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The Galaxy S25 Ultra could beat the iPhone 16 Pro Max with Samsung’s most underrated feature

Online Niel November 9, 2024

For the past month, I’ve been trying to lighten the load in my backpack by trying to condense what I absolutely need to bring with me to work. One of the worst offenders was my laptop, which at £3 is still taxing my back. That’s why I ditched my laptop for the Galaxy Z Fold 6 for 2 weeksjust to see if i could pay with a phone for all my work related tasks.

With Galaxy S25 Ultra slated for an early 2025 release, it more than likely will be Samsung DeX stand to meet my need as a laptop replacement. While this has been a long-standing feature of Samsung’s flagship series, it desperately needs to be exploited more than ever if the Galaxy S25 Ultra has any chance of beating the best phone there, in iPhone 16 Pro Max.

I fully understand that Samsung is probably playing us Galaxy AI features to get people to get the Galaxy S25 Ultra, but Samsung DeX has been flying under the radar for a long time and deserves a review. I think it’s the key to saving the Galaxy S25 Ultra.

Bridging the phone-laptop gap

Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra DeX upgrade feature.

(Image credit: Future)

It pains me to know that Samsung DeX was first released in 2017 with the release of Galaxy S8. Since then, new features have been added to the desktop PC interface here and there, but it has become obsolete over the past three years.

The Galaxy S25 Ultra could be the perfect opportunity for Samsung to revamp the experience, as DeX is one of the few services that fills that gap between laptops and phones. This concept of a phone offering a desktop PC-like experience has been around for a long time, but most people don’t realize that Samsung DeX works on touchscreens.

I logged in Galaxy S24 Ultra and Galaxy Z Fold 6 to an old portable monitor I laid out, and to my surprise the interface offers touch interaction – so it feels and behaves very much like a tablet. From a productivity standpoint, this ability to rely on touch controls makes DeX even more valuable in my day-to-day tasks.

My point here is that people crave multi-functional devices, just as smartphones have integrated the functions of cameras, MP3 players and dedicated phones. Samsung DeX on the Galaxy S25 Ultra might be good enough to replace my laptop, but it will need more to get there.

More Air Gesture support with S Pen

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra S Pen.

(Image credit: Future)

Another component of Samsung DeX that needs improvement is the S Pen’s Air Gestures. So far, none of the leaked renders of the Galaxy S24 Ultra feature the S Pen, but I suspect we’ll still get it with the S25 Ultra.

Even though the S Pen is primarily a pressure-sensitive stylus for the rich paper meets pen experience, I wish Samsung would make it the key component for interacting with DeX. I want to think of it in the same way that Apple’s Vision Pro relies on hand gestures to navigate its interface, so the S Pen could do the same for DeX.

In the current version of Samsung DeX, I mostly use a physical mouse connected to the phone to navigate the interface, but I wish Samsung would somehow incorporate even more support for gestures with the S Pen. For example, I’d like to see the S Pen act more like a mouse cursor in DeX — as well as providing functions that could perform pinch and scroll gestures by yanking the S Pen into the air.

Samsung cannot afford to overlook DeX again

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 laptop replacement.

(Image credit: Future)

Just with any major phone launch, I’m always hopeful that there isn’t a price hike – which could be true for the S25 Ultra given how the S24 Ultra got one last year. Either way, Samsung can’t afford to throw DeX under the table again without major improvements. The iPhone 16 Pro Max has nothing close to that, which is why it’s imperative that DeX gets the proper upgrade it deserves.

I just recently learned from my colleague Mac Mini M4 Review that you can connect it to a portable monitor touchscreen mount. Imagine if the iPhone 17 Pro Max could do the same? Samsung cannot neglect the utility that DeX provides, so it needs to take it to the next level and prove that the interface can be intuitive and more functional with the Galaxy S25 Ultra.

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The Galaxy S25 Ultra could beat the iPhone 16 Pro Max with Samsung’s most underrated feature

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