Sentio/Superbook compatibility

Hello,

Is the librem phone compatible/going to be compatible with the Sentio Superbook?

I’ve been thinking of how purism might make a product that takes better advantage of the college student demographic (like me)… Who might not be able to buy a librem laptop at the current price while paying for school…

If the librem phone could work with the superbook, that would be huge! For $600 + $200 I (and thousands of other college students/fans on a budget) can finally get a laptop that respects our privacy! :smiley:

I really hope it’s possible…

Hi @gnulligan,

This other thread might be of interest for you. It discusses the feasibility of having a product similar to the Razer shell.

https://forums.puri.sm/t/cheaper-version-of-the-librem-for-wider-appeal/2892/10?u=thib

@thib

Thanks, but it looks like that’s regarding the Razer Linda project, right? That would be a custom shell designed just for the librem phone… Sounds like it would be quite unfeasible, as nicole states.

The superbook is an external usb “lapdock” that is meant to work with all phones that have the sentio app. So getting it working with the librem phone is just a matter of software, the hardware is already there. And special software might not even be necessary, depending on if the superbook presents as a generic USB hub or not.

So, it might not require much additional work from purism at all, but I’d still like to see the superbook officially supported/tested in case some minor bugs show up (I can’t imagine there being many, maybe just keyboard layout/display resolution/feature support)

@Caliga @Alex thoughts? I valued your input in the Librem "Shell" Idea - Razer Project Linda thread, and I think the superbook is exactly what we need to make this a reality.

1 Like

So just an update… it seems the Superbook hasn’t actually shipped yet. There’s alternatives, like the HP elite x3 (which is meant to use with a windows phone), but there’s no real, standalone lapdock for phones yet, except maybe the mirabook, which is a little too budget for me to use as a full-time laptop.

If a better lapdock is out by the time the librem 5 ships I hope Purism can investigate providing official support for something.

But in the mean time I think this is the answer to my question here- the librem 5 will work as a cheap laptop if you connect it to a dock, and we just need to wait until it ships to discuss how exactly to do it.