Continuum - my experiment in replacing my laptop with a Lumia 950XL

[mathewhayward]

I take my laptop into work every day. I don't use it for much...just reading emails, browsing the internet, posting on forums, watching some YouTube videos and occasionally VNCing into some servers. After receiving my Display Dock for my 950XL yesterday, I decided to test out replacing my laptop with my phone by connecting it to a spare 24" IIyama monitor and a wired mouse and keyboard and I'm currently sat here typing out this post, listening to a podcast in GrooveMusic being streamed off Onedrive. Here's some of my thoughts:

1) Edge browser needs an ad blocker...STAT! Almost every page is cumbersome for the phone to render due to the ridiculous amount of ads. Windows Central for instance takes an age for it to actually become usable.
2) Using a mouse is, at times, frustratingly slow as there's no way of adjusting your pointer speed. Scrolling down pages it sluggish too.
3) Even though it's running in 'desktop' mode, it still acts like a phone would. You can't have too many apps open at once without them being 'paused' in the background. Even having a few tabs open in the browser causes them to reload when you switch between them.
4) It handles YouTube videos really well. I watched a few trailers running full screen in 1080p with very minimal stuttering here and there.
5) The Outlook client is quite nice and perfect for what I need it for.

So, will it replace my laptop? Unfortunately not. It's incredibly impressive for what it does but for me, it's not up to scratch for even the basic stuff I do day to day. Hopefully that may change in the future with some updates, more universal apps and a bit of polishing.

 

[A_Pieman]

The ads on this site kill my phone and my surface, it makes it very frustrating to use without an ad blocker...

 

[aximtreo]

Ads pay for this site and all others as well. The alternative is to have subscription service that limits or eliminates ads. Don't have any other ideas on how to limit the ads. It frustrates me as well. It will be interesting to see what happens. If I was paying good money to have my product advertised on WC, I certainly would not like to see ad blocking. Just saying.

 

[Arunabha Goswami]

I'd encourage you to submit your feedback to MS also (if you haven't already). Feedback generated from real life usage is quite important.

 

[tweedie]

I take my laptop into work every day. I don't use it for much...just reading emails, browsing the internet, posting on forums, watching some YouTube videos and occasionally VNCing into some servers. After receiving my Display Dock for my 950XL yesterday, I decided to test out replacing my laptop with my phone by connecting it to a spare 24" IIyama monitor and a wired mouse and keyboard and I'm currently sat here typing out this post, listening to a podcast in GrooveMusic being streamed off Onedrive. Here's some of my thoughts:

1) Edge browser needs an ad blocker...STAT! Almost every page is cumbersome for the phone to render due to the ridiculous amount of ads. Windows Central for instance takes an age for it to actually become usable.
2) Using a mouse is, at times, frustratingly slow as there's no way of adjusting your pointer speed. Scrolling down pages it sluggish too.
3) Even though it's running in 'desktop' mode, it still acts like a phone would. You can't have too many apps open at once without them being 'paused' in the background. Even having a few tabs open in the browser causes them to reload when you switch between them.
4) It handles YouTube videos really well. I watched a few trailers running full screen in 1080p with very minimal stuttering here and there.
5) The Outlook client is quite nice and perfect for what I need it for.

So, will it replace my laptop? Unfortunately not. It's incredibly impressive for what it does but for me, it's not up to scratch for even the basic stuff I do day to day. Hopefully that may change in the future with some updates, more universal apps and a bit of polishing.

ha, I just posted a question hoping someone in windows central site are able to answer. (here). its not just edge though - I am finding even switching page/tab to wp site there is a 1-3 second delay on my pc!

as for your second point, you can get a mouse with adjustable dpi to make it faster if thats any help (haven't got a continuim yet, so I can't try it out)

 

[A_Pieman]

Going off topic, but I agree with ads they are a necessary evil, and I have no trouble in supporting this excellent site by allowing them to be displayed but there must be a balance, the ads on this site seem to have a problem, after staying on the site for 30 mins or sometimes less cpu shoots up, battery usage shoots up and I have to kill the wc tabs to get it back.

 

[Joe920]

For the adventurous among us, until Edge allows extensions it looks like there's a semi-working hosts file implementation for WP. I had never heard of it, and no guarantees that it works / is safe, but the source files are available.

Maybe the recent WPinternals tool also allows something like that. Not to deprive WinCentral of revenue, but more to make Edge usable in Continuum mode. Edit: nope, 950 and 950XL not yet supported, bootloaders cannot be unlocked yet.

 

[snakebitten]

For the adventurous among us, until Edge allows extensions it looks like there's a semi-working hosts file implementation for WP. I had never heard of it, and no guarantees that it works / is safe, but the source files are available.

Maybe the recent WPinternals tool also allows something like that. Not to deprive WinCentral of revenue, but more to make Edge usable in Continuum mode. Edit: nope, 950 and 950XL not yet supported, bootloaders cannot be unlocked yet.

Avoiding the Ad-ethics portion of the debate, I can say that the HOST file remedy yields fantastic results on a Windows 10 desktop. I, however, do not have the expertise to do the same on a W10M device. I would if I could.

 

[harihar akhil]

May be its for some people which continuum can replace their laptop but for some it's not even worth it.As being a student carrying a notebook pc is far more comfortable than carrying mouse,keyboard and display dock along with us for any usage and also need to find a monitor to actually use it. These small things occupy more space than a 1-2 cm thick laptop in backpack.Sure its a cool concept but in real world it's a pain to work with it.For the price of a continuum phone one could get an laptop which can perform far better than this device but it may change in future as surface pro devices could replace your laptop continuum could replace every computing device.

 

[TechFreak1]

It would be nice when we start getting universal browser apps .

 

[JRDEMASKUS]

I recently employed a "spare" laptop to complete some work at home. I quickly found I wanted that work to be accessible while mobile.
Continuum could be the answer I am looking for.
But as a couch pet, it cannot keep up with my surfing. I have to make an effort to put my tablet down.
Hoping the updates come fast.

 

[Keith Wallace]

1) Edge browser needs an ad blocker...STAT! Almost every page is cumbersome for the phone to render due to the ridiculous amount of ads. Windows Central for instance takes an age for it to actually become usable.
2) Using a mouse is, at times, frustratingly slow as there's no way of adjusting your pointer speed. Scrolling down pages it sluggish too.

1. Windows Central is the reason I use Firefox. That, and FanGraphs. Both are so disgustingly bogged down with ads that I had to either choose to use AdBlocker or stop going to the site. Auto-playing video ads that loaded when you were halfway down the page on WC were the worst. I never used AdBlocker because I knew it was a big source of income for sites like this, but when the site goes to such great lengths to ruin the user experience, it became non-optional.
2. If you use a mouse with a variable DPI, does it function as it would on a proper PC? I have a Logitech G502 that has hardware buttons for increasing and decreasing the DPI, rather than using a piece of installed software. I wonder how it would behave on Continuum. I guess when I get my new G700s at Christmas and a Display Dock, I'll try finding out.

 

[N_LaRUE]

I like hearing about these real world cases with Continuum. It gives a good indication where things are and where they need to get to. Hopefully the guys from MS (there's a couple on this forum) are paying attention.

As for the ads thing. I'm not against ads. I'm against the type of ads that seem to slow my browsing to a crawl. It totally ruins my experience and I installed an ad blocker because of it. Especially for this site and others I frequent.

It bothers me that I have to do that and I really don't want to but at this point in time ads are really screwing up people's experience and unfortunately they're going to take steps to avoid that.

 

[Krystianpants]

I find the mouse is fine for me. But I use a wireless mouse/keyboard combo that connect to a separate bluetooth adapter which I plug into the dock.

A lot of apps I have been trying are pretty cool. There's a list for apps/games that support it that we are building as you surely have seen. And any additions are welcome.

 

[mkenyon2]

Ads pay for this site and all others as well. The alternative is to have subscription service that limits or eliminates ads. Don't have any other ideas on how to limit the ads. It frustrates me as well. It will be interesting to see what happens. If I was paying good money to have my product advertised on WC, I certainly would not like to see ad blocking. Just saying.

I'm okay with some ads. But many of the ads here blow up. I've frequently had ads on this site go into a script crash, and depending on which browser you use, it could bring the whole browser down/to a crawl. (Firefox, I'm looking at you :/ )

On most sites, I've never cared enough about ad blockers. But this site? Too many. And a lot of click-bait junk too. They would probable be better off getting ads that I'd actually want to click through to.

 

[aximtreo]

I'm okay with some ads. But many of the ads here blow up. I've frequently had ads on this site go into a script crash, and depending on which browser you use, it could bring the whole browser down/to a crawl. (Firefox, I'm looking at you :/ )

On most sites, I've never cared enough about ad blockers. But this site? Too many. And a lot of click-bait junk too. They would probable be better off getting ads that I'd actually want to click through to.

there is a posting here from the person writing the new WC app. Maybe you can find this posting and give him some input. Hopefully he can be of help.

 

[Jakoh]

Its good to know, that its still a damn phone.
I liked the old days when:
1. if you didnt close your app, it kept running, even in the background and
2. if you didnt open an app, it just didnt spawn itself.
Thanks Apple and Android for ruining mobile to a piece of crap it is now.

 

[Migi2015]

This is a good reason why MS needs to put out a Surface Phone with x86 processor. The ARM processor just can't handle being a full PC.

 

[Krystianpants]

This is a good reason why MS needs to put out a Surface Phone with x86 processor. The ARM processor just can't handle being a full PC.

Not true it just requires different optimization. Risc processors can be quite powerful. And one rumor is redstone may bring w32 apps to continuum. But if it will require different hardware is another story. We also don't know if the dock itself has some sort of chip in it to assist. Right now both phone and continuum work at same time. Maybe for certain apps phone may not be able to be used separately while running them. W32 is an api and nothing more. Powerful yes, but also developed by ms. They know the ins and outs.

 

[sketchy9]

I find the mouse is fine for me. But I use a wireless mouse/keyboard combo that connect to a separate bluetooth adapter which I plug into the dock.

A lot of apps I have been trying are pretty cool. There's a list for apps/games that support it that we are building as you surely have seen. And any additions are welcome.

Why do you use a separate Bluetooth adapter? These devices can use the built-in Bluetooth to connect to a mouse & keyboard. That's how I use it (and I also have had no mouse issues).