I have been looking at Linux on phones(Ubuntu touch) with the intention to use it both as smartphone as well as desktop replacement. It really fascinates me. But it looks like there is no hardware anymore that supports display out and USB dongles. Why are there no up to date phones that have convergence mode?
Posting from my PinePhone Pro (Mobian) - last I checked a couple months ago, it worked alright. I used the metal body hub they sell on the Pine64 website. There are a lot of issues that will probably prevent this phone from being ideal for your use case though. This phone has been both a hellish nightmare while also unquestionably being the coolest piece of tech I’ve ever used. Might get around to posting a review on c/Pine64 if I get the time.
Phone manufacturers cheap out on USB ports offering alternative display out, because Android has bad support for it anyway and not very many people are interested (for now) in using their phones as desktop replacements.
I have heard that Android 13 is a step back in terms of Desktop mode compared with Android 12. On that second point, modern smartphone CPU are so powerful, it would be good enough as Notebook replacement for most no gamers. Would you agree?
Absolutely, and there are even some nice laptop shells that are just a screen, keyboard and extra battery that you can connect to your phone and use it as that.
what is your criteria for “up to date”?
list of devices that support Ubuntu Touch does not include many new phones because porting process is very hard.
Is PinePhone Pro not an “up to date” phone?
You can go more modern if you betray Stallman’s trust and go for something more proprietary, like devices that run Samsung DeX or Motorola Ready For or whatever the rest of competition calls their desktop modes.Actually, I am interested in making a spreadsheet that contains list of practically all phones (someone please scrape GSMArena) and whether they come with deskop mode and whether they are physically capable of attaching an external monitor.
Result of that would gives us an idea of how many phones could have desktop mode, but do not have one.
If percentage is high enough, then I would get motivated to start looking into how to make some open source desktop mode app.Uh, my SHIFT6mq has it, and afaik most OnePlus phones have it.
