Microsoft's Windows 10 Mobile may not be doing
extremely well, but it has a small community of devout fans. The company
managed to attract a lot of them with the productivity capabilities of its
Lumia devices the Continuum feature, for example, was an awesome jump forward
for the mobile world when it was introduced in 2015.
Quick reminder — Continuum is the feature, which
lets you plug a monitor, keyboard, and mouse to your phone and use it as you
would use a desktop PC, albeit limited to Windows native apps. This may sound
familiar to Samsung's DeX and Huawei's latest EMUI Desktop mode for the Mate
10.
To use your phone in desktop mode, you need the
appropriate dock — the Microsoft Display Dock for the Lumias, the Samsung DeX
station for the Galaxy S8 or Note 8, or a simple USB-C to HDMI adaptor for the
Mate 10. But you do also need a monitor, keyboard, and mouse, which can be a
pain to lug around, right?
Miraxess came up with the cool idea to
make a laptop that is dedicated to being a dock for your phone, nothing more.
The Mirabook is pretty much a shell that offers a battery, keyboard, mousepad,
13.3" 1920 x 1080 screen, two USB Type-C ports and two USB 3.0 ones, an
HDMI port, an audio jack, and an SD card reader. It houses an extendable dock,
which you need to plug your phone into. The company calls this concept a
"lapdock".
The Mirabook costs US$ 249 and is compatible with
the Lumia 950 and 950 XL, Acer Liquid Jade, HP Elite X3, Alcatel Idol pro 4,
Samsung Galaxy S8, S8+, and Note 8, as well as the Huawei Mate 10. It's
currently only available for pre-order and will, unfortunately, be ready to
ship way in May of 2018.
