Samsung’s new vision of DeX on tablets is a step in the right direction

The Galaxy Tab S11 series is the latest incarnation of Samsung’s flagship tablet, and it has some nice upgrades over the Tab S10 series it replaces. A lot of the new features come from One UI 8, which, among other things, reworks Samsung DeX and bases it on the Android 16 Desktop Mode from Google. Some of those changes are controversial, but I think that the new vision of Samsung DeX found in One UI 8 is a big step forward overall and makes Samsung’s tablets more productive than ever.

Since its introduction, DeX has always been a separate mode on your tablet. You’d start DeX with a quick settings toggle, and the desktop experience would begin. It felt like booting up a different operating system. My Tab S10 Plus, for instance, took almost seven seconds to transition into DeX mode and five seconds to switch back to the regular Android UI. One UI 8 does things differently. Starting with the Tab S11 and eventually all supported tablets when One UI 8 is available to them, DeX is now available with a simple swipe in the recent apps screen.

When you open the recent apps view, you’ll see the usual grid of open apps. However, to the right, a new DeX desktop is available by swiping in from the right side of the screen, as pictured above. Once you’re in a DeX desktop for the first time, you’ll see your home screen and can begin opening apps, which will default to opening in pop-up windows, which you can resize, snap to either side of the display, or open in full screen.

Unlike previous incarnations of DeX, there’s no waiting around for a different UI to load, and you can swap between them at any time without losing your progress. There are benefits to having the two experiences live side-by-side, like having your work apps open in DeX and your Spotify session over in the regular interface and swapping between them without any of your apps closing or reloading. You can even drag and drop apps between these two modes effortlessly.

This new version of DeX supports up to four desktop environments at once. It works in the same way as Windows’ virtual desktops, so you can organise apps together on four different DeX screens, plus the normal Android environment, and swap between them as needed.

In this form, DeX is finally the seamless multitasking experience it should be, without the need to wait around for things to load or worry about the apps you have open closing or restarting. It’s a big improvement that will make me more inclined to use DeX more often, but there are some downsides.

The biggest downside is that One UI 8 uses the standard One UI home screen when you’re using DeX, whereas the old DeX mode had a separate UI from the rest of the Android experience. That old design featured a Windows-style taskbar with an app drawer, search shortcut, and navigation buttons at the bottom of the screen. Those buttons allowed you to easily perform tasks like going back, going home, and viewing recent apps with your mouse. Likewise, the notifications and quick settings used a UI that was easier to navigate with a keyboard and mouse.

By ditching that for the standard Android UI, the new version of DeX makes the keyboard and mouse feel like an afterthought, which feels counterintuitive when Samsung sells a keyboard cover accessory for the new Tab S11 tablets. Using a mouse to try to click and drag from the edges of the screen to go home or back sounds like a nightmare.

In my opinion, Samsung should’ve left the old version of DeX where it was — behind a toggle in the quick settings. Having this new and easier-to-access version for 90% of what we do, while having the option to load up the more desktop experience when we need it, feels like a solution that would’ve kept everyone happy. Instead, you’ll need to connect to an external monitor whenever you want that older experience.

Drawbacks aside, I do think this new direction for Samsung DeX is a good one. The friction that existed in the previous version is gone, and the touch-friendly interface is better for 90% of what I do with my tablet. I’d even go as far as to say that the new version of DeX is better than any other multitasking mode I’ve seen on a tablet, Apple’s efforts in iPad OS 26 included. Time will tell if the older desktop experience is reintroduced in future updates, but whether it is or not, I have never felt more positive about Samsung DeX than I do today.

Do you see the changes to Samsung DeX as a good thing, or are you going to miss the old version? Let us know.