Samsung Launches 6 Galaxy Tablets, Smartphones, VMware Adds Dual Mode DeX

Samsung just launched six Galaxy tablets and smartphones, but what it didn’t announce might be more compelling to many B2B partners. The company has worked behind the scenes to enable its premium devices to replace PCs as users’ everyday computing devices.

The Galaxy Tab 8 tablets and S22 phones, introduced Wednesday at Samsung’s Unpacked event, will start shipping Feb 25. As usual when companies launch computing and communications devices, Samsung showcased the latest speeds and feeds: better camera, faster processor and improved networking (all have Wi-Fi 6E and optional 5G and LTE). Major wireless network operators, including AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, announced promotional offers for the new devices.

Device Specs

Indeed, Samsung’s new phones and tablets will appeal to anyone looking for the newest technology. At the high end, the Samsung Tab S8 Ultra tablet features a large 14.6-inch 2960 x 1848 (WQXGA+) display. It has a starting price of $1,099. The smallest in that line with an 11-inch display will start at $699.

The premium Galaxy S22 Ultra smartphone will include the Samsung S Pen, providing all the capabilities of the Samsung Galaxy Note. For those with more modest requirements is new Samsung Galaxy S22 and S22+.

But partners that provide desktop services could find that Galaxy Tab 8 tablets could replace or extend PCs. It remains to be seen if and to what extent that resonates with commercial customers. Looking to make that more feasible, Samsung once again has made improvements to DeX.

Samsung DeX is a feature it introduced in 2017 that lets select Galaxy phones connect to desktop displays and peripherals. By running VDI solutions from Citrix and VMware, Samsung’s premium Galaxy phones and tablets can work as thin client desktops. More recent DeX releases provide native Windows connections, letting users extend Galaxy devices to PCs desktops via USB or wireless.

Partnership with VMware

But Samsung didn’t mention during the virtual event that it partnered with VMware to enable DeX extend across two displays. The new DeX Dual Mode now works in VMware Horizon VDI and Workspace One secured, digital desktop environments.

Users have complained that Samsung DeX doesn’t let them extend the DeX environment across the two displays. Samsung was aware of this but was unable to fix it on its own because of limitations in Android, according to Ray Couey, national director of strategic alliances at Samsung Electronics America.

Couey said that Samsung worked with VMware to address that shortcoming by creating Dual Mode DeX.

“Even though the Android OS can’t tie them together, an application can exist on both screens and the cloud,” he said. “VMware has stitched the two screens together to act like a single environment.”

VMware is the first to create the Dual Mode feature for DeX, Couey said. Asked if Samsung is working with others such as Citrix on this, he didn’t say. But it is safe to expect that Citrix and other VDI players will provide it if there is demand.

Samsung’s Ray Couey

Although Samsung hasn’t announced it yet, VMware last week shared information on the Dual Mode capability. Director of strategic technology partnerships Soon Kon Kim described demand for Dual Mode as one of the most widely requested capabilities among DeX users.

“VMware utilized Samsung’s DeX Dual Mode function to add support for extended display virtualization, and DeX APIs to provide full mouse and keyboard compatibility across both screens,” Kim noted in VMware’s End User Computing blog. “Galaxy device users get seamless access to virtual desktops across screens and can manage applications on each of them from a single device.”

Among other things, VMware Horizon and Workspace One customers can use DeX in those environments to run other services. For instance, Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop, which can run in VMware Horizon and Workspace One, can operate on the Samsung Galaxy devices with DeX.

Besides the new Galaxy devices, the Dual Mode feature will work with any of the earlier phones and tablets that support DeX.