Dream up your ideal mobile compute device(s) [i.e. laptop, tablet, smart phone, smart watch, AR glasses]

It is CES time, the time of the year where crazy new concept tech is shown to the public. This, and my short exchange with @PhaseLockedLoop in the lounge, made me think, what would the ideal mobile device of people in the Level1Techs community look like. Think of this thread as a place to dream up the ideal mobile device to suit your needs. Think both hardware specs/ form/ functionality and software features.

The Rules

  1. Keep it somewhat realistic! Your dream device should be possible with current technology. You can go to the cutting edge, but a mobile phone with the compute power of a full tower desktop, a smartphone powered by an RTG and a portable holo deck are out.
  2. Think about whether you would really use the device you dream up in the real world. You probably don’t want to run around like a cyborg, or with a clutter of different tech for all circumstances in your backpack.
  3. Try to post your own idea before you look at the other posts. This way we may get a bigger variety of ideas. You can post what features of other peoples ideas you like afterwards.
  4. Add as many details and specs as you like, i.e. Screen tech (IPS,OLED,E-ink,…), resolution, battery life, weight, storage, memory, face unlock, multi factor, hardware key, processor, co-processors, headphone jack, wireless, 4G, camera, keyboard (layout, function keys), all the IO !, oscilloscope, operating system, VPN to your secret bat-cave, repairability, game streaming service, … . Keep rule 1 in mind though. Everything you add takes up space and/or other resources.
  5. Have fun discussing your ideas! :sunglasses:

I will add my own ideas later, but I don’t want to stear you in certain directions in the beginning.

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The Librem 5 from Purism pretty much checks all my boxes, in spirit anyway.

  • Software libre down to the screws
  • Hardware kill switches for radios, cameras, gps, and microphones
  • Removable, replaceable battery
  • Headphone jack

The only way to really improve on that would be make everything faster where possible. More RAM, faster processor, et cetera.

If they made a 10-inch eInk reader/tablet along the same lines, I’d buy that in a heartbeat.

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AR Glasses with A.I. and active telemetry to optimize and improve my day to day and workflow.

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Smart watch with Bluetooth, GPS, LTE, 64GB of storage, 3 day battery, heart rate monitor, a UI that doesn’t suck, and good app support.

I feel like we gotta be close, minus the storage part. I actually really want a smart watch, but I’m not sure anything actually gets close to that.

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I would love to have something similar to Boeing’s AR glasses mated to a wearable belt PC.

The PC components would be mounted in pods like Batman’s utility belt. In that way you could swap out GPU, RAM, storage, etc.

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My dream phone

  • A mobile phone with at least 3 or 4 years of software support
  • Snapdragon 800 series (doesn’t have to be latest)
  • 4.7 - 5" 1080p display that isn’t total shit
  • Replaceable battery
  • headphone jack
  • expandable mSD storage (or dual sim with sim2 doubling as the mSD slot)
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A laptop with a fast CPU, “retina” screen (and an accompanying OS that supports scaling well, which for some reason is apparently hard to do if you’re not Apple), a descent GPU, a built in ergonomic keyboard, and minimal effort into being thin & light since all that does is increase costs, decrease cooling capacity, and make it harder to find room for upgradable storage and RAM. Plus, if I want “thin & light”, I’ll get a keyboard case for my iPad; otherwise I want a portable computer.

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I’d be all about that if the software component was self-hosted.

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Hmmm I have been summoned…

Well let’s see aerodynamics of current laptops is shit due to lack of deadicated intake and exhaust fans. So let’s do some redesign bulk of components behind the screen. Air flow is simple… bottom of screen dual intake fans with dust guards. Copper heat pipe multiple connected heatsinks in the rear isolated from the screen. Have an OLED display but I’ll settle for a good Samsung IPS like my current laptop. Dual exhaust fans out the top 2 fans to 4 exhaust ports so that you exhaust the heat but also cool the air just before it leaves the laptop for comforts sake. Uhmm let’s see oh yes according to a few laws of thermodynamics since we are cooling we want turbulent flow and not so much laminar flow inside. Then we want laminar flow on the exhaust to exhaust as much as possible. This will have to be some how included in the design.

Other then that. I’d love to see a 1070 in the laptop at the very least. Maybe toss in a 6 core… or heck run a ryzen desktop part :joy::joy::joy: with the additional cooling it’s okay… ruggudize the case just a bit… put a BIG ASS battery and mechanical keyboard on the lap part of the laptop… have 2 the ssd M.2 nvme storage at min… you know get rid of spinning disks save space lol… If ryzen run 3200 mhz ram at least…

I’ll add on later. I have thoughts but I’m at work

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The melanoma computer brain link interface. I am putting it here jokingly, because in Eureka, a person made a device that is connected to computer and is controlled by your brain. Everyone notes how it looks like a melanoma.