with what you need. I've been eyeing laptops lately (mostly ultrabooks) because I would like something with a little power to take some games on the road, which would mean I have the PC at home for most of my computing, a smartphone for roaming email and social apps, and an ultrabook for games, etc. on trips. If you really don't need a portable workstation/gaming rig, using your phone would probably work out very well.

I would suggest looking at your computing habits in a slightly different way.

Your phone is a data consumption device. You surf the web, look up stuff, check email, watch video. You consume. Your laptop lets you do all this, but it also adds extra horsepower to create on it. Video editing, significant email writing, document creation, coding, image manipulation, etc. If you find yourself doing less and less creating when you're away from your desktop, then your laptop becomes less and less relevant to your data lifestyle. A BT keyboard will help mitigate the inherent disadvantages to creating on a phone, but it will only go so far. It will be difficult to edit an image on your phone (although it is possible). And if you're writing a couple pages worth of content (letter to grandma, explanatory treatise on the merits of green jello, etc.) then even with the keyboard, writing on your phone is going to be inconvenient.

But if you find that you don't write letters to grandma when you're away from your desk... then by all means, ditch the laptop and narrow your gadgets to phone & desktop. I barely use my laptop either. I'm almost entirely desktop/tablet/phone for my digital life these days.

Crayon Shin Chan wrote:

My laptop has been lying somewhere now, neglected especially since I installed an SSD in my main PC (i just can't go back to computers without SSDs). Also the battery only lasts 5 mins.
On the other hand, my HTC One S is turning out to be extremely useful. I use it for pretty much everything I used my laptop for. With MXPlayer it can even play every video file out there with subs, and the 2 krait CPUs manage even to decode 720p 10bit h.264 videos in software.

Now, a Bluetooth keyboard will cost around the same amount as a new battery for that old laptop. Meanwhile I already get pretty good battery life on my phone. I will also need an Agility 3 for the laptop if I'm not gonna lose hair using it. So I'm thinking of leaving the laptop behind, despite the nice 500gb HDD, but has anyone here done something similar and experienced some gotchas?

With linux installer providing a debian chroot in my phone, I can really use it as a computer now.

This seems like a good idea. You can also look at some of those mobile apps that let you access your PC files from your phone, so as long as your laptop is plugged into a power outlet somewhere and has access to the Internet, you can access all your files from your smartphone or Voip Phones or Business Mobile Phones.

-Brainiac