This application claims the priority benefit of China application serial no. 201110260246.9, filed on Sep. 5, 2011. The entirety of the above-mentioned patent application is hereby incorporated by reference herein and made a part of this specification.
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an expansion device, and, in particular, relates to an expansion device applicable to a mobile device.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years, mobile devices such as cell phones, handheld game consoles, tablet devices or notebooks have become popular electronic devices due to research, development, and promotion by technology industries in the United States, Europe, Japan and Korea. With the progress of technologies, mobile devices have also become parts in people's life. However, it is well-known that no matter how great the touch-control functions of a mobile device such as a tablet device are, or how sensitive the virtual buttons (keyboard) are, some people are still more accustomed to inputting texts or giving instructions for operating a tablet device via physical keyboards. In particular, when a button of the physical keyboard is pressed, the springiness of the button relieves the pressure of fingers, which is more comfortable than using fingers to touch the hard glass-surface of the tablet devices.
Accordingly, a lot of removable keyboards have appeared in the market. The removable keyboards may optionally be assembled with tablet devices, such that users can easily type on the physical keyboards when they need to input texts or give instructions of operating. On the other hand, when the users don't need keyboards, the removable keyboards can be removed from the tablet devices to make the tablet devices become light, thin and easy to be carried again.
However, current removable keyboards simply provide an advantage that they can be easily assembled with the mobile device, while providing less additional capabilities or functionalities. Compared with functionalities such as document processing and enjoyment of visual effects provided by tablet devices, removable keyboards cannot effectively assist in providing miscellaneous functions of mobile devices, such that the demands of people for e.g. enjoyment of visual effects cannot be satisfied. In addition, removable keyboards cannot provide functionalities of screen protection to mobile devices as well.
In view of problems in the prior art, an objective of the present invention is to provide an expansion device suitable for expanding capabilities of a mobile device, to enable nearly full use of the mobile device with more capabilities.
According to an objective of the present invention, the invention provides an expansion device suitable for expanding capabilities of a mobile device. The expansion device includes an input/output body, a connection part, a turning structure and at least one slot. The input/output body has a first input/output module and a second input/output module disposed respectively on two opposite surfaces of the input/output body. The connection part is disposed on one side of the input/output body. The turning structure is disposed to connect the input/output body and the connection part, wherein the connection part and the input/output body are turnable on the turning structure. The at least one slot is disposed on the connection part and configured to hold at least one mobile device.
When the expansion device provided by the invention is assembled with a mobile device, the expansion device can provide a working mode (e.g., performing input via using a keyboard or a touch panel) and an entertainment mode (e.g., enjoying music while watching the mobile device, or using a projector to project images). On the other hand, when the mobile device is not in use, the screen of the mobile device can be protected by superposing the mobile device over the input/output body, and hence the mobile device can be easily carried.
In order to make the aforementioned and other features and advantages of the invention comprehensible, several exemplary embodiments accompanied with figures are described in detail below.
The accompanying drawings are included to provide a further understanding of the invention, and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification. The drawings illustrate embodiments of the invention and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention.
Some embodiments of the present application will now be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which some, but not all embodiments of the application are shown. Indeed, various embodiments of the application may be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will satisfy applicable legal requirements. Like reference numerals refer to like elements throughout.
In this embodiment, the input/output body 11 has a first input/output module (e.g., a keyboard 111) and a second input/output module (e.g., a speaker device 112). The keyboard 111 and the speaker device 112 are respectively disposed on two opposite surfaces of the input/output body 11. It should be noted that the keyboard 111 and the speaker device 112 are used as examples in the embodiment instead of being used to limit the scope of the present invention. Other devices such as a touch panel or a projector can also be the first input/output module or the second input/output module, which is not limited thereto. In this embodiment, the number of the slot 14 is one.
The turning structure 13 is disposed to connect the input/output body 11 and the connection part 12, wherein the connection part 12 and the input/output body 11 are turnable on the turning structure 13. Compared with
The wired connection between the mobile device 20 and the expansion device 10 may be implemented by disposing at least one port in the mobile device 20, in which the at least one port may be connected with at least one terminal of the slot 14. The connection part 12 may be further connected with the input/output body 11 by wire or wirelessly (e.g., via a wireless transmission module).
The wireless connection between the mobile device 20 and the expansion device 10 may be implemented by using a built-in wireless transmission module of the mobile device 20 and a corresponding wireless transmission module of the input/output body 11 (or the connection part 12) of the expansion device 10 to achieve the purpose of wireless connection. Therefore, it is needless to install any terminal on the expansion device 10. The aforementioned wireless transmission modules may be modules adopting transmission standards such as Bluetooth or infrared, which is not limited thereto.
As described above, the input/output body 11 and the connection part 12 may be electrically connected by wire or wirelessly, and the variations or combinations of the connections are not limited by the embodiment of the invention. In the first embodiment, where the connected expansion device 10 and mobile device is operating in the working mode, the keyboard 111 of the input/output body 11 is facing upwards, so that the user may easily type on the keyboard 111 with fingers. However, in other embodiments, the surface disposed with the keyboard 111 may be disposed with a touch panel to achieve the same input functions.
Since the expansion device 10 has the turning structure 13 in the first embodiment, the user may easily adjust the angle between the mobile device 20 and the expansion device 10, such that the user may adjust the desired angle of view while watching the mobile device 20. Referring to
Besides, for most of the office workers, keyboards are indispensable parts of work. Therefore, when the office workers see the keyboards, they might subconsciously associate the keyboards with their work, which virtually results in mental pressure. With the downward design of the keyboard in the embodiments of the invention, the user may enjoy great sound effects brought by the speaker device 112 of the expansion device 10, while avoiding mental pressure by not seeing the keyboard 111. On the other hand, in the entertainment mode, the mobile device 20 can be erected by being held by the slot 14, such that the user does not need to hold the mobile device 20 while watching or operating the mobile device 20. Moreover, the screen of the mobile device 20 may be projected by a projector disposed in the expansion device 10, or the expansion device 10 may be further disposed with batteries to provide powers for performing entertainments and enhancing performances.
As shown in
As shown in
As shown in
Referring to both
The connection part 12 may be configured to be held by the recess 1121. In
In this embodiment, the turning structure 13 can be rotated, for example, by at least 270 degrees. However, the angle by which the mobile device 20 can be turned can be correspondingly adjusted according to various structures of the connection part 12 and the recess 1121. In other embodiments, the angle by which the mobile device 20 can be turned can be further enlarged to achieve a larger angle according to the demands of users.
Furthermore, the mobile device 20 in
In other embodiments, the expansion device proposed in the present invention can be further configured to be a double-slot design.
As shown in
In summary, the embodiments of the present invention provide an expansion device. When a mobile device is connected with the expansion device, they may be able to provide the working mode (in which the keyboard may be used) and the entertainment mode (which may enable the user enjoy the music while watching the mobile device). Moreover, when the mobile device is temporarily not in use, the screen can be protected by superposing the mobile device over the input/output body, which further provides an advantage that the mobile device can be easily carried.
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made to the structure of the invention without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention. In view of the foregoing, it is intended that the invention cover modifications and variations of this invention provided they fall within the scope of the following claims and their equivalents.
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