Korean tech giant patents laptop-smartphone dock with dual OSes

13:23 - 26 May 2015

Partial images of Samsung's patent

The laptop dock itself would be pretty much just that: all the processing and thinking would be done by the phone, which would run Android until it docks, where Windows would burst onto the bigger screen.

Is a combination laptop-tablet enough? Want even more gadget overlap? Then ASUS' still incoming Windows laptop/Android phone hybrid is what you should look out for.

That's a (half) joke, because Samsung's patented something very similar and along those very lines. In the case of the Korean manufacturer, a docking area between the keyboard and the display would be where your phablet would be placed.

The laptop dock itself would be pretty much just that: all the processing and thinking would be done by the phone, which would run Android until it docks, where Windows would burst onto the bigger screen. Also, your phone, while charging, could double up as the touchpad while in laptop mode.

Would such a multitalented (possibly confusing) device ever go mainstream?

The ASUS hybrid mentioned earlier still hasn't gone on sale -- both the phone and laptop can function independently, it's worth noting -- and Samsung's own Windows-Android hybrid, the ATIV Q, didn't exactly set the world on fire.

However, as Windows 10 continues to bring Microsoft's mobile and PC vision into a single platform, there might not be a better time for this multi-everything power house.