We’ve come to count on that looking your PC for recordsdata can be like looking the net: nearly instantaneous and nearly good. But it’s all the time that one file—I do know I’ve it!—that leaves you scratching your head. Don’t despair. If you personal a Samsung Galaxy PC and its Quick Search app, you may really discover it.

By necessity, evaluations of laptops just like the Samsung Galaxy Book2 Pro 360, typically gloss over a number of the built-in functions that Samsung bundles inside or dismiss them as crapware. And some are, or just replicate what Windows itself does. Others, nonetheless, make you suppose, hey, that is helpful. And that’s Quick Search.

It’s a part of our ongoing query: Should you purchase into a particular OEM ecosystem, resembling Samsung, with its PCs, telephones, tablets, watches, and extra? Or simply purchase any outdated Windows PC? In this case, we’ve already found {that a} Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet makes for an excellent travel display, and we’re exploring Samsung’s ecosystem additional to search out elements which might be superior to the Windows ecosystem. Samsung Quick Search falls into that class, and right here’s why.

First, Windows’ built-in search perform is already a large number. While Windows 10 features a search bar on the taskbar, Windows 11 features a Search icon, which opens a search field. Click the search field on the prime of the Start Menu, and also you’re whisked away to Search—which searches each your PC in addition to the net. But in case you search within the search bar on the prime of the Widgets menu, and that search solely defaults to the net.

The built-in Windows Search solely searches a portion of your PC, too: Documents, Music, and Pictures, plus the desktop. For every part else, you have to use the search field inside File Explorer. And, actually, there’s a third search engine in your PC—the Photos app—which we’ll clarify beneath. It’s complicated! (See our article for advanced tips on using Windows Search.)

How nicely an app searches for a file relies upon 4 issues, we predict: the app’s interface, its pace, its accuracy, and the “depth” (for lack of a greater phrase) of what it searches.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Samsung’s Quick Search, then, has one main benefit: it’s unified. Search for a file inside Samsung’s Quick Search, and every part is offered in a single location, with a listing of recordsdata that, by default, bridge your PC and your OneDrive cloud storage. You may also add further places, resembling exterior drives or different cloud providers.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Quick Search’s accuracy appears to be simply nearly as good as what Windows Search itself affords. The accuracy of your PC’s search (Windows or Quick Search) is determined by the index of your PC’s recordsdata. Both Windows and Samsung create an index of your PC’s recordsdata: what they’re referred to as, how large they’re, their metadata, and so forth, and shops them in a grasp file that may be rapidly consulted while you’re on the lookout for one thing. When you create a brand new file, this file is added to the index, which takes somewhat time each with Windows and Quick Search.

Quick Search doesn’t let you know which folders it indexes (a degree for Windows) however permits you to manually embody and exclude whichever folders you would like. There’s additionally an choice to incorporate (or exclude) system recordsdata, which is generally the province of the File Explorer search field inside Windows.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Samsung’s app additionally tells you particularly the place the index is saved, so you possibly can see how a lot house it consumes. Windows doesn’t. You may also delete your search historical past in Quick Search as Windows Search. Windows 11’s privateness choices are rather more express, with a whole part of the Settings menu (Privacy & Security) devoted to managing what information Microsoft collects.

So far, I’d characterize each Windows and Quick Search as about the identical when it comes to pace and accuracy, a minimum of for widespread recordsdata. But Quick Search seems to transcend Windows Search in a key space: depth.

Specifically, Quick Search particularly calls out its potential to learn textual content saved within pictures, in addition to its potential to learn and extract textual content inside paperwork. It’s extremely helpful — however in case you’re involved about your mortgage utility being mined for info, you possibly can place it in a folder after which manually exclude it from being learn. You may also flip off these capabilities solely, although they’re one of many tallies within the “plus” column for Samsung’s Quick Search. (By default, Quick Search consists of textual content and picture OCR search, although you possibly can particularly seek for simply textual content inside pictures, too.)

We’ve been educated, in fact, to label recordsdata with particular, explanatory file names that help Windows to find no matter we’re on the lookout for. But for me, I discover it extremely intuitive to seek for “benchmarks” and for Quick Search to have the ability to extract that individual time period from an unlabeled screenshot. It’s simply one other means of with the ability to join the nagging feeling that I personal a specific file and with the ability to discover and act upon it.

Windows, to be honest, seems to unlock a few of these capabilities contained in the Photos app, which at one time might “recognize” a specific topic or individual and manage albums or teams of photographs round them. (Google Photos does this as nicely.) Photos can nonetheless try this for sure objects and scenes, sufficient that it appeared to establish just a few screenshots with bar charts as benchmarks. Naturally, it’s nice at collating photographs taken in a particular location when location is turned on. But Windows Search doesn’t seem to supply that very same functionality, nor does File Explorer.

Granted, I’m somewhat leery of providing yet one more tech conglomerate entry to my information, alongside Microsoft, Google, and some extra. But right here, Samsung a minimum of understands the inherent tradeoff; make an app or perform handy to make use of, and customers will take benefit. In that, Quick Search is a winner.