Apple is at all times flaunting how effectively iPhones work with Macs. Well, should you’re a Windows person, there’s a Phone Link app that provides numerous the options iPhone customers can get on Macs! While Phone Link works with iPhones, too, most of its options require an Android telephone.
But not all Android telephones are equal. If you utilize a Pixel telephone with a Windows PC, you’re lacking out on a few of the cooler options.
Want the type of integration iPhone customers get with their Macs? Then you’ll want a Samsung Galaxy telephone, not a Pixel telephone—and positively not an iPhone. (A couple of different manufacturers, like OnePlus and Asus ROG, additionally supply these additional options. But Google’s Pixel telephones don’t.) Here’s why.
All Androids get these Phone Link options
If you might have an iPhone and a Windows PC, Phone Link can solely do a couple of issues and never rather more. You can see telephone notifications arrive in your desktop, take telephone calls by way of your PC, and ship/obtain SMS texts.
Microsoft
Android telephones—I imply any Android telephone, from a Google Pixel to a Samsung Galaxy and the whole lot in between—can do extra. You can textual content out of your PC and see the complete message historical past, see your telephone’s notifications and dismiss them so that you gained’t see them once more in your telephone, and browse your telephone’s photograph library.
With any Android system, you possibly can launch Phone Link in Windows 11 or Windows 10 to hyperlink your telephone and see what’s obtainable.
Don’t overlook Connected Devices, too
There are additionally a wide range of additional Android integrations managed from Windows by way of the “Connected Devices” window.
With Connected Devices, you possibly can see your Android phone’s files in File Explorer and switch recordsdata backwards and forwards wirelessly, and even use your Android phone as a wireless webcam. On Windows 11, you possibly can head to Settings > Bluetooth & gadgets > Mobile gadgets and use the Manage gadgets button to hyperlink your telephone for such a expertise.
It’s clear that for phone-to-PC integrations, Android telephones are higher than iPhones. But past that, Samsung’s gadgets shortly pull forward.
Samsung’s secret weapon? Pre-installing “Link to Windows” on telephones
So many PC geeks on the Android facet use Pixel telephones, and which means a few of Phone Link’s strongest options are hardly ever mentioned and generally neglected. It’s all about one thing referred to as Link to Windows (pre-installed), which is lacking on Pixel telephones.
Many of Phone Link’s strongest options require that your telephone’s producer set up Microsoft’s software program at a low degree. Google doesn’t embrace this on Pixel telephones. Neither does Motorola.
Chris Hoffman / Foundry
Samsung does embrace the Link to Windows software program on its telephones, they usually aren’t the one ones to do it. Microsoft’s Windows integration software program can be put in on OnePlus and Asus ROG telephones. Microsoft provides a full list of phones with it preinstalled.
The backside line is that this: in case your Android telephone comes with Microsoft’s linking software program pre-installed, Windows PCs can do rather more with it. Let’s dig into this additional stuff! The surprisingly superior options you get if you pair a Samsung Galaxy telephone with a Windows PC.
Instant cross-device copy-paste
Cross-device copy-paste would possibly simply be my favourite characteristic. I can copy-paste one thing—textual content or picture—on both my telephone or PC, then paste it on both of the 2 gadgets. Phone Link routinely syncs the contents of every system’s clipboard!
Chris Hoffman / Foundry
To activate this, first pair your telephone together with your PC with Phone Link. Then, within the Phone Link interface, click on the gear icon on the top-right nook, choose Features, and activate “Cross-device copy and paste.”
After this, there’s no additional enter or fiddling wanted. Just copy on one system and paste on one other. It simply works.
Mirror your complete telephone in a window
Microsoft has constructed a particularly highly effective system for mirroring your telephone to your PC. You can accomplish that a lot with it! Think of it because the Windows PC reply to Apple’s iPhone Mirroring characteristic on Macs.
First, should you open the Phone Link app and click on the thumbnail of your Samsung Galaxy telephone on the top-left nook of the window, it’ll mirror your telephone’s show—you’ll see the whole telephone show in a window in your PC’s desktop. You can work together with it utilizing your mouse and even sort in your telephone together with your keyboard.
Mirror and management Android apps by way of PC
Phone Link additionally gives app-level mirroring. You can open the Phone Link app and click on Apps on the prime to see each app put in in your telephone. Click an app’s icon to launch it in a window in your desktop—it’ll run in your telephone however be wirelessly mirrored in your PC.
But there’s extra to it than that. These apps additionally get their very own taskbar icons, and you’ll right-click their shortcuts so as to add them to your Start menu. That’s proper! Phone Link allows you to add mirrored Android apps to your taskbar and Start menu and deal with them like Windows apps. You can have as much as 5 mirrored apps working without delay in separate home windows.
Chris Hoffman / Foundry
Microsoft went means above and past with this characteristic, providing help for extra Android apps than most individuals will ever want. As a PC energy person, I really like the intense flexibility right here.
Some folks would possibly ask, what’s the purpose of mirroring Android apps? Like all PC options, it’s actually as much as you. I like having the ability to use good residence management apps—to examine in on my safety cameras or change my good thermostat settings, for instance—from my PC. Most good residence gadgets don’t have any Windows PC integrations in any respect.
Easy instantaneous hotspot connections
Setting up a hotspot is often annoying. You first need to activate the hotspot in your telephone, then hook up with it out of your PC’s Wi-Fi menu. Apple has an Instant Hotspot characteristic for shortly activating a hotspot from a Mac with out even touching your iPhone, and you are able to do one thing comparable on a Windows PC if in case you have a Samsung telephone.
Chris Hoffman / Foundry
After pairing your telephone with Phone Link, go into the Phone Link settings display screen, choose Features, and activate “Instant Hotspot” to set it up. Then, if you open your PC’s Wi-Fi menu, you’ll see your telephone alongside different obtainable Wi-Fi networks. Click the Connect button and Windows will routinely activate the telephone’s hotspot and hook up with it.
Done! No grabbing your telephone out of your pocket.
Other helpful options price utilizing
What else are you able to do with a Samsung telephone that has Link to Windows pre-installed? You can redirect your smartphone’s audio output to your PC’s audio system by way of the Phone Link app for improved audio high quality. You also can drag-and-drop recordsdata backwards and forwards between the mirrored Android telephone window and your PC.
The Phone Link app will even allow you to take part in conversations with RCS, assuming you’re utilizing the Samsung Messages app in your telephone and not the Google Messages app. This characteristic is unique to Galaxy telephones and never different telephones that bundle Microsoft’s software program.
All in all, sure, Samsung Galaxy telephones actually do supply probably the most integration options. Do you want all of those options? Probably not. You can have an incredible expertise utilizing any telephone together with your PC. But if you’d like the type of deep integration that iPhone customers get with Macs, you don’t have to change to a Mac—you simply want a Galaxy telephone together with your PC.
A extra steady Phone Link connection
There’s one closing factor I wish to point out—one thing that isn’t an express characteristic, however extra of an statement I’ve made.
I’ve seen that the Phone Link connection is rather more steady between my Windows 11 PCs and my Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 than it’s with my Google Pixel 8 Pro. It disconnects much less steadily and it’s extra dependable general. That is smart, provided that the software program is working within the background (on the Galaxy) and never as an put in app (on the Pixel). The phone-to-PC linking course of can be slicker and sooner.
This might appear to be a minor level. But, for me, it takes the Phone Link expertise from “kind of unreliable” to “almost always works.” I can belief it to work, and that’s an enormous deal.
With all these advantages, I feel the reply is clear: if you wish to seamlessly use your Android telephone and Windows PC collectively, and if you’d like probably the most complete integration you may get, then you really want a Samsung Galaxy telephone. The others simply don’t reduce it.
Further studying: The best way to transfer data between Android phones and Windows PCs