If that's the case, you'll need an HDMI adapter to connect the screen to your dock - yet another thing you might have to buy. (You could also link up a Bluetooth speaker if you have one of those handy.) And while we're talking about monitors, there's a decent chance the spare displays in your home use VGA or DVI connections. Here's hoping the monitor you connect to the DeX dock has built-in speakers or a headphone jack of its own. Audio is routed through the S8's speaker by default, which gets the job done, but anyone planning to spend a lot of time in front of a DeX desktop will want something better. Just remember to pair them before you dock - otherwise you'll be stuck with a pretty desktop and no way to use it.įor most, the biggest omission is a headphone jack, because the phone's speaker is blocked when docked. You can connect a wired keyboard and mouse, but the more elegant solution is to use a pair of Bluetooth ones. There's the DeX dock ($150) to start, which has most of the requisite connections - an HDMI-out port, an ethernet jack and two full-size USB ports. If you want to turn the S8 or S8 Plus into a PC, you're going to need a bunch of extra parts. Unfortunately, as impressive as DeX can be, the answer for most people is a big ol' "no." The real question now isn't about how feasible the idea is, it's whether anyone should bother. And yet, here we are - the Galaxy S8 doubles as a surprisingly respectable PC. Just look at Motorola's Atrix or Microsoft's Continuum or any of the startups languishing on Kickstarter. After all, this isn't a new idea.Ĭompanies have tried - and mostly failed - to make smartphones work like PCs for years now. In fact, the me from three or four years ago would've done the same. Ten-year-old me would be losing it if he saw this. The kicker: It's far better than I dared expect. I'm writing this on a Galaxy S8 Plus - a metal-and-glass slab I just pulled out of my pocket - connected to a monitor, keyboard and mouse with Samsung's new DeX dock. The decade and change that followed brought staggering leaps in performance and huge reductions in size. It was ugly and slow, even by 1998 standards, but it (somehow) got the job done. My family's first computer was a boxy, squat Tatung with an AMD K2, a handful of RAM and a 4GB hard drive.
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