Samsung Dex Station For The Galaxy S8 To Ship Late April; Price & Other Details Revealed [VIDEO]

Samsung Dex Station For The Galaxy S8 To Ship Late April; Price & Other Details Revealed [VIDEO]

Vinay Patel

Aside from taking the wraps off the Galaxy S8 and the S8+ smartphones on Wednesday, March 29 in New York City, Samsung gave tech enthusiasts a glimpse of its newfangled Desktop Experience (DeX), which is designed to transform a Galaxy S8 into a PC, with Android app mimicking a desktop-like environment.

It's worth noting that in order to work well; it will sooner or later require apps to support bigger displays. While it remains to be seen whether or not this comes to fruition, Samsung's Dex already seems to leave Microsoft's Continuum in the shade.

Samsung is not the first tech company to give the mobile-PC experience a shot. Microsoft tried its hand at the same by launching Windows Continuum -- a feature of the company's Windows 10 operating system -- alongside the Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL smartphones. Throwing light on his recent experience with Continuum, TheVerge's Tom Warren noted that Microsoft has not yet enabled basic windowing for apps or a feature to run two side-by-side at best.

Motorola, on the other hand, debuted the Atrix years ago; however, it failed to sweep tech buffs off their feet. Lining with this, it looks like Samsung is not off to an excellent start either.

The DeX dock and a slew of other identical technologies center on a simple idea. If executed to a T, a smartphone user should face no problem using his/her handset like a standard PC simply by plugging it into a special dock. There are multiple reasons why Microsoft Continuum failed to take the technology realm by storm and regrettably, Samsung seems to have ignored the primary one.

Continuum ran quite slow and didn't offer support for full Windows applications but those were just minor problems. The real problem, according to CNBC's Todd Haselton is that users do not want to shell out more money on an extra accessory and then use it as a feeble computing device with no connection to actual MacOS or Windows apps.

Samsung Dex Specifications, Launch & Other Details

Samsung has kept the launch date of Dex under wraps and other details about the new accessory are hard to come by as well. But fret not! ArsTechnica divulged a few details about the Samsung Dex based on the company's presentation. Samsung has just listed the DeX Station on its official website for $ 149.99. Though the exact release date is not officially confirmed, the product is expected to ship late April.

The dock boasts a small, circular form factor and it comes with an HDMI port and two USB ports. Just like the Galaxy S8, Samsung Dex is powered through USB-C. Moreover, the dock features a tiny cooling fan inside to ensure the phone does not throttle too much, allowing more desktop-y performance.

The desktop UI (User Interface) bears an uncomplicated appearance with app icons, Windows or Chrome OS-like taskbar, a desktop and there's a lock screen as well. People can choose between using (Android) apps full-screen or simply resort to using them in windows. Unfortunately, though, a lot of Android apps are not adept when it comes to running on anything aside from a phone or a small window.

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