I have the same/similar hardware.<p>It auto-powers on when the HDMI is connected. There's not a good way to get it to power off without just unplugging it.<p>You get roughly 3-4 hours of battery life.<p>The Raspberry Pi is woefully underpowered compared to modern PC's in terms of CPU performance. I'd put it in the same class as say middling Pentium III. The GPU is decent for a phone, if all you're doing is 2D/video stuff.<p>Some of the keyboard docks have a UK layout, which actually matches the default layout loaded by the Pi.<p>There's nothing that ties this to the Pi specifically - you could easily do the same with something like this quad-A9 board and get radically better performance (at the cost of battery life): <a href="http://www.hardkernel.com/renewal_2011/products/prdt_info.php?g_code=G135341370451" rel="nofollow">http://www.hardkernel.com/renewal_2011/products/prdt_info.ph...</a>
This is actually a very good idea.<p>I already have one of those $100 Android netbooks[1] you can get from Alibaba.com, but it's Android[2]. I would pay $200 for an ultra-lightweight Raspberry Pi netbook that was in the same netbook shell as my android netbook. In fact, I've been looking everywhere for some steps to installing RaspberryPi(or any linux) onto my Android netbook.<p>1. <a href="http://dx.com/p/v712-10-lcd-android-4-0-netbook-w-wi-fi-rj45-camera-hdmi-sd-slot-black-189164" rel="nofollow">http://dx.com/p/v712-10-lcd-android-4-0-netbook-w-wi-fi-rj45...</a><p>2.Not that I don't like Android, I have 2 legit android devices that I use daily; Kindlefire with SimpleCM9 and the Samsung GalaxyPlayer50(not the phone). Just that, a hacked-together Android netbook isn't the best experience... but it's very lightweight and battery-life is like an iPad or better. After installing Chrome/Firefox and Google Keep(or evernote), it's at least good enough to take into meetings... and netflix works on it. But beware! It's headphone jack isn't stereo; you only get sound in the left-ear! Go buy mono-headphones.
I've got two of these Lapdocks, I bought them for $50 back when they first started being liquidated. I currently use one as the display for a BeagleBone Black for some project I'm working on.<p>This setup isn't really anything new, people were running this sort of thing a year ago, and there are lots of variations of it including embedding TV-HDMI-stick systems (like the RK3188) directly into the case hinge of the lapdock so you have something more like a standard laptop.<p>In any case, I highly recommend picking up the lapdock if you can find one for a good price. I'm not sure I'd pay close to $100 for one, but for $50 they were a great deal. They make great displays for Linux ARM SoC projects. If you actually want an ARM based laptop for general purpose laptop stuff, the Samsung ARM Chromebook already mentioned in this thread is a better all-around solution for not much more money.
The raspberry pi is absolutely not the cool thing about this set up[1]. The cool thing is that in 12 months you can switch out your SOC for a better one.<p>1. The pi is good because it has a large community and GPIO pins, it's a terrible choice for a 'PC' device today-- it's pretty much the weakest CPU you can get in the ARM/SOC world, with an out of date instruction set (v6 vs v7). You'd be much better off going with a beaglebone black or MK802, at the low end, with a world of more powerful options.
My boss told me about this on Friday. Looks cool. He's ordered the parts from E-bay. I have a Pi, and I'm using it to learn to teach breaking and fixing Debian.<p>(So far I've learned that ARMv7 is supported by debian armhf, and ARMv6 is the hardfloat support offered by the Pi. And that this difference is so important, that somewhere deep in the Perl modules of Debconf, is a breaking change that apt can't resolve for itself when you upgrade raspbian to plain debian armhf.)<p>Check out this coolness:<p><pre><code> pi@raspberrypi ~ $ /usr/share/debconf/frontend
Illegal instruction</code></pre>
According to the footer this site is run by the PSF[0] - but I don't see any mention of it elsewhere.<p>Worthy of note, this physical mobile app tester[1] looks awesome.<p>[0]: <a href="http://www.python.org/psf/" rel="nofollow">http://www.python.org/psf/</a>
[1]: <a href="http://raspberry.io/projects/view/touchy-the-mobile-testing-robot/" rel="nofollow">http://raspberry.io/projects/view/touchy-the-mobile-testing-...</a>
There are a bunch of people making portable pi systems.<p>This one is pretty easy. It's also weirdly expensive considering the power of the machine you end up with. Ignoring the cost of the Pi - something like this costing about $50 would be great. I guess you could scavenge parts together. It's useful for some forums and very light web work. I don't know if that's evidence of the web failing or succeeding - that a 750 MHz machine isn't powerful enough for it.<p>Other people are being a little bit more adventurous. Here's one with a 3d printed case (<a href="http://blog.parts-people.com/2012/12/20/mobile-raspberry-pi-computer-build-your-own-portable-rpi-to-go/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.parts-people.com/2012/12/20/mobile-raspberry-pi-...</a>) It's not as sleek as, for example, an OQO umpc but it's still pretty nice for something built at home.<p>This setup looks clunky, but the aim is to be powered off anything. (<a href="http://www.instructables.com/id/Port-a-Raspberry-Pi-Project/#intro" rel="nofollow">http://www.instructables.com/id/Port-a-Raspberry-Pi-Project/...</a>)<p>Odd form factors abound. (<a href="http://www.skpang.co.uk/blog/archives/541" rel="nofollow">http://www.skpang.co.uk/blog/archives/541</a>) (fingerprints and dust would drive me bonkers with that clear acrylic!)<p>Here's a portable MAME system. This is interesting because of the limited keyboard. (<a href="http://blog.makezine.com/2013/01/22/portable-raspberry-pi-mame-device/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.makezine.com/2013/01/22/portable-raspberry-pi-ma...</a>)<p>Having read through a bunch of these I wish they'd start to use sleeving when they splice cables together. Little bits of heatshrink or hellerene tubing makes all the difference to reliability and neatness.<p>It seems the RPi is fulfilling its role as an educational tinkerer's gadget.
There's also this:<p><a href="http://thegreyhats.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/so-i-have-two-raspberry-pis-i-love-them.html" rel="nofollow">http://thegreyhats.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/so-i-have-two-rasp...</a><p>And probably a few others around the Internet as well. Perhaps some enterprising person could come up with a laptop into which you plug in a raspberry pi?
I did a similar write up in /r/raspberry_pi a while ago of what to buy and how to setup:<p><a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/1039qv/got_my_pi_lapdock_working_config_details_inside/" rel="nofollow">http://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/1039qv/got_my_...</a>
The Atrix, too bad. Like polshaw said, I agree that the Pi is the weakness in the set up. It's like taking a honda engine and putting it in a BMW. I thought the Atrix and the accessories were awesome, just wasn't a fan of the low specs and Android.<p>I do have hope though for Ubuntu's mobile offering...wait that runs on an Atrix too, lol.
What type of battery life would you get assuming no gui and not using HDMI? Now that there is an Arch immage for the pi with Emacspeak I've considered building something like this to take notes at meetings to avoid having to haul my work laptop around.
what is the maximum portable battery life that can be gained from this system, how long does the monitor run in low power mode? I'd like to know if you could beat the Samsung 3 Chromebook with this (6.5 hours) and get some work done in perhaps 10 hours?