Speaker 1: I ditched my MacBook for the day to see if the Galaxy S 24 Ultra and more specifically Samsung decks could replace my laptop with decks. You can transform a Samsung phone or tablet into a computer by connecting it to an external screen. I’m an Apple girl, so up until very recently I had no idea this feature even existed, and the first time I tried it, my mind was blown. I am shook. This really just looks like a regular computer, but it’s actually a [00:00:30] phone. That being said, I still wasn’t sure if it could do everything my laptop could do and I was on a mission to find out, so I said goodbye to my MacBook and worked from the S 24 Ultra for the day. Instead, it’s the beginning of the day. I am about to leave for the office and it feels so weird to just be bringing the S 24 Ultra and not my ginormous laptop.
Speaker 1: It’s also so nice to not have to bring this thing. It’s so heavy. This is so much lighter. Bye bestie. I’ll see you when I get home. [00:01:00] This is my normal monitor that I’d like to say I use, but honestly I just sit with the worst posture usually here with my laptop. So it’s probably really good that I’m using decks today for my back and then I have my Apple keyboard and mouse just things I already had at my desk and that’s kind of the beauty of Samsung decks. You can really just plug and play and start working. As I worked, I noticed so many little things about decks that impressed me like this. So I plugged the S 24 Ultra into [00:01:30] my monitor and I get this little four panel screen. At first I was like, what is this? It is a track pad, my friend.
Speaker 1: If you’re in a pinch, you can just control everything with this. How genius is that? And here’s another one, another one I love that you can still use your phone even as it’s acting as your computer on Samsung decks. So I can be editing this photo with Samsung Dex while simultaneously using the phone to do something totally different like checking out cnet.com. Long story [00:02:00] short, the more I used Dex, the more I realized it just makes so much sense. So I just had my weekly one-on-one with my manager, and before the meeting I was kind of nervous about not being able to bring my laptop, but with Dex, your phone is literally your computer. It totally collapses that gap between phone and computer. It makes so much sense. Had nothing to be nervous about. I think I’m not used to Dex yet, so it felt weird, but there’s nothing to be afraid of.
Speaker 1: But okay, [00:02:30] let’s get more into the nitty gritty of how well decks can actually handle all of my everyday tasks. Most of my days are spent testing products and scripting videos like this one you’re watching right now, and this was one of those days I was obviously testing decks. I was using Chrome to look up any questions I had and I was using Google Docs to organize all my thoughts and then I was using Slack and Zoom as well. Using these apps on decks was pretty similar to the experience of using them on my laptop, which is a good thing. [00:03:00] That being said, I did run into a few hiccups I wanted to share with you in case you’re thinking of trying Dex or if you’re a Dex expert, Dex expert, maybe you can answer some of my questions in the comments below. I’m a bookmarks bar enthusiast, so it pains me to say you can’t have one in Chrome on Dex.
Speaker 1: You can however, have one in the Samsung internet app and for that reason alone, I would switch over if I didn’t need to use Chrome to log into some of my work accounts. Copying links also looks different. [00:03:30] You can’t just highlight them in the search bar. As you can see, it disappears when I do that. You have to click it and then click this little button to copy it to your clipboard. Not that big of a deal at all Once you get used to it, I feel kind of silly saying it out loud, but there was a learning curve. Here is what my Dex Zoom setup looks like. This is a little bit wonky, but I think if I turn the phone, there we go. This is a better orientation. It’s probably not a bad idea to get something to prop [00:04:00] my phone up with so the camera is closer to my eye line as I’m taking Zoom calls. Do I look normal?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the camera’s just too low, but yeah, I mean it is a little low, but it’s not like a weird, not in a super weird way. You’re definitely not making eye contact with the camera, but I guess that’s something to note.
Speaker 1: Sending a chat message also takes up the whole screen, which is a little clunky and I couldn’t figure out how to see everyone on the call. Wait, let me see. I can only see [00:04:30] one of you at a time. I have no idea how to switch it to gallery mode on this, so I’m just seeing maybe include
Speaker 2: That in the
Speaker 1: Blog. Yeah, it’s being included in the vlog. If you know how to switch into gallery mode on Samsung decks, help a girl out, please let me know in the comments below. This version of Slack is pretty good, but I do miss having the little sidebar with all of my recent contacts so I can just start messaging someone really easily, even if I’m in another conversation. This is so niche and I dunno [00:05:00] if anyone else will care, but I miss being able to see who’s reacted to a message just by hovering over the reaction. I don’t think there’s any way to see who else has reacted to it on this version of Slack. Now, I wanted to point these things out to you for informational purposes, but I’m being very nitpicky here. These are all very minor things and I didn’t experience any major disturbances in my workflow while using these apps on Dex.
Speaker 1: So I would say that Dex works very well for [00:05:30] 90% of what I do every day, but that last 10% of the time I use two other applications, Adobe, Photoshop and Premier. And while those apps aren’t available on Adobe, Photoshop, express and Brush are. So I tried those and spoiler alert, I wasn’t as lucky here. Adobe Rush on Dex really does have so much potential. You can trim the clips really easily and pretty precisely. I was pleasantly surprised. You can kind of go frame by frame. You can also [00:06:00] trim a clip in the middle, but as you can see, rush keeps closing on me, which is so sad. So I am often using Photoshop just for very simple edits like this one from one of my past articles. I just used Photoshop to put these three photos side by side, have these little orders between them and some text.
Speaker 1: So very basic. Unfortunately I can’t use Photoshop Express for that kind of thing because there’s no option to put photos side by side like that, at least [00:06:30] from what I can tell. But even though I can’t use it for exactly what I do for work, I will say it’s kind of fun what you can do with it. You can put these fun little overlays on your photo. I would’ve eaten this type of thing up in middle school. You would’ve seen this all over my Facebook and maybe I’ll do it now. Maybe I’ll put one of these edits on my Instagram feed. Now, I don’t know if I should be saying this to Adobe or Samsung, probably both of you. Please make Photoshop and Premier available on Dex. [00:07:00] It would take already amazing products to the next level. That was my day with Dex. So let’s go back to the big question.
Speaker 1: Can the S 24 Ultra replace my laptop most of the time? Yes. It’s only that other 10% of the time when I need to be editing photo or video that it doesn’t replace my laptop. But I am still really impressed with what Dex can do and I will definitely be bringing the S 24 to the office on days where I’m just scripting and I don’t want to carry around a heavy bag or I’m meeting [00:07:30] up with friends after work and don’t want to be lugging my MacBook around San Francisco. Now I know that a day with Dex only scratches the surface of things. I’m sure I’ll keep discovering hiccups as well as other things I love about Dex. I’m also having an identity crisis. Like I told you, I’m an Apple girl, but I’m really impressed with what Samsung can do. And maybe I’ll switch. Never say never. Let me know in the comments below if you’ve tried Dex, and thank you so much for watching.
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