![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Dex-work-hero-scaled.jpg\"\/ "\\"Dex")
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Zac Kew-Denniss \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n
Samsung DeX has been around for eight years, and for many, it\u2019s become a core part of the Samsung experience. DeX gives us the ability to turn our Samsung phones and tablets into ultra-portable laptop replacements, provided all you need is Android apps and a browser. While DeX has gained plenty of features since its introduction, it\u2019s still fundamentally the same as it was in 2017. That\u2019s changing with One UI 8<\/a>, though, as Samsung has rebuilt DeX upon Android 16\u2019s desktop mode<\/a>.<\/p>\n There\u2019s potential for greatness here, but Samsung has had to take a significant step backwards to prepare for a leap forward, and the DeX experience is lacking features and stability.<\/p>\n Are you looking forward to the new DeX?<\/p>\n 65 votes<\/p>\n Performance<\/p>\n Mishaal Rahman \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n While One UI 8 is stable on the Z Fold and Flip 7, it\u2019s still a beta on my Galaxy S25, so that may contribute to some of the issues I\u2019m experiencing. The first issue I\u2019m facing is resolution. By default, DeX won\u2019t go higher than 1080p, with the MultiStar Good Lock module enabling higher resolutions. One UI 8 and the new DeX remove the \u201cI <\/p>\n Performance in general is a problem. This shouldn\u2019t be surprising; Android 16\u2019s desktop mode, which this is based on, is nowhere close to finished and often crashes and freezes. This new version of DeX is better than the experience on Pixels, but not by much, and it\u2019s a far cry from the polished and smooth DeX we\u2019re used to. At one point, simply opening the display settings menu crashed my S25 and forced it to reboot.<\/p>\n Missing features<\/p>\n Zac Kew-Denniss \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n As I mentioned in the last section, the \u201cI <\/p>\n By default, DeX will only allow you to run five apps at a time on your external display. That isn\u2019t enough for me, and losing the toggle that removes that restriction severely limits how useful DeX can be. Likewise, I always found that the taskbar and header bar would come back too quickly if my mouse moved near those areas, so I always used the slider in One UI 7 and older (pictured above) to adjust that.<\/p>\n Then again, that slider wouldn\u2019t be much use in the new version of DeX. Opening an app, game, or video in full-screen doesn\u2019t hide the taskbar or header bar at the moment. I\u2019m hoping that\u2019s a bug rather than a deliberate choice, so we\u2019ll see if that changes in future updates.<\/p>\n There\u2019s potential\n<\/p>\n The bugginess and missing features are a necessary evil. Google\u2019s implementation of a desktop mode holds a lot of promise. Google already worked with Samsung to get it working, and a partnership between these two companies has often worked well in the past, especially the newer versions of WearOS, which borrowed heavily from Tizen.<\/p>\n Samsung often makes great features that struggle to gain traction because convincing developers to adapt their apps to one group of phones is difficult. With Android 16 and beyond bringing desktop mode to the masses, there\u2019s more of an incentive for developers to get on board.<\/p>\n![\"Samsung](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Samsung-DeX-on-the-Galaxy-Z-Flip-7.jpg\"\/ "\\"Samsung")
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Old-DeX-Good-Lock-scaled.jpg\"\/ "\\"Old")
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![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Samsung-DeX-Tablet-Settings-scaled.jpg\"\/ "\\"Samsung")
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