Is it way different than using an iPad with an external monitor, keyboard, mouse, disk, midi controller, etc...? Is the key distinction that it's on a phone rather than a tablet?
Yes in the sense that it gives you a mouse/keyboard windowed experience instead of a touch-optimized one with a mouse cursor.
You also still get to use the phone/tablet at the same time while it's driving the desktop.
Of course you're still using Android apps, just inside of resizable, movable windows, and not all apps behave well or work as well with mouse/keyboard as you might like.
But you can install linux shells, remote desktop apps, etc, and basically just use it as a thin-client.
There's also a way you can use Dex inside of a window on Windows and it let you drive your phone without actually touching it or doing some weird remote access stuff to your phone.
Dex is kind of a hidden gem of the Samsung devices. Once you hook up a dock with some I/O it's basically just turns your Android device into a desktop computer.
In terms of hardware, yes. In terms of software, no. Last time I tried that with an iPad you did not get a true windowed DE. It was okay if you wanted one big app and one sidebar app and a lot of context switching.
oh nice. Hopefully a few iterations from now it'll be really good. I just chose a Surface as my personal laptop last year because of this making ipad less than a perfect all-rounder.
Dex gives you a "proper" multi-window desktop with things like a start button, task bar, system bar, etc. It's very different to the iPad experience when the iPad is connected to a display and peripherals and much better.
You also still get to use the phone/tablet at the same time while it's driving the desktop.
Of course you're still using Android apps, just inside of resizable, movable windows, and not all apps behave well or work as well with mouse/keyboard as you might like.
But you can install linux shells, remote desktop apps, etc, and basically just use it as a thin-client.
There's also a way you can use Dex inside of a window on Windows and it let you drive your phone without actually touching it or doing some weird remote access stuff to your phone.
Dex is kind of a hidden gem of the Samsung devices. Once you hook up a dock with some I/O it's basically just turns your Android device into a desktop computer.
https://youtu.be/0FfH51xgQDU