Samsung DeX

My Experience of Using a Phone as My Everyday Computer

Samsung DeX is the most widely used desktop running on smartphones, yet it still feels like a hidden feature

My original Samsung DeX set-up: Galaxy Z-Fold 3 smartphone, M5 monitor, Jabra speaker phone, Keychron keyboard and Logi Bluetooth mouse.

I’ve been using a phone as my main desktop computer for almost three years. In that time, I have occasionally felt the need to use a ‘real' computer, but that feeling has come surprisingly rarely.

Samsung DeX (meaning: Desktop eXperience) enables a user to connect a Samsung smartphone or tablet to a monitor, TV or laptop. It doesn’t simply give you screen mirroring — where your pokey phone screen is blown up on a monitor, but it’s still your phone screen. Instead, when you start DeX, you get a dedicated graphical desktop that looks familiar to anyone who’s used a personal computer in the last few decades. Under the bonnet, it’s still Android running on your phone or tablet, but when you’re tapping away at a keyboard, words appear on the monitor, and you select them with the mouse, it feels like any decent office desktop. At the end of the day, I put my computer (my phone) in my pocket and walk away. I don’t have to remember to save things to cloud storage; downloads, half-completed forms, email drafts, indeed, everything on my office computer is all in my pocket.

A Short History of DeX

Samsung first offered DeX in 2017 with the Galaxy S8. It’s surprising how that feels like ancient history when it comes to smart devices. The original DeX required the DeX Station to dock the device for connection to a monitor.

The following year, with the release of the Note 9, DeX was enabled via a set of proprietary cables rather than by using the DeX Station. The benefit of this setup was that the device could be used whilst DeX was also active: you can’t take a phone call when your phone’s in the dock! The DeX Pad was also brought out in 2018, a convenient halfway-house between the Station and plugging in cables.

By 2019, DeX could be enabled via off-the-shelf cables: Samsung accessories were no longer required. DeX was also expanded to offer connection with desktops and laptops: an app could be downloaded for Windows or MacOS that would allow a connected Samsung device to display…