Samsung delivered quite a knockout punch with the Galaxy Z Fold 7, after years of playing catch-up with the competition. It’s thinner, lighter, faster, and a lot more capable in the imaging department. I feel it’s the foldable phone Samsung has always dreamed of making.
But it’s still a phone, and paying $2,000 for one is not a straightforward decision. Yet, for the folks who’ve mustered the courage (and cash) to get one, they’re probably not getting the best out of it.
You see, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is a productivity powerhouse. It’s almost like having a desktop in your pocket, ready to link with a large screen and transform into a computer. The secret sauce is DeX, which plays fine in wired and wireless modes.
So, what’s the whole deal?
Samsung has been offering DeX for years with its phones and tablets. In a nutshell, it’s a built-in environment that makes One UI look like a desktop platform when opened on a large screen, like a 32-inch 120Hz gaming monitor, in my case.
There’s no complex setup required. No app installs are part of the flow. It’s just plug and play, and Bluetooth pairing with a wireless keyboard and mouse. You can skip the mouse and turn the phone’s screen(s) into a giant touchpad, if you’re enamoured by the idea.
What I love the most about DeX is that it works entirely in your phone’s environment, which means you get seamless access to all your apps and files. The app windows are freely resizable, and there’s plenty of dexterity available with aspects like setting up mouse key behavior, scrolling speed, direction, and more.
How I make DeX work for me?
As you can see in the images above (and below), I launched into Workspace and communication apps like Slack and Teams, without struggling for screen real estate. And oh, there are preset tiling controls available for docking the app windows, just like iPadOS 26.
It feels like a computer, almost!
You can cram four evenly-sized app windows on the external screen, but I prefer to keep things a tad less chaotic and go with a 3:1 approach for running three app windows in the foreground. Also, just like Stage Manager on iPads, you pick between mirroring the screen or using a monitor as an extended display.
I usually keep the phone’s screen shut to avoid distractions, but if there’s something that needs my constant attention, like an incoming food delivery or match score updates, I keep the phone’s screen on, right underneath the monitor. Or, simply as a dedicated screen for music playback control, while raging beats are blasting into my ear via earbuds.
There are a few scenarios where a certain app won’t play well in extended screen mode, producing thick black bars on the connected monitor. This mostly happens with native Android games and even emulated titles.
Instead of digging into the Settings or the Good Lock module, I simply switch to mirroring mode and get a wide-screen view of the game UI with much smaller letterboxing alongside the top and bottom edges of the screen. And yeah, controllers like the Backbone Pro work fine if you intend to grind your soul in Devil May Cry and Diablo: Immortal.
DeX on the Galaxy Z Fold is more than just an emergency make-shift computer. It is legitimately convenient for getting serious work done, in the same vein as ChromeOS. Plus, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy SoC powering the phone can even handle short 4K video edits and demanding games with ease.
For my web-based workflow, DeX worked fine. I often had to switch the website to desktop mode, but things worked out in the end. It’s just like pushing an iPad as a workhorse, with its unique set of caveats tied to a mobile ecosystem fleshing out on a large screen.
What I appreciate the most is that the same setup that is powering my work, is also giving me convenient access to all the app notifications, messages, and calls without having to go through any hoops. With a single click in the bottom-right corner, I can take a peek at it all.
A dream for content creation
I handle the social media accounts of my sister, who is a fashion designer and runs her online business. For a bootstrapped upstart, it’s imperative that we work on the social media strategy to get as many eyeballs as possible through short videos and visual-heavy posts.
The biggest pain point, of course, is the constant struggle to move video clips and pictures from one device to another. I prefer capturing the media on my phone, but I eventually have to transfer it to an iPad or Mac for editing. Essentially, I need a larger screen more than desktop editing software.
With DeX on the Galaxy Z Fold 7, I could simply connect the phone to a monitor and start working using a mouse and keyboard. Since all the captured media, including portrait videos captured by the 200-megapixel front camera are stored on the phone, I can directly access them on the monitor.
From there, I simply have to launch mobile editing apps such as LightCut, VN, or Instagram Edits and get the video ready for posting on social media. Everything is as low-effort and seamless as possible. There’s no hassle of dealing with storage peripherals either. A $20 dongle bought off Amazon handles the HDMI, charging, and peripheral connection via USB-C cable.
More importantly, the extra screen real estate offered by the monitor makes timeline adjustments a lot less frustrating than struggling with it on a phone’s cramped screen. But it’s not just editing that’s easier with DeX, but also posting content.
You see, not every social media platform plays well on a desktop platform, or even a tablet. I am also not a huge fan of the third-party content management dashboards. With DeX, I can open Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and X simultaneously and post the video in a mobile native environment.
Another crucial benefit is that I don’t have to struggle with color disparity. I’ve often run into a scenario where a video color-corrected on an LCD screen looks different when seen on a phone’s OLED panel. To avoid that conundrum, I switch between opening the video editor on the phone’s 8-inch inner display and the monitor to check if everything looks fine.
The best part is that DeX doesn’t struggle with any of it. I was driving an ultrawide 2K monitor, and never ran into hiccups where I felt like switching to a real computer. Even for brainstorming, apps like NotebookLM work perfectly fine, and I keep them open on the phone’s inner foldable screen for quick reference, right below the monitor.
In a nutshell, if you’ve made up your mind to invest in the Galaxy Z Fold 7, I highly recommend that you push DeX on it. If not for work, just take the wireless route and enjoy some smashing action in video games. Trust me, this phone can handle it all, even those classic emulated titles that have been eating digital dust in your library!
