Comment by m3nu
11 hours ago
My bet is that phone hardware will be used more and more in mini PCs and laptops keeping the cost down and volume up. We see it with Apple and many Chinese mini PC makers I looked at.
11 hours ago
My bet is that phone hardware will be used more and more in mini PCs and laptops keeping the cost down and volume up. We see it with Apple and many Chinese mini PC makers I looked at.
This is so true. Convergence will continue. H/W miniaturization will keep increasing. In fact, new brands could easily appear and even overtake the largest players. For example, have you seen this massive range of docking technology.
https://us.ugreen.com/collections/usb-c-hubs - these docks only require a single USB port to connect to. That could be a SBC working as a handheld. These docks could end up being the largest cost component in the new era of all-in-ones. UGreen could be the next Apple as screens and processors snap-on to these hubs, in addition to their own range of power banks and SSD enclosures. Their quality is high too.
In fact, I would go so far as to say we are entering a tinkering culture, and free-energy technologies are upon us as a response oppressive economic times. Sort of like how the largest leaps in religious and esoteric thought have occurred in the most oppressive of circumstances.
People will reject their crappy thin clients, start tinkering and build their own networks. Knowledge and currency will stay private and concentrated - at least at first.
RAM is going to be the most expensive component, I suppose.
But indeed, once you have USB-C support on your device, you can connect all kinds of periphery through it, from keyboards to 4K screens. Standardized device classes obviate the need for most drivers.
Yep. I was thinking that as crypto miners pivot into AI https://catenaa.com/markets/cryptocurrencies/jpmorgan-morgan... - there must also be a case for miners (anyone really) liquidating their hardware, including memory. So the price of memory has its own limits-to-growth - latent availability, but that's another topic.
If this ends up being true, desktop Linux adoption might make inroads. Windows apps run like crap on ARM and no one is bothering to make ARM builds of their software.
Because ARM Windows is locked down tightly. The same will interfere with Linux adoption on similar hardware.
The original Raspberry Pi was built around an overstock phone chip. Modern alternatives built around Rockchip and similar high-end phone chips venture into the territory of lower-end laptops. Aliexpress is full of entry-level laptops based on ARM phone chips (apparently running Android).
This will likely extend further and further, more into the "normie" territory. MS Windows is, of course, the thing that keeps many people pinned to the x64 realm, but, as Chromebooks and the Steam Deck show us, Windows is not always a hard requirement to reach a large enough market segment.
No, a set-top-box chip.
All we need is for HDMI to be unlocked so it works on phones, or maybe VGA adapters that work on phones. And a way to "sideload" our own apps. Hackers please make this happen.
Some modern phones do DisplayPort over USB C.
I plugged my iPhone 16 into my usb-C docking station the other day to charge it and was pretty surprised to discover it just started mirroring my phone screen. Keyboard worked too!
Unified hardware helps some and hurts some. See: same gpus for gaming and for AI.