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Samsung is still trying to make DeX happen
There was a common thread running through Samsung's two big launches this week. Both the Galaxy Note 9 and the Tab S4 feature DeX mode, a desktop-friendly interface for Android devices that the company has been working on since 2017's Galaxy S8. In fact, since the introduction of the DeX dock with the Galaxy S8 last year, Samsung has continued to expand the DeX portfolio, adding new hardware alongside minor compatibility and software updates. The company is clearly invested in making this A Thing, even when numerous tech companies in the past have failed to succeed at smartphone-powered desktops. Why?
Samsung DeX review: The impressive, unnecessary, phone-powered PC
My family's first computer was a boxy, squat Tatung with an AMD K2, a handful of RAM and a 4GB hard drive. It was ugly and slow, even by 1998 standards, but it (somehow) got the job done. The decade and change that followed brought staggering leaps in performance and huge reductions in size. I'm writing this on a Galaxy S8 Plus -- a metal-and-glass slab I just pulled out of my pocket -- connected to a monitor, keyboard and mouse with Samsung's new DeX dock. The kicker: It's far better than I dared expect. Ten-year-old me would be losing it if he saw this. In fact, the me from three or four years ago would've done the same. After all, this isn't a new idea. Companies have tried -- and mostly failed -- to make smartphones work like PCs for years now. Just look at Motorola's Atrix or Microsoft's Continuum or any of the startups languishing on Kickstarter. And yet, here we are — the Galaxy S8 doubles as a surprisingly respectable PC. The real question now isn't about how feasible the idea is, it's whether anyone should bother. Unfortunately, as impressive as DeX can be, the answer for most people is a big ol' "no."
The Galaxy S8 can double as a pretend desktop
The road to the perfect phone-desktop hybrid is littered with the carcasses of ambitious failures -- just look at Microsoft's Lumia 950 and Motorola's Atrix. Still, that isn't stopping Samsung from giving it a go with a new dock for the Galaxy S8 called Dex. Since the S8 packs a top-of-the-line Snapdragon 835 chip that was designed with VR in mind, the idea here is that the phone can do double duty as a desktop machine. I tried out the accessory with an S8 plugged in and was particularly impressed with the way Samsung has customized Android for bigger screens.
