Have you ever bought a PC not due to the {hardware}, however due to the software program? No, not Windows — the apps. Samsung is completely decided that you’ll — and put money into different Samsung Galaxy gadgets, too, due to how effectively they work together with each other.
You might purchase an HP laptop computer, a Google Pixel telephone, and an Amazon Fire pill. Or, you might purchase a Samsung Galaxy Book3, a Galaxy Tab pill, and a Galaxy S23 telephone. Why would you? Because Samsung gives apps and companies to tie all three collectively way more tightly than shopping for a bunch of random gadgets. We name this an ecosystem, and Samsung needs to persuade you that its Galaxy ecosystem is the equal of higher-profile rivals like Windows, iOS, and Android.
In the PC world, that is uncommon. You most likely know that you just nonetheless want an Apple iPhone to speak to an Apple Watch, however when was the final time a PC maker bought you on an app that would do one thing comparable? (We’d should go means again to Dell’s Mobile Connect app for that.) So we got down to examine whether or not Samsung’s personal ecosystem made sense, by connecting a number of of its gadgets collectively and figuring out whether or not the entire, to make use of a cliche, was larger than the sum of its components.
It is. In truth, it’s, to an nearly ludicrous excessive. If there’s a phrase for what Samsung needs you to have the ability to do throughout all of its gadgets, it’s share: share screens, share notifications, recordsdata, and extra. But, as you’ll see, the methods wherein it typically goes to this point past what you’ll want, with so many alternative apps, that it’s both extremely thorough or deeply complicated. There’s nobody app to do it completely all — and possibly that ought to be Samsung’s final purpose.
Creating your “Galaxy” of gadgets
The Samsung Book Book3 Pro 360 earned our Editors’ Choice award.
Willis Lai
For this take a look at, I used a Samsung Galaxy Book Book3 Pro 360, equipped by Samsung, alongside a Galaxy S23 Ultra smartphone and a Galaxy Tab pill. Just for enjoyable, I turned my “normal” three-screen setup (the Book3 Pro 360, a 1440p widescreen show, and a 4K show in portrait mode) right into a six-screen monster with the laptop computer, two shows, a Galaxy S22 telephone, a Galaxy S23 Ultra, and a Galaxy Tab pill.
There’s one different requirement: a Samsung account. In many circumstances, your gadgets will must be linked to the identical Wi-Fi community, however you’ll additionally want to join a Samsung account should you haven’t already. This isn’t that totally different than authenticating your self on another gadget, however Samsung makes use of the account identify to confirm you’re you.
Once authenticated, it’s time to start out exploring which apps do what.
Connect your Galaxy Book to your pill: The easiest approach to join your Galaxy Book laptop computer to the Galaxy Tab pill is thru an software known as Second Screen, an app that usually ships preinstalled on Galaxy gadgets. Second Screen does what it says. It turns your pill right into a secondary display screen, which it treats as a secondary PC show. You can organize that show in your Windows Settings as you’d an bizarre show, together with your solely determination being to optimize it for a slower, smoother connection or a model optimized for video. While you’ve got the choice of turning off the Tab’s enter (keyboard, contact, and many others.), leaving it on is helpful and really helpful.
Mark Hachman / IDG
While video transmission doesn’t appear to be good (there have been some dropped frames, even optimized) this is a superb approach to loosen up with a pill on a aircraft or prepare after which use the Tab as an extra laptop computer monitor later that evening. The solely downside is that it turns the Tab right into a “dumb” show, hiding its Android filesystem and interface.
Control your pill and telephone by way of your Galaxy Book: Samsung additionally gives a Windows app known as Samsung Multi Control, which lets you deal with your pill and telephone(s) as screens you can management together with your PC. (You’ll discover it throughout the Samsung Settings app > Connected gadgets.) This is a bit totally different than Second Screen, since you’ll be able to truly “mouse over” to your telephone — sure, your mouse cursor seems in your telephone display screen, and you may work together with it, too. You also can copy and paste information out of your telephone/pill to your PC, and/or use your PC keyboard to sort into your telephone or pill.
Mark Hachman / IDG
Here, the benefit is that Multi Control replaces the great quaint sneakernet as a helpful resolution to the “I just took a photo with my phone, now what?” query. There are loads of potential solutions: emailing the picture or doc to your self, importing it to the cloud, and extra. But with the ability to mouse immediately your telephone’s Gallery app, copy a photograph, after which drag it right into a PowerPoint presentation or design doc gives an immediacy that different strategies don’t. I’ve used this myself after taking pictures a fast picture for a assessment or function article.
Mirror your telephone or pill together with your Galaxy Book: This is the place Samsung’s app ecosystem will get just a little bizarre. Samsung Flow is an older Android app that shipped with the Book3 Pro 360, however required a guide obtain on the Galaxy S23 Ultra. Flow supplies extra of a two-way connection. Instead of mousing on the telephone or pill, Flow creates a mirror of your cell gadget in a PC window you can transfer round your desktop in addition to work together with — clicking down into the telephone’s app drawer, for instance. (The Galaxy telephone merely acknowledges the digital enter as actual enter.) Moreover, you can too ship recordsdata to your telephone with a secondary interface.
Mark Hachman / IDG
It’s just a little clunky, particularly when your mouse cursor can seemingly get caught throughout the digital telephone interface, surviving proper clicks, faucets of the ESC key, and so forth. But Flow is without doubt one of the solely direct methods Samsung gives to drop recordsdata in your telephone.
Send recordsdata out of your Book to your telephone and again: Flow gives a technique to do that. If shifting a file out of your PC to your Galaxy telephone or pill is the one factor you need to do, nevertheless, Samsung’s Quick Share gives one other. Simply choose a tool, open up File Explorer, and choose which recordsdata you need to switch to a pal or contact. The solely catch is that, with Quick Share, the 2 gadgets have to be linked and their display screen have to be on. (Google has finally released a similar Windows app, called Nearby Share, which traverses the complete Android ecosystem.) Secure Share works equally, solely you’ll be able to add an expiration date to the file — like many cloud storage companies already do.
But wait, there’s extra!
Manage your telephone or pill together with your Galaxy Book: At this level, the quantity of sharing and management choices Samsung gives borders is already just a little foolish. (We’re additionally operating out of phrases to explain the variations in what the varied apps can do!)
This final choice isn’t solely Samsung’s thought. Phone Link (which is named Link to Windows in your telephone) has been a staple of Windows for a number of years, and gives an organized, clear interface for managing your telephone’s notifications, sending and receiving texts, and even putting calls on the telephone, out of your PC. You may even view your telephone’s house display screen and entry particular person telephone apps, even pinning these apps to your PC. That’s fairly cool.
Mark Hachman / IDG
As we’ve famous earlier than, Samsung (in addition to the Microsoft Surface Duo 2 smartphone) enjoys a particular relationship with Microsoft, providing these fundamental capabilities plus a pair extra: direct entry to the telephone’s hotspot options, and with the ability to browse the web sites your telephone was , too.
It all requires a ton of permissions and notifications to be despatched backwards and forwards, however when arrange, Phone Link could be an especially useful gizmo.
Control your own home out of your PC: Samsung’s Book laptops additionally embody a SmartThings app, to regulate your numerous (Samsung-branded!) good home equipment, which is sort of one other whole ecosystem in itself.
More area of interest companion apps
Is that the entire Samsung apps that ship with Galaxy gadgets? Not by an extended shot.
Samsung contains Clip Studio Paint, for instance, which may hook up with a Galaxy S23 Ultra, with stylus, to function a second display screen for choosing colours and the like. Samsung’s Expert RAW Auto Share works equally to the apps above — should you shoot photographs with a Galaxy telephone that helps the RAW picture format, just like the S23 Ultra, you’ll have the helpful choice for the telephone to ship photographs routinely to your PC for enhancing in Adobe Lightroom. (Conveniently, Samsung provides a two-month trial of that very app.)
Samsung additionally contains quite a few extra conventional items of bloatware; apps that both reproduce current Windows capabilities, or comparatively ineffective content material. (TV Studio Plus is a set of streaming video with built-in 90-second business breaks that nobody bought commercials for.)
Samsung does have room for additional enchancment. If there’s an app to show your Galaxy telephone right into a PC webcam, for instance, I’m not conscious of it. (Why purchase one in every of PCWorld’s recommended webcams you probably have a telephone, anyway?) A Samsung clock app might doubtlessly tie into the Galaxy Watch, recommending transient meditation breaks and utilizing the Watch’s stress meter to measure if it labored.
That’s going to be the important thing for Samsung going ahead. Samsung has nailed cross-device sharing, nevertheless it lacks cohesion. Push that ahead, increase upon it, and hopefully convey all this performance inside a lot fewer apps, and also you’ll have that many extra causes to purchase every thing from Samsung.