Librem 5 Docked to a Nexdock 360 running Tootle, Lollypop, and Feeds.
Image: PurismPurism, the makers of the Linux Librem 5 smartphone and Librem 14 laptop, have released the Lapdock Kit -- a docking station-based laptop with a touchscreen, keyboard, trackpad, lots of ports, but no processor, memory, or storage.
There was a time, in the early 2010s, when some experts believed converged devices combining smartphones and laptops would be the future of computing.
One of its main proponents, Mark Shuttleworth, CEO of Canonical, tried to bring this vision to reality with the Ubuntu Edge concept smartphone and Ubuntu Touch, a smartphone version of Ubuntu desktop for running desktop and smartphone apps on one platform.
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Today, the convergence vision lives on in Purism's Librem 5 smartphone, which in its original 2013 embodiment ran on Ubuntu Touch.
The Librem 5 and Librem 14 laptop run on PureOS 10. The Libra 5's price tag of$1,299 is steep given the specs, but it could be seen as better value when its combined with the new$399 Lapdock Kit.
The Lapdock Kit's main feature is the NexDock 360, which is basically a laptop without a CPU, RAM or storage. It sports a 13.3-inch 1920