I’ve been ready for Android to take desktop mode critically for years. Again in 2019, I purchased a OnePlus 7 Professional and wasted an embarrassing period of time making an attempt to brute-force its half-baked desktop mode into one thing helpful.
The concept made excellent sense to me even then. Telephones have been already absurdly highly effective, and the considered carrying one actual pc in my pocket felt much less like science fiction and extra like delayed frequent sense.
What wore me down wasn’t the concept. It was the ready. Units just like the Steam Deck finally confirmed that docking a compact machine right into a usable desktop setup may really work, whereas Google appeared to lose curiosity in pushing Android the identical approach.
Samsung, in the meantime, stored refining DeX in plain sight. I’ve spent years lurking on r/SamsungDex, watching individuals put up desktop builds powered by a cellphone, and resenting the truth that the model I needed most appeared locked behind an ecosystem I by no means actually needed to hitch.
Paulo Vargas / Digital Tendencies
So when Android 16 lastly introduced a connected-display desktop session to supported Pixel telephones, it felt like an admission. Desktop mode had spent too lengthy dwelling as a bizarre experiment, half promise and half interest.
Now it’s lastly being handled like an actual a part of Android.
Inventory Android grows up
Android 16’s desktop mode is now constructed into supported Pixel telephones, which on paper makes this a giant second for inventory Android.
Plug a Pixel 8 or newer into an exterior show and it will possibly throw up a desktop-style workspace with a taskbar, resizable home windows, app snapping, and keyboard shortcuts as a substitute of simply mirroring the cellphone display screen.
Paulo Vargas / Digital Tendencies
It’s the clearest signal but that Google desires Android to do greater than act like a cellular working system when the {hardware} clearly has larger ambitions.
That ought to really feel like a win. Largely, it does. However it additionally comes with an ungainly reality. Samsung has been doing this for years, and with much more certainty.
A Pixel 8a powering a desktop-style setup by means of a USB-C hub with HDMI, keyboard, mouse, and Bluetooth speaker connectivity Paulo Vargas / Digital Tendencies
Samsung DeX isn’t simply Android stretched throughout a monitor. It seems like a separate desktop layer, with deeper optimization and extra conveniences that really matter as soon as the novelty wears off.
Samsung additionally helps issues Google nonetheless doesn’t, together with utilizing the cellphone itself as a touchpad.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Extremely related to the hub, with the cellphone doubling as a touchpad. Paulo Vargas / Digital Tendencies
There’s the rub. The concept is lastly official, however Samsung nonetheless seems like the corporate that understood the task first.
The distinction between transport and sanding
That turns into apparent as soon as the novelty wears off. Google’s desktop session has the precise visible cues, but it surely nonetheless feels tethered to the cellphone in methods DeX solved way back.
It behaves like Android making an attempt on desktop garments, not a desktop setting that has absolutely settled into them.
DeX is tougher to dismiss as a result of Samsung stored constructing across the much less glamorous realities of utilizing a cellphone as a pc. It feels extra self-contained.
The Samsung DeX residence display screen retains its desktop settings impartial from the cellphone, so customizations keep particular to every mode. Paulo Vargas / Digital Tendencies
Google’s model nonetheless carries first-generation friction. The cellphone show dependence, lighter customization, and sense that the desktop borrows an excessive amount of from the cellphone make it really feel much less like a mature workspace and extra like an early construct that occurred to ship.
Working example, I wrote this piece on a Pixel 8a hooked as much as a hub, monitor, mouse, and keyboard, whereas additionally pushing audio to a Bluetooth speaker.
Android 16 desktop mode on the Pixel 8a. Paulo Vargas / Digital Tendencies
Android 16 desktop mode can completely get actual work completed. That’s probably not in query. The difficulty is that utilizing it makes it painfully apparent the place Google continues to be catching up.
The place the seams begin to present
Android 16 desktop mode begins displaying its seams the second you attempt to make the setup really feel like your individual. There’s no desktop-only settings layer, so even fundamental tweaks spill again into the cellphone.
Change the DPI to make textual content extra readable on a monitor, and it modifications on the handset too. You possibly can’t change the wallpaper on desktop with out altering the wallpaper on the cellphone both, which sounds minor till the entire desktop begins feeling much less like a workspace and extra like a projection.
A few of the rougher edges are tougher to disregard too. Video games run advantageous, which a minimum of proves the idea isn’t starved for horsepower, however different elements nonetheless really feel unfinished.
Enjoying Mini Metro on the desktop mode. Paulo Vargas / Digital Tendencies
For instance, the digicam preview facet ratio is off, and little points like that hold breaking the phantasm.
Digicam preview is wonky, however footage taken are advantageous. Paulo Vargas / Digital Tendencies
DeX, in contrast, has sufficient bells and whistles to earn its place as a each day driver. Its further options don’t really feel decorative. They exist to sand down the friction that comes with turning a cellphone right into a desktop. With DeX, the cellphone feels just like the {hardware} operating the desktop.
With Google’s model, the cellphone nonetheless seems like the primary occasion. The desktop is there, but it surely by no means absolutely stops feeling tied to the handset.
Even so, each nonetheless have a whiff of novelty about them. That’s the half this class nonetheless hasn’t solved.
Residing sooner or later is meant to really feel seamless, not like a series of small concessions stitched collectively by a USB-C hub. The expertise is right here. The effortlessness isn’t.
Why this issues past Pixel
What makes Google’s transfer matter isn’t that it beats DeX. It doesn’t.
This alerts that desktop mode is not some OEM curiosity. As soon as Google bakes it into inventory Android on Pixel, the entire class will get tougher to dismiss.
That modifications the equation for app builders, accent makers, and Android manufacturers that principally handled phone-powered desktop computing like a distinct segment trick.
Samsung proved the concept may work. Google could make it tougher for the remainder of Android to maintain shrugging it off.
There’s nonetheless some irony right here. Google is validating a imaginative and prescient Samsung spent years testing in public, solely to reach with a model that feels much less full.
DeX nonetheless seems just like the extra polished system as a result of Samsung spent extra time sanding down the boring edges that make desktop mode stay or die.
Nonetheless, I can’t be too cynical about Android 16 desktop mode lastly displaying up. After years of demos, workarounds, and wishful considering, even that counts. Generally progress isn’t polished. Generally it’s only a platform lastly admitting the nerds have been proper.
