Recently, I got a used Atrix 4g lapdock for 30 bucks off of craigslist. It was a really good deal for a device that packs a USB hub, a 10+ inch LCD a keyboard, a trackpad and also a 10000mAh battery. Supply it with a processor and it can be a full fledged laptop computer. My atrix 2 worked fine with the lapdock. I used it a lot for watching youtube videos and for PDFs.

The good thing about the lapdock is that it has everything that is needed to setup a raspberry pi. I had one of the earliest revisions of the raspberry pi which up until now I used as my media file server. And the only was i would interact with it was over SSH since i really hated the mess of wires that would come with setting up the monitor and keyboard for the Pi. The lapdock was a very elegant solution to this problem. it was just a matter of splicing some wires together and some soldering before i would get my very own Rpi Laptop. Here’s the finished product.

If you are looking to make one below are some resources.

Here’s the instructional video from Adafruit that i referred to make this project. do check it out.

Here’s another blogpost which i think managed to do away with the soldering altogether but you might end up spending some extra money. but is more rugged and sturdy than the home-made cable solution. http://rpidock.blogspot.com/2012/05/raspberry-pi-and-motorola-lapdock.html

Here are the cables and stuff that you will need for this project.

1.      Micro USB B Male Female M/F Extension Charging Cable

2.     HDMI 1.4 D type Micro HDMI Male to Micro HDMI Female M/F

3.     HDMI Male to Micro HDMI Female Adapter/Converter

4.     Micro USB cable

You will also need Soldering iron and some heat shrink tubing for the project. So keep that handy.

Do let me know how it goes.

Questions?? Fell free to post them in the comments below!