Android 15 beta has an optional desktop mode

bro the lack of Dex on my Pixel feels embarrassing for google.

I believe so.

Like Samsung dex?

No, if the state shown in the video somewhat matches the final release, it's not going to be a competitor to DeX anytime soon.

i'm doing school on a samsung tablet and a lot of stuff just works nicer with a bluetooth keyboard and mouse in dex especially web based tests.

So i tend to read and do forum posts with it as a tablet and then for online classes and tests i pull out the keyboard and mouse.

I use it a lot, I keep a little dock with me and a small bluetooth mouse and keyboard, when I'm typing on the go, I can just plug in when I come home and everything is there.

exact same thing with my emulators. I can also chroot into arch and get a full blown desktop environment if needed

I think the vision was what Motorola delivered briefly a decade ago with webtop. The original version of it was a chrooted lubuntu with full access to apt, and custom applications that let you render your phone, or phone apps as an application. It was powerful enough to get me through my first 3 years of a computer science program in college with a lapdock as my primary "computer". (Think a brainless laptop, that you dock your phone into)

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/03/motorola-atrix-the-ubuntu-powered-webtop-experience/

When they moved from android 2.3 to 4.0, they dropped the lubuntu webtop in favor of Android's tablet mode, which was a huge bummer, and what made me get an actual laptop. Outside of gaming, if that were the average computer paradigm today I'd be a happy camper. Why buy two computers when you can buy one instead?

I'm honestly surprised this feature is still around. Don't get me wrong, I love that it's available when I get the chance to use it, but it's so rarely, I question whether the development effort necessary to keep it going is really worth it.

Edit: completely forgot the value Dex has for Samsung tablets. Happy that they make this feature available on phones too.

because they are powerful. Maybe your phone is slow. My phone can run games at 144fps and does not need to have active cooler, but PC runs at 60C and needs active cooling for a simple YouTube video

it should, AOSP external desktop mode does work with 3rd party launchers, and you can even kinda get it working on samsung, but it was a massive hassle getting it to work for me.

how about fucking finally

This has been a thing for a long time

Yeah, duh. The story is about it no longer being hidden and requiring activation: "Android 10 gained a hidden desktop mode in its developer features, but it wasn't easy to find."