th powerful chips, tremendous graphics power, a high-speed, versatile charging port, the Galaxy S8 is basically a hheld that fits in your pocket. The only thing that’s holding it back is its screen— maybe a keyboard mouse. ile the S8+’s 6.2-inch display is nothing to scoff at, it still pales in comparison to the 27-inch monitors that grace our desks, or even the 13-inch displays on our laptops. So Samsung has developed a solution. The DeX Station is a puck-sized dock that connects your S8 to a big-screen monitor so you can type multitask just like if you were using a . Once it’s plugged in, a new interface will appear on your monitor, all of your phone’s apps will be just a click away. has been trying to make Android more productivity-friendly for years, adding features like Multi-window, quick app switching, picture-in-picture, but Samsung’s new concept blows the doors off of our perception of what we can do on our phones. ile we still have lots of questions—chief among them, how well will it run six months from now—from what we’ve seen so far, DeX is the missing link between our pockets our desks that we’ve been waiting for.
Have puck will travel
The DeX dock is super light portable. You’ll need to carry a pretty bulky power cable along with it, but the device itself can be stowed away in a bag without adding much weight at all. Its unique puck-shaped design lets the cover double as a cradle for your S8 with just a snap. Around the back you’ll find a pair of old-school B-A ports, a 100Mbit ethernet port, an HDMI port. l you need to do to start working is plug in an HDMI cable connect the other end to a monitor (up to 4K), the contents of your phone will be instantly displayed in a pleasant, Chromebook-like interface on the big screen. ong the bottom you’ll see -Fi, volume, other settings, as well as a series of app shortcuts, on the left side will be a grid of DeX-optimized apps. These include a smattering of Samsung’s own apps, like Internet Email, but more will be available over time. Apps that have been formatted for DeX have resizable windows interfaces that behave like a desktop (or at least a tablet) version should. For compatible apps, the DeX desktop supports all of the usual functions of a environment, including maximizing minimizing of windows, right-clicking, keyboard shortcuts (cut, copy, paste, undo, etc.). Non-optimized apps will still show up on the screen, though as phone apps. You’ll be able to use the mouse to control them, but you won’t enjoy any of the other -inspired stuff. Apps launched quickly resized smoothly in our brief time using it. Samsung has also partnered with Microsoft Adobe to create DeX-ready versions of their popular Android apps. Microsoft will release the entire Office suite for DeX, while Adobe will offer a version of ghtroom. ile there aren’t any new features to speak of, the user interfaces (which resemble the ones you get on tablets) have been retooled for the big screen, with a maximized workspace responsive, resizable windows. Samsung hasn’t yet optimized its new Bixby digital assistant for DeX, so you won’t be able to control any actions by voice. esumably Samsung will add that functionality sometime down the road, but it had nothing to say on the matter during my demo. You can preorder the DeX Station on Samsung’s site for $149 for shipping in late April.
