With devices like Microsoft’s Surface Tablet the idea of having one mobile device you can run your whole life through is now a thing. But I was impressed today reading about something a lot of people probably didn’t know. With Samsung DeX dock, you can take advantage of some awesome advances in hardware to essentially turn your smartphone into a desktop PC.
The Samsung DeX utilizes this port while cradling your phone, turning your USB-C port into a hybrid connection that can go to a keyboard, mouse, and monitor. The experience at that point is pretty similar to using a desktop PC. As you can see in the screenshots from their site, Android even formats the screen on an external monitor to look more like a desktop experience.
By Maurizio Pesce from Milan, Italia – Samsung’s S8 DeX dock, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61899016
USB-C 1.1 is reportedly capable of carrying 15W of power (compared to USB 2.0’s 2.5W) as well as 10Gbps of data. That’s certainly enough bandwidth to cover several devices at once through a single port, and pretty well future proofed.
Relatedly, what other things can Android phone with USB-C use?
The short answer is pretty much any USB-enabled device. Things like USB-powered fans and lights mostly work, people report. Probably more importantly, you can use a wide variety of external storage drives and flash drives, which your Android phone will see as such and allow you to browse, open, or copy files.
I’ve even personally used a Blue Yeti mic with my Android phone by attaching the phone’s included USB-A to USB-C adapter. This basically changed the Yeti’s cable so that it had it’s default mini-USB port on one end that goes into the mic, but the other end of the cable that normally has a full size USB plug was now USB-C and could be inserted into my phone.
Having used bluetooth keyboards with my phone in the past, I can affirm that it indeed made typing at length far more comfortable. Imagining having a large external screen as well?
Cool batch of tech.
Brian C. Watkins is a writer, SEO strategist, photographer, and YouTuber who’s spent nearly two decades helping businesses grow through better words and clearer ideas. His work lives at the intersection of creative instinct and technical precision, shaped early on by a childhood split between IT-heavy surroundings and a love for writing and visual storytelling. Today, he writes about clarity, discipline, and doing work that actually matters.