I don’t currently own a laptop. Instead, I use the hollowed-out shell of one—and in some ways, it’s better than the real thing. You might not need a fully functioning laptop, either.

What Is a Lapdock?

Picture a laptop. Now, take out all the internal specs. Remove the CPU. Take out the RAM. Get rid of the hard drive. What you’re left with is essentially a lapdock, an empty shell that looks and feels like a laptop but is useless on its own. The frame requires a connection to another device that can supply the brains.

Think of a lapdock as a portable monitor with a keyboard attached. If you’re unfamiliar, here are some of the best portable monitors. They’re incredibly useful to have around.

A lapdock lets you do anything you might do by connecting a device to an external screen, except you also have access to a keyboard and touchpad. Some lapdocks have touchscreens and are convertible, so they fold into a tablet like 2-in-1 laptops.

A lapdock is one of the ways to make use of a phone’s desktop mode like Samsung DeX. In conjunction with DeX, a lapdock feels like you’re using a conventional laptop. The same capability is possible with Motorola’s Smart Connect feature, and Google is working on banking a similar desktop mode directly into Android.

A Wired Connection Is the Best

There are multiple ways to connect a phone to a lapdock. The standard way is to use either a USB-C or HDMI cable. You plug one end into your phone and the other into the indicated corner of your lapdock.

This approach supplies the most stable connection. There is zero lag, and you can perform the same kind of high-performance tasks you might do directly on the phone itself. A wired lapdock is a good way to play mobile games on a larger screen or play the same games you might otherwise play on a laptop via a cloud gaming service like NVIDIA GeForce NOW. You can also watch videos on a display that’s large enough to not have to hold it directly in front of your face.

Unfortunately, a wired connection has its drawbacks. Since your phone has to remain physically tethered to the lapdock, it essentially feels like you’re always attempting to use a laptop that’s in the process of transferring files to a phone. It’s unwieldy to move both devices from one spot to another, and I feel paranoid about severing the connection accidentally. This is why there’s the option to pay a little extra for a wireless lapdock instead.

Wireless Is Now Good Enough

Wireless lapdocks connect to your phone using a combination of Miracast and Bluetooth. I’m writing these words using a UPerfect UMobile X 13 Pro lapdock. That model is no longer available, but the newer UPERFECT UDock X 13.3 is essentially the same thing.

When I first turn on the device, I must connect to the keyboard and touchscreen using Bluetooth (like other Bluetooth devices, the process is only manual the first time, and the lapdock auto-connects from then on). Then I activate DeX on my phone and select the lapdock from the list of available devices.

A wireless connection comes with drawbacks. It’s less stable than a wired one, so you sometimes get visual artifacts. The refresh rate is also limited to 30Hz instead of the 60Hz (or, on some models, 120Hz) you can expect when using a cable. Sometimes the connection drops and you have to reconnect.

Except wireless technologies continue to substantially improve. When I first tried out a wireless desktop on a lapdock using a Moto Edge+ 2023, I found the experience barely usable and stuck to a cable instead. I found the connection better on a Galaxy Z Fold 5, though it was just unreliable enough that I preferred to plug in. With the Galaxy Z Fold 6, the experience has reached a point where I now default to a wireless connection.

The connection is now smooth to the point that I don’t detect the lower refresh rate most of the time. I can also work on my lapdock for hours at a time without experiencing any drops. Seriously, I can go my entire workday without the connection failing on me.

It’s Hard for Me to Justify Buying a Laptop

Having to keep my phone tethered to the lapdock was one of my biggest gripes with the product. This was just awkward enough to make my lapdock awkward to pull out in public, since it took up more space on a table, was too unweildy to use on my lap, and left me feeling self-conscious about being the guy with a phone always plugged into his laptop. A wireless connection means using a lapdock looks effectively the same as just using a laptop.

With wireless, a lapdock is now close enough to using a laptop that it’s hard for me to justify buying a new laptop. Don’t get me wrong—I absolutely want one. I particularly like the thought of owning a Framework 13.

But do I need one? No. I’m doing my work just fine right now, with all the storage space, RAM, and processing power that I need. That’s not to say that everything is hunky-dory. The touchpad is almost unusable, and I prefer to use either a Bluetooth mouse or the touchscreen. Samsung DeX also has its own set of quirks.

The experience could be better, but I’ve also felt that way about every other device I’ve ever owned. Frankly, much of the time, I’m still a bit blown away that a wireless lapdock works at all. It still feels quite a bit like magic. In some ways, buying a laptop doesn’t just feel like a waste of money; it feels like stepping back in time.

With a lapdock, it’s better to save my PC money for a new phone instead. That’s part of the reason I was first drawn to the idea of owning a lapdock—the possibility of saving money by now only having to upgrade a single device, a phone that I would already have anyway. And so far, owning one has done precisely that.