I have an Android tablet (Samsung Tab Pro - the 12" beast). An experiment at replacing a laptop on some outings. I bought the A$140 Logitech keyboard / cover, which is good but not great, with some keys being a bit recalcitrant.

Some UI features are frustrating (example: alt-tab brings up the alt-tab switcher - you need to alt-tab twice to move to the most recent process, and toggling between two or three apps on the top of the stack is a common use case for me if I'm trying to do Real Work). An Android problem, I concede.

Given that context - how good is the keyboard, and how are you shipping keyboard + screen at less than a Logitech keyboard - I know, retail, scale, brand mark-up, two years later, etc ... but nonetheless?

Does the app smooth out some of the frustrations (f.e. the alt-tab problem) of working with Android with a keyboard & mouse as though it's a real grown-up DE? Is the app going to offer an increasingly customisable experience, or does it defer to the phone's native Android (and skins) features?

How does it feel - I know you're biased, but have you tried some phones that it just doesn't work on, and/or have some benchmarks or recommendations? I'm on an original Nexus 5 - which still performs adequately, but with low expectations on a phone interface - how well would it drive the Superbook?

Keyboard: Think of the keyboard of your standard Chromebook. That's the keyboard. We have to use off the shelf, component parts that are fairly common in order to keep costs low.

Screen: Basic screen is a TN 768p. It's not fantastic, but at a 11.6" screen size, it's fine. For an extra $30, you can get the IPS 1080p upgrade. They're pretty solid.

Keyboard / Mouse / Alt-Tab frustration: Yep. Our software mainly spends a lot of time making the experience of using keyboard and mouse decent. We do take on a number of the phone's native features, but desktop experience optimization is why we built our app - it's the missing software link. For those of you with tablets and usb mouse / keyboard that want to give it a try, test out the beta: play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.andromium.os&hl=en

Phones that don't work: Yea, definitely lower end phones, phones with <2GB RAM run a little rough. There are still a bunch of software features to add / fix / optimize. It still has a bit to go before we hit full desktop parity. We see this as a software problem that we just need to spend a bunch of time on.

I'm tempted to back this but I'm in the middle of a move and some personal expenses so I'm trying to be good and conserve money right now, so it'd be nice to know that the Kickstarter won't be the only opportunity in the next year or two to get this.

PS, would love that it was backlit, that is literally the only complain I have with my Asus UX305CA

Yes, we've gotten a ton of good feedback that people are willing to pay for a premium version. If we hit the 2.5M stretch goal, backlit will be a possibility :). We like it, but we also did a survey of our backers that said ~50% would pay for it.

[1] https://github.com/termux/termux-app [2] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rhmsoft.ed...

Do you think this will be a viable alternative for coding while traveling and dont have a laptop?

Video extension for multiple monitors. For example the ability to plug my phone into a dual monitor setup for coding.

A 13" primary monitor.

Touchscreen on the primary monitor for those annoying times when you forget it's not touchscreen.

USB ports on the device so I can plug in a wireless mouse and keyboard.

Standard Linux OS virtual machine or rooted a la chromebooks.

Then I would carry my phone between home and work and plug it in both places. No more need to carry a laptop. You could pick one of them up and take it with you for travel. That would be beautiful.

I currently tote my 13" laptop around and plug in an extra monitor and wireless usb mouse/keyboard at the endpoints.

Or hell, even as a tty/dumb terminal for a random linux box?

Actually have only sneaked this to our commenters. Will do an update to everyone soon...

Check it out:

Surface + Superbook: https://vimeo.com/176370847/ddd187ceab Mac + Superbook: http://imgur.com/a/oZwwN PC Stick + Superbook: http://imgur.com/a/eTbtm

Can I enter directly to the phone with the keyboard? Does the phone screen show on the large screen without Andromium? Is the large screen a touch screen?

Even more important -- if I have a rooted/virtual machine instance of a standard Linux distro running on my smartphone, can I use that? Do I have to use Andromium if I have a setup like a rooted chromebook? Turning the smartphone into a laptop it seems the biggest limitation would then be the app store. I don't want it to "feel" like a computer. I want it to be a computer -- OS and all.

One final question. What is your privacy policy, open vs closed source and permission requirements for Andromium and why?

This is a great idea, but I am raising a serious eyebrow at the Andromium aspect of it.

The answer is Yes. As long as the device you're working on as a displaylink driver, you can use it. In fact:

Superbook + Surface tablet: https://vimeo.com/176370847 Superbook + Mac: http://imgur.com/a/oZwwN Superbook + PC Stick: http://imgur.com/a/eTbtm

Full list of permissions can be found on the app page: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.andromium....

There a ton of permissions we ask for in order to make the experience smooth. To be honest, we've been focusing less on privacy and more on just making a solid desktop experience. We can definitely be more intentional in our permissions as we mature as a startup.

And actually of all of the various attempts at this, the primary failure was that the software experience was so poor. We've been working on the software side (Andromium) for over 1.5 years, with a bunch of feedback from a pretty awesome community :)

Not an Ubuntu touch expert, but would it be compatible? Just plugging it in and have what ubuntu want to reach? a complete linux distro on the go? If not, are you able to support it?

I would really like to see a slot for the phone, like the old Asus Tablet where you could insert a telephone in the back.

The slot is interesting, but makes it hard to fit with every phone. One of the biggest challenges of Android is the fragmentation across devices, OSes, and experiences. We wanted to make this accessible to ALL Android devices, so that's why we opted for the side mount option instead.

Particularly relevant is the portions on the use of the DisplayLink 4xxx chipset, USB-OTG, and battery size

See: http://www.displaylink.com/downloads/android

Btw because we use DisplayLink, you can also use the Superbook as a secondary monitor / keyboard / mouse for windows tablet,s laptops, and PC sticks.

Is a solution technically possible where the phone is connected to a normal desktop/laptop via USB, and I could extend in to the phone via a semi-full screen portal?

What limitations are there that are preventing this from happening?

Is there inspiration or parts you can share with Remix?

[1]: http://liliputing.com/2016/01/remix-os-for-pc-how-to-install...

Also, on Reddit it was mentioned that you have a headphone jack, does this involve a codec and pre-amp hardware? Does this increase the price or complexity?

We could at some point, but our goal isn't to support windows. Our belief is that device convergence will happen and Android phones will lead the way.

We don't have a headphone jack! Sorry if there was any misinformation / if I messed up there. Lots of chefs were in that particular AMA kitchen. This one: just me.

The benefit of having everything on one computer is that you don't need to sync files and constantly upgrade multiple devices. You get to stay in one computing ecosystem.