14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft launched Continuum with much fanfare in the fall of 2015, showing that its flagship Windows 10 Mobile devices, the Lumia 950 and 950 XL, were capable of converting from smartphones into PCs by simply connecting to an external screen with a dedicated dock.
While everything looked revolutionary at first, slowly but surely everyone learned that Continuum was kind of a limited feature, as users weren’t allowed to do basic things, like working with multiple windows side by side at the same time.
Furthermore, with Microsoft’s interest in improving phones dropping at a painfully fast pace for Windows phone fans, Continuum barely got improved and bigger enhancements are yet to make their way to devices.
Enter Samsung’s DeX
And today, Samsung teaches Microsoft an important lesson. The company’s new DeX station, although based on Redmond’s Continuum idea, shows how the whole thing should have worked on Windows phones from the very beginning, proving that, with a little work, a mobile device can easily become a PC.
Compatible with the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+, the DeX station does pretty much everything you’d normally expect from an Android-based PC, and you can connect a bigger screen, mice and keyboards to work just like you’d normally do at a desk.
Given that it’s Android-based, there’s no limitation as to what apps you can install, though some optimizations do need to be made to look correctly on bigger screens. Apps run in resizable windows, a feature that Microsoft promised but never delivered, and performance is impressive to say the least.
What’s more, it looks like Microsoft itself likes Samsung’s project, as the software giant collaborated with the South Korean firm on getting its Office productivity suite optimized for DeX. As a result, Office loads and works just like on a PC, all thanks to Microsoft.
Full (not mobile) Windows 10
And that’s not all. Samsung is working to make Windows available via VDI (virtual desktop infrastructure), so customers will soon be able to run Microsoft’s operating system and pretty much any Win32 program when connected to a big screen.
For what it’s worth, the DeX station will be available for just $159.99 and features an Ethernet port, a USB Type-C connector, 2 USB 2.0 ports, and even a cooling fan, while also offering fast charging to the S8 when the phone is plugged in.
For Windows phone fans, all Samsung’s improvements can do nothing more than to increase the frustration caused by Microsoft leaving Windows phones behind, but on the other hand, they can only hope that Redmond learned its lesson and aims to do better in the future.
