Have you ever bought a PC not due to the {hardware}, however due to the software program? No, not Windows — the apps. Samsung is totally 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 could possibly purchase a Samsung Galaxy Book3, a Galaxy Tab pill, and a Galaxy S23 telephone. Why would you? Because Samsung provides 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 desires 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 might do one thing related? (We’d need to go method 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 better than the sum of its elements.

It is. In reality, it’s, to an virtually ludicrous excessive. If there’s a phrase for what Samsung desires 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 through which it generally 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 must be Samsung’s final aim.

Creating your “Galaxy” of gadgets

Willis Lai

For this check, I used a Samsung Galaxy Book Book3 Pro 360, provided 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 instances, your gadgets will should be linked to the identical Wi-Fi community, however you’ll additionally want to join a Samsung account in the event you haven’t already. This isn’t that totally different than authenticating your self on another machine, however Samsung makes use of the account title 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 method to join your Galaxy Book laptop computer to the Galaxy Tab pill is thru an utility referred to 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 strange show, along with your solely determination being to optimize it for a slower, smoother connection or a model optimized for video. While you could have the choice of turning off the Tab’s enter (keyboard, contact, and many others.), leaving it on is helpful and really useful.

Mark Hachman / IDG

While video transmission doesn’t appear to be excellent (there have been some dropped frames, even optimized) this is a superb method to chill out with a pill on a airplane or practice after which use the Tab as a further 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 through your Galaxy Book: Samsung additionally provides a Windows app referred to as Samsung Multi Control, which lets you deal with your pill and telephone(s) as screens you can management along 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 may truly “mouse over” to your telephone — sure, your mouse cursor seems in your telephone display screen, and you’ll work together with it, too. You may also copy and paste knowledge out of your telephone/pill to your PC, and/or use your PC keyboard to kind into your telephone or pill.

Mark Hachman / IDG

Here, the benefit is that Multi Control replaces the great quaint sneakernet as a useful resolution to the “I just took a photo with my phone, now what?” query. There are loads of potential solutions: emailing the photograph or doc to your self, importing it to the cloud, and extra. But with the ability to mouse straight your telephone’s Gallery app, copy a photograph, after which drag it right into a PowerPoint presentation or design doc provides an immediacy that different strategies don’t. I’ve used this myself after taking pictures a fast photograph for a assessment or function article.

Mirror your telephone or pill along with your Galaxy Book: This is the place Samsung’s app ecosystem will get a little bit 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 machine 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 too can ship recordsdata to your telephone with a secondary interface.

Mark Hachman / IDG

It’s a little bit 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 among the solely direct methods Samsung provides to drop recordsdata in your telephone.

Send recordsdata out of your Book to your telephone and again: Flow provides a method to do that. If transferring 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 provides one other. Simply choose a tool, open up File Explorer, and choose which recordsdata you need to switch to a buddy or contact. The solely catch is that, with Quick Share, the 2 gadgets should be linked and their display screen should be on. (Google has finally released a similar Windows app, called Nearby Share, which traverses your complete Android ecosystem.) Secure Share works equally, solely you may add an expiration date to the file — like many cloud storage companies already do.

But wait, there’s extra!

Manage your telephone or pill along with your Galaxy Book: At this level, the quantity of sharing and management choices Samsung provides borders is already a little bit foolish. (We’re additionally working 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 known as Link to Windows in your telephone) has been a staple of Windows for a number of years, and provides an organized, clear interface for managing your telephone’s notifications, sending and receiving texts, and even inserting calls on the telephone, out of your PC. You may even view your telephone’s residence 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 great tool.

Control your property out of your PC: Samsung’s Book laptops additionally embody a SmartThings app, to manage your varied (Samsung-branded!) good home equipment, which is sort of one other complete ecosystem in itself.

More area of interest companion apps

Is that all the Samsung apps that ship with Galaxy gadgets? Not by a protracted shot.

Samsung contains Clip Studio Paint, for instance, which might 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 — in the event you shoot photographs with a Galaxy telephone that helps the RAW picture format, just like the S23 Ultra, you’ll have the useful 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 numerous extra conventional items of bloatware; apps that both reproduce current Windows capabilities, or comparatively ineffective content material. (TV Studio Plus is a group 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 certainly one of PCWorld’s recommended webcams when you have a telephone, anyway?) A Samsung clock app might probably tie into the Galaxy Watch, recommending temporary 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, develop upon it, and hopefully carry all this performance within a lot fewer apps, and also you’ll have that many extra causes to purchase every part from Samsung.