As the power increases beyond Atom processors, I think this will be very compelling.
I'd love to be able to unplug a dongle from my desktop monitor at home, and plug it into a tablet sized device to use on the train, then plug it into my monitor when I get to work, or a hotel rooms tv screen, or the presentation screen in our office conference room, etc. etc.
Yes, phone would be ideal, but I think we're seeing that a phone OS is usually quite stripped down vs a desktop.
Though I haven't tried the Ubuntu Touch stuff, so maybe that is the right solution.
Pluging an HDMI or USB dongle into a display is pretty simple, I suspect pairing with your phone would be more difficult, or would require cables and such.
I'm not clear how these work: is the idea that each device (desktop, tablet, etc) has a CPU and this is an additional CPU, so you're basically carting around your own VM and the host equipment can let you play in it's garden or not, complete with network access?
Why is it that I don't see many corporate IT departments adopting this?
It's a full, separate system on a USB stick. This means it will need to patched and maintained, and that apps and dats will still need the usual back-and-forth sync of multiple systems.
I'd love to be able to unplug a dongle from my desktop monitor at home, and plug it into a tablet sized device to use on the train, then plug it into my monitor when I get to work, or a hotel rooms tv screen, or the presentation screen in our office conference room, etc. etc.