Motorola came out with the Lapdock as an accessory to some of their smartphones. Basically it was a netbook type form containing an LCD screen, a keyboard, touchpad, a battery, some speakers, and a couple USB ports. It allowed you to hook your smartphone up to these peripherals and utilize them all together like a half assed netbook. Nobody really bought it apparently, because they used to go for several hundred dollars, and I bought both of mine for about ~$50.
The cool thing about them is they have a lot of aftermarket purposes. It connects through a microUSB2.0 and microHDMI, so you can hook lots of different things up to it. I used mine with my Raspberry Pi, and Odroid U3. It's really nice have a dedicated screen, touchpad, keyboard and speakers for each board. Combined with a WiFi dongle, they each made a nice netbook for casual browsing or note taking in class. Admittedly, the Pi is a bit slow, especially when not overclocked. The Odroid U3 handles quite well though!
The Odroid U3 couldn't be backpowered through the USB like the Raspberry Pi can, so I I had to make a cable myself by splicing the tip of the power cable for the U3 onto a USB cable. I was running a Debian Wheezy image called Ezywheezy made by memeka at the Odroid forums.
To hook them up I needed:
- 6" female to male microHDMI cable
- 6" female to male USB cable
- USB to microUSB adapter (male to female)
- HDMI to microHDMI adapter (for raspberry pi only)
- DIY USB to barrel power adapter (for Odroid U3)
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