Disclosure: Some links on this page are monetized by the Skimlinks, Amazon, Rakuten Advertising, and eBay, affiliate programs, and Liliputing may earn a commission if you make a purchase after clicking on those links. All prices are subject to change, and this article only reflects the prices available at time of publication.

Motorola may not be making the Lapdock anymore, but for a little over a year, the company offered Lapdock accessories for a handful of smartphones, letting you use your phone like a laptop. The Lapdock looks like a laptop, but it has no processor, memory or storage. Just connect your supported Atrix, Bionic, or other phone to a port in the back, and it acts as the brains of the laptop.

While Motorola didn’t sell enough Lapdocks to call the idea a success, it turns out you can do some nifty things with a Lapdock and a non-Motorola device. We’ve seen them used to turn the Raspberry Pi and MK802 mini-computers into inexpensive laptops.

You can also connect other mini-computers, and Youtube user DAVE01568 has posted a video of a Minix Neo G4 hooked up to a Lapdock. What’s interesting about his DIY laptop is that it also involves a backup battery, which allows you to close the lid of the Lapdock and re-open it without rebooting the computer.

The setup involves splicing a few wires and hooking up a few adapters. But in a nutshell, it involves connecting the Neo G4 to an external battery which it can use for power, connecting that battery to the Lapdock so it can recharge while the device is on and maintain a charge when the Lapdock is off, and hooking up the Neo G4 to use the keyboard, touchpad, and display of the Lapdock.

You don’t end up with the most portable device — there are cables all over the place. But you do end up with a cheap way to use the Minix Neo G4 without plugging it into a wall jack or a full-sized TV.

The Neo G4 sells for about $60 to $70 at DealExtreme, and features a Rockchip RK3066 dual core processor, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage, and a stronger WiFi antenna than those found in most of the cheap Android TV sticks I’ve tested.

Now that the Motorola Lapdock has been discontinued, you can also find one of those pretty cheap. They sell for under $100 on Amazon, and as little as $50 on eBay.

Support Liliputing

Liliputing's primary sources of revenue are advertising and affiliate links (if you click the "Shop" button at the top of the page and buy something on Amazon, for example, we'll get a small commission).

But there are several ways you can support the site directly even if you're using an ad blocker* and hate online shopping.

Contribute to our Patreon campaign

or...

Contribute via PayPal

* If you are using an ad blocker like uBlock Origin and seeing a pop-up message at the bottom of the screen, we have a guide that may help you disable it.

Subscribe to Liliputing via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 9,547 other subscribers

7 replies on “Building a cheap Android laptop with an Android TV stick + Motorola Lapdock”

  1. I’m curious if this hack could work on a tablet, like my Galaxy Tab 2 7.0. I think I could work out the same hack with a certain tablet like that. Heck, I might try it with a motorola xoom or some other tablet I can pick up cheap.

  2. I’ve got one of my lapdocks setup to use my GK802, and another my MK808B. Both have backup batteries. I’ve also got ubuntu on the GK802 so it’s pretty useful. Now if only I had dual boot…

    1. What are the power requirements for this? I was looking into getting one of those credit card sized batteries to streamline this setup into a usable laptop… with a bit of velcro

  3. I also have done this with a IP872 and have had a lot of fun. I just wonder where these Android TV Sticks will go. Now I see them with a camera and another with quad core and bluetooth.

  4. I am tinkering with the dock plus an MK809 pretty awesome so far I just need to figure out how to streamline it a little more and put linux on it.

  5. I’ve also done this with my MK802 II, if you just use enough adapters to get the microUSB male port on the lapdock to connect to the full size USB host port on the stick you get both data and power in one cable. Then you just have to hook up HDMI and you’re done in 2 cables.

    These days I don’t use that setup any more since I have no need for an android laptop but I do still use the lapdock as a second monitor for my laptop when I’m on the move. I guess I might also use it with my phone if my current ROM had MHL support.

  6. It’s a fun project.
    Mine was an MK802+ that ESD-ed my Bionic Lapdock and itself into permanent retirement after much rewarding fiddling and tinkering.
    Don’t be afraid to try this with a different stick however, because the MK802 and MK802+ are known for their lack of ESD protection circuitry, which to my knowledge all the others posses.

    I thought about buying another Lapdock and a better Android stick, but been there, done that at this point for me.

    It’s no reflection on the setup at all, it is quite nice from a hacker standpoint.
    My next “stick” android computer will likely be an Ouya console just because it seems to have the best bang for the buck in this segment, even if it isn’t intended for it specifically.

Comments are closed.