Samsung / Microsoft marketing vs reality. Best phone for Windows 10 users update?

[Gamely Lounges]

Hi all,

I'd love some help understanding the reality versus the hype for what Samsung and Microsoft announced a couple days ago during Samsung Unpacked 2020.

My specific area of focus is around the messaging and calling, and how my phone can connect to my Windows 10 pc and act seamlessly together. The ultimate example of how messaging and calling can work well together is with the Mac ecosystem: both calls and messages can be handled directly on your computer without having to pick up your phone.

I think there are some ways to do this today with Android and Windows 10 (I'm currently an iPhone user, looking to switch), but I have the impression that it can be quite hit or miss and that nothing is quite as rock-solid as the way iPhone and Mac work together.

The Samsung / MS / Unpacked announcements got me pretty excited about how Samsung / MS could become a bit like iPhone / Mac. But what is the reality?

Does DeX work differently on S series vs Note serises?
What features work on Note 20 and don't work on Note 10?
How does this compare to existing solutions like the MS "Your Phone" app experience?
In what ways does this change the landscape in understanding what is the "best phone for Windows 10 users"?

It would be great if @DanRubino, @ZacBowden or others from Windows Central (folks who have actually had multiple devices for testing) could put together some thoughts on the reality vs the hype of these announcements.

Regards,

 

[Gamely Lounges]

Here are some random thoughts.
As background, I just switched from an iPhone 7 to Samsung Note 20 Ultra about 1 month ago.

DeX vs Your Phone
So far, Your Phone seems to be pretty reliable and also seems to take a lot less resources.
My typical usage and intent is to have my phone connected to the computer for the sole purpose of messages and perhaps phone calls.
In reality, I haven't really figured out the phone calls part. I don't really need call dialing and answering and audio to go via my computer.
Messages have been working pretty well through Your Phone.
I really don't seem to need mirroring of my phone to my computer.
DeX, when mirroring its screen onto my computer, seems to eat up a ton of resources and get my fans spinning loudly and a LOT.
Even when NOT mirroring I also seem to get lots of fan noise.
Your Phone App, on the other hand, seems to use a lot less resources.
Because it uses less resources and because I haven't found a burning need for the screen mirroring, I have been using Your Phone App instead of DeX.

The one place I started to think DeX might be great was ... gaming.

For anyone out there who is trying to figure out if DeX is amazing and if they should get the Samsung $$$ devices so they can use DeX, I'd say you can and should consider the Your Phone App and see if that meets your needs well enough. I think I could easily have been just as happy with a Pixel 4A for very little money and use Your Phone App. I also haven't jumped into the Samsung Notes syncing to MS OneNote yet. I was drinking a bit too much of the Microsoft + Samsung partnership and integration because that sounded like its going to be very helpful. And perhaps we will see that improve significantly in the future. In the present, however, there doesn't seem to be much substance to that marketing pitch.

In short: how great would it be to use your phone as your game console, but have the audio/video signal be delivered to your big screen monitor or tv?!?

I did give this a go. I used a cable to connect from my phone USB C to HDMI TV. I set the Xbox Game Pass App to go full screen. Connected my xbox controller via bluetooth. Got the app to display full screen.

(And some non-xbox games, by the way, seem to play pretty well in this mode. Crossy Road was a pretty good experience).

My experience was that there was way too much lag and stuttering in the picture on the TV to be enjoyable. The 2 games I tried a little bit were Forza 4 and Gears.
I wonder if perhaps something like Sea of Thieves might be more acceptable. I'll probably give it another go.

If they can somehow optimize the latency this would be killer. You could have great gaming wherever you have your phone, and you could even have great big-screen gaming experience.

Gamely Lounges

 

[NMCynthia]

I use Your Phone on my Google Pixel 2 and my Surface computers. It works well with my old Surface Pro 3 and Surface Go, syncing Messages and Photos. My SP3 crashed, and I just got a SP7 set up, and for some reason can't get the Photos on my phone to sync with Your Phone. Messages works great! I tried to make a phone call on my computer a couple of times, and it didn't work that great. I think that it's probably because even though I'm supposed to have high speed internet, I really don't.