Neptune’s watch-powered phone is forward-thinking, but preposterous - bunchtheepost

You've probably heard around this imagination of computer science before: Someday, altogether of our phones, tablets and computers will personify replaced by a single "hub" device, which we can use to beam information to a constellation of dim screens.

We've seen a few stabs at this concept already, but a new elbow grease called the Neptune Duo is the first to involve a smartwatch. And it sounds totally crazy.

Here's how it's supposed to work: The cuff-like watch houses all the requirement computing power (including a quadruplet-core chip, 64GB of storage and 3G/4G connectivity), while the phone in your air hole is nothing but a dumb concluding. Tap them against each other, and the phone (or "Pocket Screen") becomes a full Android handset, powered solely by the watch.

Why this matters: The Duo brings to mind yore efforts like the Motorola Atrix phone, which could dock into a laptop computer shell to provide a full desktop browser, and the Asus Padfones that dock into larger tablet displays. Tech vendors go forward to think this is a expectant approximation, yet none of them have gotten over inherent bailiwick hurdles, nor have they provided a solid statement for why this is a amend way to make things. Neptune's Twain is perhaps the most futuristic take, merely it also seems same the hardest to displume inactive.

Crowdfunding caveats

Now's a blast to signalise that Neptune hasn't in reality shown a running product. It has a snazzy tormentor video, but the ok print notes that all the on-screen images are simulated, and that the slick down intersection designs happening Neptune's website are subject to alter.

And honestly, information technology'll live shocking if the Neptune Duo doesn't come out looking a lot different from its cartesian product renderings. Neptune's promised tech spectacles go farther beyond anything we've seen in a smartwatch so far—including chunkier ones care the Samsung Gear S—which agency the company has either pulled turned a technological miracle or isn't being forthcoming about the real-world design.

neptuneduo3 — The Neptune Duo is either an incredible feat of engineering or an utter fantasy.

Why overpromise? Mayhap it's because Neptune is using a crowdfunded model for the Duo, requiring not-refundable pre-orders if you want to make unnecessary whatever money off the $798 sticker price. You can reserve a Duo for free and offset anytime, just if you want the maximum $300 discount, you'll have to spit up $498 right now. It's easier to bank that money with impressive aspirational renderings than clunky prototypes.

Even if the Neptune Duette is delivered arsenic promised in its estimated late 2022 timeframe, there's a bigger job: The effective benefits of consolidating to a single hub device are tokenish at best. Neptune says you preceptor't have to worry about losing your data if you misplace the Pocket Screen, only that concern has been for the most part eliminated by mottle computer storage and made-up-in remote mesh/pass over tools. And while information technology may be slightly cheaper to have a smart hub device surrounded by dumb screens, Neptune's $800 selling price for the ascertain and Pocket Screen isn't a huge nest egg over a decorous phone and watch.

Meanwhile, the smartwatch hub brings its own compromises. For the phone to be of any use, the picke of necessity to be in reach, which could be a hassle in all kinds of situations. And while Neptune says you could get "a few days of normal usage" on a charge, that but happens if you periodically top-up the watch's 1,000 mAh battery by plugging IT into the Bag Screen, which has its own 2,800 mAh pack. This kind of device colony creates at least as many problems as IT solves.

Peradventure an idea like the Neptune Duo volition add up some day, if we can't keep ascending with Moore's Police force anymore, battery life Chicago being a major concern, and multitude barricade inventing powerful new apps to justify faster processors and more memory. For now, the Duo seems like a bounce into a future that doesn't yet exist, without even a describe of evidence that it would really work.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/431913/neptunes-watch-powered-phone-is-forward-thinking-but-preposterous.html

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