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Smartphones are brilliant things and they're super powerful but if you drop them even just once they can be rendered completely unusable like this one. However if this is the case with something that you have don't throw it away because there's something pretty cool you can make out of it which is the focus of today's project and that's to make a fully functional and actually quite usable DIY laptop. Let's get to it. Despite being homemade this laptop is surprisingly useful and it allows you to do things like write up emails, run various apps in a multitasking environment and even watch media or play games. Battery life is great as well allowing for 17 hours of continuous use which makes it quite a workhorse. The software is a big part of what makes this experience work as well and there are quite a few cool options for this including vaguely mimicking a Windows 10 PC which I'll be exploring in plenty of detail later. So the phone I'm using for this build is a Samsung Galaxy S8 and as you can see it's been rather smashed up. Despite this the phone internally still works although sadly with the large dead zone in its touch digitizer layer making it frustrating to use as it doesn't register touch within this zone. As it's essentially useless because of this it's a perfect phone to use for this project especially as it's so bashed up externally that it's just not worth repairing. Now crucially for this project it, like many phones, can send a display signal out of its USB port which leads me on to the first required components for this build a bare LCD panel with an accompanying control board. Variants of these have been around for a while but this one features a new 2020 control board which utilizes not only USB type-c for power but also USB type-c for the video input. This means that the phone can just be connected directly to it with a USB type-c cable resulting in a crisp and clear display output that's very bright and with vibrant colors. It can even charge the phone at the same time thanks to everything being USB C based. Nice. Now there's a lot to set up in order to run the phone on the display as a desktop like environment but I'll be going into that later. For now though with these panels being so thin they are somewhat flexible and fragile. So the first thing we're going to do is build a frame to go around it. What I suggest for this is using some epoxy to glue it onto a sheet of two millimeter thick aluminium to make it nice and rigid. This feels a lot more substantial and it's a great way of giving it extra strength without adding much to its thickness. As you can see I've pre-drilled a few holes in the bottom corners of this aluminium sheet which are for screwing some stiff hinges in place. In my case these were salvaged from a scrap laptop. Now this still looks rather exposed particularly for the electronics so the next step is to get some aluminium angles and trim them down so that they fit over the sides to function as protective bezels. You'll need to cut the ends of these at 45 degree angles so that they fit together well after which it should look something like this. Now I quite like the look of the raw aluminium here as it's fairly industrial and cool but to give it a more polished look we're going to give it a coat of paint. So after masking off the screen we can first use some self-etching primer for the base coat. This needs to be applied as several thin layers for a strong finish and once left to thoroughly dry it gives an extremely tough matte surface that's ready for your choice of top coat. You can choose any colour or finish you like here but I'm going to keep things simple with some gloss white, again applying it as several thin layers and indeed once the masking tape has been peeled away it looks pretty sharp. So with the screen now sorted it's time to work on the laptop's base which is again going to be constructed out of aluminium. To make the sides of this base we'll first need a set of aluminium U-channels and as you can see these have been cut down with 45 degree angles again so that they fit together nicely. To mount these together what we'll need is another sheet of 2mm thick aluminium which will function as the bottom plate. The U-channels need to be clamped onto this and then some holes drilled through to them from the back. This will allow us to later use screws to fix them in place but before that we need to add an additional set of screws in the bottom plate with the idea being to allow a sheet of plastic to slide forwards and backwards on them. The reason for this is to disconnect the display's control board from both of its USB ports at the same time, functioning as an on-off mechanism which prevents the board from sipping power once it's disconnected. Now this plastic layer is actually just lightweight PVC so it can be cut through quite easily which is handy for making the slots. To stop it from lifting away however we can use a few nuts and washers to cap off the screws. Now all that's left to do is make the lever for which we need to get a strip of aluminium and hammer it into an L shape. Once screwed in place and with a matching hole in the side U-channel a thumb screw can be used to slide it back and forth. In this U-channel by the way you may also want to add a few holes for the display's control joystick and headphone port. The only other piece that needs some work is the back U-channel as it needs some mounting holes for the stiff hinges and also a slot for the display ribbon cable, a hole for a USB cable to pass through and a hole for a power socket which will later be used for charging. So with all of these pieces prepared it's time to neaten them up with some more paint. Again this is a few thin layers of etching primer followed by a few thin layers of topcoat. Once they're all dry they, like the screen, have a really nice finish and they can be bolted together as well as have the screen mounted in place. Now this is starting to look really cool and we've only got a few small things left to do before we can use it. The first of which is to add the display board onto the plastic slider. As this moves easily back and forth we can now add its USB cables the first of which is for the display signal. Here it's important that the cable is a fully fleshed out USB type C cable rather than just a charging cable as it needs full display transmit capabilities. Usually these are labeled as USB C 3.1 cables. Now while the display can be powered on by the phone itself using this single cable I recommend adding a power bank as it provides significantly longer battery life and is essential for using the desktop environment. So with both the display cable and power cable in a neutral position we can now completely cover them with epoxy. Once dry this holds them fast allowing the board to plug in and out of them when it slid forwards and backwards. Now I couldn't resist giving it a test out at this point and sure enough with the phone in place the new mechanical power switch works perfectly to turn it all on. So far so good. Now to keep the power bank topped up with power it's a good idea to redirect its charging socket to the back of the laptop. This can be done by simply cutting through a USB charging cable and connecting it to the little power socket I mentioned earlier. When we're done this power socket can have a USB jack adapter plugged into it which will directly charge the power bank from any old USB port or phone charger. Another important thing to do is of course add a keyboard and trackpad so that we can actually use the thing. What I recommend for this is a Bluetooth keyboard cover from a tablet as this will give you a full typing experience as well as cursor control thanks to its built-in trackpad. This magnetic strip on the back isn't necessary anymore though as we aren't going to connect it to a tablet so that can be trimmed off to neaten it up. And another thing you might want to do is remove the back panel in order to solder a pair of wires directly to the charging port. These wires can later be connected in parallel to the power socket that we just added so that it too will be charged when the laptop is plugged in. Now to attach this keyboard to the laptop we can take another sheet of aluminium and score around the keyboard to give us a cutting line. This shape is a little bit difficult to cut out so what I suggest is using a drill to make a pilot hole in the corners and then using a step bit to open it up to a matching radius. You can then use something like a jigsaw to cut between them which results in quite a nice frame. Once this has also been painted we can glue the keyboard to it using epoxy which means it's ready to be mounted in place. One thing you'll notice here is that I've already made some screw holes for this job. They were drilled earlier before the electronics were added by first making some pilot holes through the aluminium and then adding some little threaded inserts to give the screw something to thread into. Now as you can see it is somewhat beefy but this is after all a DIY laptop and it's completely unique looking. Now you might be wondering why I haven't left the phone inside the chassis. One reason for this is that aluminium kills the Wi-Fi signal so you wouldn't be able to use the internet if it was left inside the case. To get around this you could simply use some wood for the sides or around the keyboard for example but instead what I recommend is wrapping the phone first in food wrap and then using some Sugru to mold some custom clips to hold it against the back of the screen. Once this is set it holds the phone quite well and retains full Wi-Fi access as well as the ability to still use the rear camera which would be super handy if you need to scan a document or something. It also opens up the design to work with phones that have been looked after well as they can just be simply slid in place when you want to get serious with some emails etc and then removed when you want to go out. So how is it to use? Well sliding the power button in place immediately connects the phone and power bank up to the screen and as I'm using a Samsung phone it automatically triggers the phone to launch its desktop mode which is called Samsung DeX. This is actually really awesome software that allows you to operate the phone and apps as if it were a real laptop with multitasking capabilities and far more space to work in compared to the phone on its own. Typing things up is a breeze thanks to the keyboard and it's genuinely useful to have access to the many thousands of Android apps out there on a full form factor laptop. Even just watching media is a great experience thanks to the quality of the display although this does bring up something I missed out. Speakers. Originally I did want to include some small 1-inch drivers but it turned out that there wasn't really any room for them in the end. If you want to have a go at adding some to yours though it's worth noting that the control board does have some speaker ports especially for this job. As I'm happy with the phone's own speaker output though I can live without the extra speakers but I can always plug in some headphones or power up a Bluetooth speaker if I want to improve things. Either way it's a brilliant build and a great use of a smashed up phone. So overall this works brilliantly especially if you use a smartphone like a Samsung Galaxy S8 or newer thanks to its built-in desktop mode. But what if you want to use an older phone that doesn't have a desktop mode or even feature something like USB Type-C? Well I'll be exploring this topic in just a minute including how to mimic a Windows 10 machine but before that it's time for a quick ad from this video's sponsor Blinkist. Blinkist take key insights from over 3,000 nonfiction bestsellers and condense them down into 15-minute blinks which are condensed explainers that help you to understand the core ideas at hand. These can either be read through at your own leisure or even better listened to which is great for when you're perhaps commuting to work or cooking a meal. Now a new feature that they've got if you want to dive into topics more deeply is full-length audiobooks and premium members get up to 65% off retail pricing. So if you go to Blinkist.com slash DIY perks you can get completely free unlimited access for one week. Now you can cancel at any point so there's no pressure but if you do decide to continue you get 25% off a premium membership. So again that's Blinkist.com slash DIY perks. Right so what if your phone doesn't support a desktop mode nor USB type-c video output? Well getting around USB type-c is quite easy because you can use an MHL adapter if your phone supports it. This just plugs into the USB port and adds an HDMI output allowing you to mirror the phone onto an external display. This works with any monitor or display board that has an HDMI input including the one I used earlier as it does feature HDMI along with USB type-c. One downside to this method though is that you'll just have a standard Android interface and you'll need to install a little app to force rotate the screen. Once this is done it's actually somewhat decent and you can do quite a lot with it. To make it more laptop like though we can install one of the several apps that mimics a Windows 10 environment. This works as a new home screen from which you can launch your apps and it even features a pretty good copy of File Explorer. It doesn't feature multitasking or anything like that but it is still super neat to see and it does make it feel like you're using a Windows 10 machine. Nice. You can even have a bit of nostalgic fun and install a Windows 98 simulator which brings back a lot of memories. So I hope you've enjoyed seeing how to take a smartphone and convert it into an actually usable laptop. I think it's a pretty cool project. Now if you are a DIY Perks super fan you might be interested in the new DIY Perks discord server and all sorts of discussion going on there about DIY projects both from the channel and also things that people are doing in general. It's a really cool community so if you want to join it you can go to patreon.com slash DIY Perks and a huge thank you to everyone who does join and is already supporting me on there because this channel is my job and I'm so grateful that I can actually do it as my job and I've got each and every one of you even if you're just a viewer to thank for it. So other than that I'm Matt, you've been watching DIY Perks and I hope I see you next time. Goodbye for now.