Every Samsung user needs this

Earlier this year, I completed my Samsung ecosystem with the Galaxy Book 4 Edge — and one of the things I liked most about the experience were the features Samsung added on top of Windows 11. In particular, all the deep integration offered with my Samsung phone.

After testing this new version of the Galaxy Connect myself, I couldn’t be happier with it.

Once you download Galaxy Connect on your PC, you will see four features in it: Continue on other device, Storage share, Multi control and Second screen. The first two are included with the initial Galaxy Connect download, while Multi Control and Second Screen require additional downloads to use.

Of the features Galaxy Connect brings to Windows, Multi Controls and Second Screen are by far my favorites. Multi Control is similar to Apple’s Universal Control. You can connect your Samsung phone or tablet and use it as a secondary monitor. The difference is that your phone will continue to show Android instead of mirroring Windows on the device. When you move your mouse from your main display, it will appear on the phone’s screen and let you control it with your mouse and keyboard as if they were connected directly to the phone.

There are so many things you can use it for, but I’ve narrowed it down to two things I do every day. I always listen to music while working, and instead of connecting my earbuds to my PC, I keep them connected to my Fold 7. I have YouTube Music and Telegram in split-screen, so I can control my music and send messages to my wife without any apps taking up space on my monitor. It’s a convenient way to use apps that are better on mobile. I prefer the Android version of Google Keep over the website, and now I can use my mouse and keyboard to quickly create notes, even when using the mobile app.

The second screen lets you use the Galaxy tablet as a wireless display for your Windows computer. This isn’t technically new (you’ve been able to do this via the Windows+K menu for years), but the Second Screen app fixes one of the biggest troubles with it: lag. When you connect to your tablet through this app, you’ll get a prompt on the computer that says, “Disconnect tablet Wi-Fi to reduce latency.” Clicking this disconnects the tablet from your Wi-Fi and connects directly to your PC, eliminating the lag issue that previously prevented me from using it. Now I can use my Galaxy Tab S10 Plus as a secondary monitor and use the S Pen with my PC without affecting latency.

The other two features are undoubtedly useful, but I don’t use them as often.

Storage Share, as the name suggests, lets you access all the files on your Samsung phone or tablet from File Explorer on your PC. If you want to access your photos or anything else stored on your device and can’t be bothered with messing with cables, this is a great solution. You can drag and drop files to a folder on your PC, or drag them directly to the app you need. The screenshots from my Fold 7 that were used earlier in this post were pulled directly from the phone’s storage into our site’s media library.

Continue on another device syncs your clipboard. One area where this has been useful is using two-factor authentication. I use the Google Authenticator app, which is not available on Windows. Usually, I have to manually enter my 2FA code after reading it from my phone screen. Now I can simply tap the code to copy it to my phone’s clipboard, then paste it into the corresponding field on my PC without waiting. It’s a small thing, but it can save a lot of time. If you use Samsung Internet, you can also sync tabs across your devices, but I prefer Chrome, so I haven’t tried it myself.

Things are not right. ARM-based PCs are left out, which is strange because my Galaxy Book 4 Edge is ARM-based and has all these features built-in. Similarly, some users whose computers do not have Intel network adapters report that Galaxy Connect does not work at all.

Aside from those pesky limitations, this is one of my favorite things Samsung has done in a long time. Multi controls and a second screen have made working from my desktop better than ever, especially now that I can use the same workflows that I have on my Galaxy Book.