Replace your computer! — With a Phone?
Samsung DeX & 2019 Samsung S10+
Disclaimer, this is my opinion, I predict the computing industry is headed in one unified direction. Imagine one device, possibly a mobile-phone, serving all your computing needs; a phone, a camera, an MP3 player, a media center, a personal computer? Many of these categories are apparent, phone camera’s for example are creeping closer to SLR quality, most major manufacturers are abandoning manufacturing Mp3 players, But a personal computer may be the furthest away, or is it?
In 2010 iPods made up roughly 10% of Apple Sales, iPhones made up 15%, and the iPad 5%, with the remainder of sales being personal computers. Contrastingly in 2018 Apple discontinued the iPod and iPhones made up about 50% of their Overall sales — those statistics tell a crucial story of shifts which are sweeping through the industry. -Our phones are slowly replacing all our other devices.
With the introduction of Samsung’s DeX, the unified computing device seems within reach. It’s not a direction, think of it as a preliminary implementation of the future. I’ve been using a Samsung Galaxy Note 9 for the past few months, and a Note 8 for the past year, and I must admit, I find myself reaching more for my phone than my daily computer (a 2018 MacBook Pro 15”).
I’m not advocating to replace your computer, but I find myself being more and more productive on my phone than I would have previously thought. The reasons for this shift has to do with numerous factors such as, faster (4G) connectivity, larger and better screens, better mobile applications, a pen, and better battery life. But the 2 main factors come down to larger and faster storage, and better CPU performance on mobile devices.
For the “average” person, a computer such as Apple’s Late-2018 MacBook Air would adequately suit most of their computing needs, whether watching Netflix, reading, writing, emails, used for school, software development, editing photos, even some light video-editing and gaming would be alright. Thus, let’s take a moment to compare the MacBook Air to a device, I believe is closing the gap, Samsung’s Galaxy Note 9; Also, these devices are incredibly similar in price, the latter being a $100 (USD) more affordable. (For interest I add some available S10+ specifications) – Because I think its super interesting and something like this hasn’t really been done before
Any Technology enthusiast will tell you that benchmarks only tell part of the story, and they’re absolutely correct. It really comes down to qualitative user experience. But I was genuinely quite surprised at how the Note 9, achieved better multi-core performance scores and how similar it was to the MacBook Air. Overtime, I can only expect mobile processors to get better as you can see from the S10’s Geekbench Scores.
Diving into user-experience and my main motivation for writing this article, is something called Samsung DeX. (Please leave a comment if you’d like me to do a full review on Samsung DeX). DeX is basically Samsung’s response to the unification problem. The idea is you connect your phone to a monitor and peripherals (keyboard and mouse) and Samsung switches to a version of its Operating System (OS) optimized for larger screens, similar to that on an Android Tablet. Considering the specifications on these mobile devices are closing the performance gap between a phone and a computer, it’s arguably an obvious direction.
Now, the idea that you will have a monitor, mouse and keyboard, lying around everywhere you go, is absurd, but consider the work and home scenario, for someone like me and it kind-of works. Lately I’ve been getting tons of work done on DeX. In fact, I’m writing this article on Microsoft Word for Android on DeX. I read and respond to emails, watch Netflix, I make pretty large PowerPoint files, edit my Google Documents, Blog, watch tons of YouTube, listen to music (Apple Music), manage my Crypto Portfolio, chat and rarely find the need for my computer. I mean, there’s a lot of additional hardware and software involved here which makes this all work seamlessly, but it works! — See my setup details at the end of this Article
DeX, has come a long way, its first iteration required the purchase of an additional DeX Stand, now you can just connect any USB-C hub, or monitor and you’re good to go. I also rarely found the Phone hot to the touch even after a couple hours of use; I’m not sure if that has more to do with the Phone’s new “Water-Carbon-Heat-Dissipation-System” or the better resource management on DeX, either way it’s a welcomed upgrade. Check out the Note-9’s insides with This Video from Jerry Rig.
Now that I’ve sung all of DeX’s praise, it’s time to discuss some the issues.
- Lack of a Magnifier app or system wide zooming: roughly 1/7 people in the world live with some form of visual impairment making magnification tools a necessity for any OS. It’s Ironic because Android supports system-wide gesture-based magnification.
- Most Application (which are not optimized for DeX) can’t be resized, which means having greater screen-real estate is meaningless. Luckily most of the Applications I most frequently use are optimized. Netflix for instance, one of my most frequently visited application isn’t optimized -a work around to this is accessing Netflix through the browser.
- Occasionally I experience some lag when scrolling large webpages or large documents, nothing unbearable but annoying. I’m actually really looking forward to DeX with the faster CPU and larger (12GB) RAM, I’m 99% sure, these issues would be addressed.
- The Lack of continuity between DeX and the mobile OS: I find it annoying that when I’m working on a document and switch out of DeX, the OS doesn’t jump straight into my document, instead I have to reopen the app to continue working. I also have terrible OCD when my apps are organized differently on DeX, then on my phone. (I’m just nitpicking at this point)
- Driver Support: the DeX experience mandated the use of a keyboard and mouse, I even added a printer and speakers to my setup: One issue I faced was I couldn’t get the phone to recognize any of my wired peripherals -having to resort to Bluetooth.
- Legacy applications: though the mobile application market is catching up to its desktop counterpart in terms of numbers, it isn’t quite there yet. I still needed a handful of applications which aren’t available on Android -though this isn’t exactly a short coming it’s worthwhile noting.
All that being said, I have thoroughly enjoyed my DeX experience: I’m quite obsessed with the idea of carrying one device in my pocket to get all my work done, and I contest that 90% of traditional users (all of you) could do the same. Consider there may be obvious issues with reliability, and I personally recommend ensuring all important data is stored on some cloud. For me, DeX on the Note 9 has been incredible in comparison to its previous iteration on the Note 8, and I can’t wait to test subsequent versions following its evolution. To me if Samsung pushed a few more big developers to optimize their apps for DeX and got around to implementing a System-wide zooming feature, I would be ready to switch entirely. Let me leave you with this though, if you’ve thought of switching to a Chrome OS, Don't! Samsung’s DeX is a significantly better option.
Here’s what my setup looks like,
It may be worthwhile noting I use the same set up interchangeably with both my Phone and Notebook.
Hardware
- Satechi Type-C Multi-port Adapter 4K with Ethernet
https://amzn.to/2FhrsFj
Expensive but worth it, it is the 1 and only dongle you will need (a full review coming soon). Highlights, aluminum build, has every port you need (HDMI, USB-A, SD Card, Ethernet and supports pass through charging — BOOM!) - Logitech MX Master IIS https://amzn.to/2ud2uAG
My mouse of choice and its amazing. Surprisingly, both vertical and horizontal scrolling worked on the DeX, as well as all the other buttons — unfortunately, button remapping was not supported. Highlight, comfort, reliability, battery lasts for 1 month with heavy use and the ability to use between multiple devices with Logitech-Flow. (For Under $60, this is a steal) - Apple Wireless Keyboard https://amzn.to/2UBXy3H
Stirdy reliable keyboard, good key travel, aluminum build, worth the price. My only complain is the lack of backlit keys.
Slight note, I couldn’t get DeX to recognize any wired peripherals, but all Bluetooth peripherals worked - Harman Kardon Novas (Speakers) https://amzn.to/2ObrDF1
These sound amazing: a full review coming soon. Really annoying if you want to use it with multiple devices though (BLE 4, no Direct WiFi Connection or streaming services available, very directional sound).
HK discontinued the Nova’s but you can pick up its replacement for less than a $100 https://amzn.to/2ObrDF1 — They have a similar sound signature - 21” HP 22FI IPS Display
Isn’t amazing, it’s Full-HD and gets the job done, I would say there are better monitors for the price - Nubwo Gaming Mouse-Pad
Just a smoother surface than the wood grain
Software Running on the DeX
At the time of writing, I had a very typical work day setup on DeX, with application i mostly just leave open. All these applications are also resizeable in DeX which really maximized the experience
- Chrome: with 6 tabs open, the web browsing experience on Chrome is just fluid mimicking that of a PC and Chrome being incredibly powerful allows for a lot of flexibility, when I can’t get an app to work comfortable on DeX I usually resort to trying to use its web counterpart (i.e. Netflix)
- Microsoft Word, Writing proposals for work. I do often switch between Word work and Docs only because Word doesn’t allow to save files directly on to Google Drive (They obviously encourage the use of a Microsoft alternative, the One Drive). Also the Office suits aren’t quite as robust as their desktop versions: but to me, this is a good thing, it feels like a decluttered interface and developers have to work really hard to achieve this.
- Gmail: going through my emails. I never close this application and that’s pretty much all I am going to say here
- Google Drive: Referencing online documents for work and this is also pretty much how I keep everything synced between all my devices and plaforms.
- YouTube: Which I tune inn and out of constantly, but sometimes I still go the web route for no explainable reason.
In addition to these apps on a daily basis I have Viber open to stay in touch with family and close friends as well as the Apple Music App for background noise. I spent about 3 hours on DeX at the time of these photos and the phone remained cool to the touch. As I got more into DeX, I considered getting a cooling-pad (fan) for the phone, but I genuinely feel its completely unnecessary.
Please leave a clap, a comment, follow and share this article, it would genuinely help keep me motivated to produce more content
- Follow me on Twitter @TaHaque2
- Follow me on Medium https://medium.com/@tahaque