I needed Samsung DeX to save me when my PC died, but it couldn’t

Technology is great when it works, but nothing is more frustrating than when a piece of tech we rely on stops working. I’ve had a bad time of that lately, with my original Pixelbook completely dying and my 13th-gen Intel gaming PC succumbing to the dreaded microcode issue. The latter is covered by warranty, but as it was a PC I built myself, I’ve had to send the affected components off, and I’ll be without them for a few weeks. Left without a computer to work on, I turned to Samsung DeX on my Galaxy Tab S10 Plus, hoping it could save the day when connected to my monitor, keyboard, and mouse. Is Samsung DeX mature enough to become my main computer after eight years? I was curious to find out.

Connecting the tablet to my peripherals was easy — a Ugreen dock provided power to the tablet and connected it to my monitor via HDMI, while my Keychron keyboard and Logitech MX Master 2S connected easily over Bluetooth. Android has supported keyboard and mouse input for a long time, and while it isn’t perfect, it’s still better than how iPadOS handles things.

Sticking to the iPad comparison for a moment, this is where I have one good thing to say about DeX on my PC monitor. While the experience was far from great (more on that later), at least the Tab S10 Plus filled the entire display, despite the tablet and monitor having different aspect ratios. My A12Z Bionic-powered 2020 iPad Pro can only mirror its display at the same 4:3 aspect ratio as its built-in display. It can play media at 16:9 over HDMI, but trying to get work done on it in Safari or Chrome meant putting up with pillar boxing, which I couldn’t work with.

The overall layout and design of Samsung DeX is solid, too. There’s not much to it; it’s just a desktop environment like you’ll find on a Chromebook or Windows PC. All of the same apps you normally use on your phone or tablet are here, and thanks to Samsung’s above-average multi-window efforts in One UI, the vast majority of them resize without any issues. If what you want from DeX is a place to do light writing in the Google Docs or Samsung Notes apps, show some slides to people in a presentation, or play video on a TV because you can’t cast it, then it’s a well-rounded experience. Unfortunately, it didn’t cut it for me.

DeX struggles with the basics

The problems I encountered with DeX are not new ones. The biggest problem I faced was with the keyboard. I use a Keychron K4 Pro and I tried using it with the Tab S10 Plus via a USB cable and Bluetooth, and both times I had the same issue with missed or repeated characters. Whatever I wrote would be littered with letters or spaces that were missing or doubled up. I’ve tried using keyboards with tablets before, and whether it was my Pixel C with the official keyboard or my iPad Pro, this problem persists. Mobile devices just don’t play well with Bluetooth keyboards. I could probably fix that with Samsung’s official keyboard accessory, which connects to the tablet via pogo pins, but that’s an expensive solution to a short-term problem.

Using it with my monitor wasn’t a great experience, either. Even though DeX supports 1440p, things weren’t sharp when I needed them to be. The UI, wallpaper/photos, and app icons all looked great, but the text didn’t. It was pixelated enough to constantly distract me from what I was doing. After all, I work with walls of text when I write, and being able to read my work clearly is essential.

Beyond typing, the app experience was an issue for me, too, specifically the web browser. For general use, it’s fine, but when I was trying to interact with WordPress, where I write articles like this, everything slowed to a crawl. The mobile version of Chrome can’t handle it, and the same issues were there when I tried Samsung Internet. Safari on iPadOS had no problem here, for what it’s worth.

Honestly, these issues aren’t dealbreakers. If DeX is all I have to use while my PC is out of action, I could make it work. Proofreading would find the missed or doubled characters, and in a pinch, I could perhaps send text to an editor in a Google Doc and have them format everything for me in the CMS. That is a far from an ideal solution, but it would be better than not being able to work for a month.

Thankfully, I did have another option. My wife and I bought a Steam Deck in 2022, and it’s become one of our favorite pieces of tech, keeping us entertained at countless hospital appointments and holidays. The Steam Deck can do far more than play games, though. SteamOS is based on Arch Linux and has a desktop mode capable of running full Linux apps. I used the same keyboard, mouse, and USB-C adapter to hook up my Steam Deck, and the experience has been infinitely better. The AMD APU and 16GB of RAM are more than enough to handle my workload, and it comes with none of the issues that I faced while using Samsung DeX or my iPad. I can even use GIMP for light photo editing!

DeX is a great piece of software that does many things well, but when I needed something to replace my ailing PC, the Steam Deck was the hero I needed and deserved. DeX needs more time in the oven to nail down the basics, like rendering text clearly. But after eight years, maybe it’s too late. It also requires support from Google. Android tablets deserve to have the full desktop version of Chrome — period. Apple has done it with the iPad, and Google should follow.

Until Samsung and Google make those improvements, Samsung DeX will sadly never be the desktop replacement I wanted it to be. Maybe I’m expecting too much from it and should have more realistic expectations. If you use DeX regularly and have a better experience than mine, I’d love to hear from you in the comments.