This laptop has no brain

Elecrow sent me one of their latest raspberry pi "laptop computers". But this laptop contains everything except the computer, to be hooked up to a Raspberry Pi or latest smartphone to provide the computer that this laptop lacks.

Pre order one here, $130 USD:

[experimentalcyborg]

Someone saw a laptop dock and thought "What if we built the opposite"

[frequentfrenzied]

I work as a computer technician and I carry something like this around with me in my bag of tools. There are so many computers and servers out there that are operating in a headless environment, and they can be tough to troubleshoot that way if they stop working. Something like this provides a much more compact and portable solution than carrying around a small screen, power supply, and wireless keyboard and mouse. It doesn't seem like this device natively supports VGA inputs though, which kills its usefulness for me. Server hardware and industrial equipment still only support video out over VGA, so I have to have it.

[lukasandrysik]

Some random 12V adapter instead of USB-C charging? Shame...

[jackmcslay]

It having mounting holes for an NVME drive I imagine they outsourced a laptop chassis and just put their branding on it, which would also explain a device targeted at people who would want to 'laptopize' a phone or a Raspberry Pi having a Windows key.
Their solution for connecting a Raspberry Pi is pretty jank, though. I'd much rather a cable that connects on the laptop on one side and splits into USB, HDMI and power at the other end

[niaimack]

So it's just a kickstarter lapdock then!

[piousminion]

I would like this product a lot better if it had a cover on the bottom where you could put a Pi compute module and have it protected for a true portable Pi laptop.

[robmckennie]

i have a handful of computers running as servers with no monitor, and from time to time i need to drag out a monitor and keyboard to fix something, it could be very convenient to plug this thing in to manage my servers

[KeinNiemand]

I'm suprised it uses an actual Pi instead of a compute module

[JohnHill-qohb]

To me, this device is a product looking for a purpose.

[rpavlik]

Would be really handy for headless servers. Though the need for a USB A to A cable is a little cursed.

[Sharklops]

I imagine they sourced the shell from a third party laptop manufacturer that offers motherboards that take advantage of that m.2 hatch

[timlaunyc]

Reminds me of the Droid Bionic Lapdock, a hybrid mobile experience that was too far ahead of its time. You'd just dock the phone at the back with the micro usb and micro hdmi ports, and the Lapdock provided a screen and keyboard, along with a longer life battery.

[o.e.r.]

Basically the dock the old HP Elite X3 Windows Phone had years ago. Still, a neat concept, if not a new one.

[CodeOptimism]

Honestly I was down to buy it but the 12VDC barrel plug changed my mind. 😖

[eh]

Someone has reinvented the dumb terminal! Neat!

[Rick-vmbl]

Interesting product, a really odd move to have a barrel jack for charging when the thing already has USB-C. That really makes the product look half baked.

[Wes]

I really didn't get this until you mentioned that you can connect your smartphone to it.
It's actually a good idea.

[lukahrastovec]

I have a bunch of old laptops lying around! I’m thinking of converting one to accept an external video signal and finding a way to convert the internal keyboard to USB. The touchpad should already be USB. It would be amazing to buy something like that, but I'd never find one with a Slovenian keyboard layout. But the more I think about it, I mostly use SSH for my headless machines, and for that, any old laptop by itself would do the job. I guess for me this setup would only be useful if the machine isn't reachable from the network?

[ADVscout]

this would be so useful for servers, its so annoying to move a monitor and keyboard around to each

[krahwinkel]

Sometimes, I feel like this laptop ;-)