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The Galaxy Tab S7 FE lives in the shadow of the more powerful flagship Galaxy Tab S8 series, but I recently found the Fan Edition tablet with a deep Easter-themed discount, so I picked one up. I haven’t had a chance to test it too much over the weekend, but there is one thing I need to get rid of regarding the performance and stability of Samsung DeX on Monitor.
As some of you know, I started using Samsung’s desktop environment called “DeX” as my exclusive workstation a few months ago. My journey as a DeX user started on the Galaxy Note 10, and I upgraded to the Galaxy S22+ shortly after.
I’ve been using the Galaxy S22+ in DeX mode as a PC replacement for over a month, and so far my experience has been mixed. I’ve come to love DeX for what it is, but performance and stability are all over the place. And I could never be sure if the cause of these performance and stability issues was the Galaxy S22+ or something else related to my setup. Until now.
With the Galaxy Tab S7 FE 5G coming in the mail (and my Note 10 gone), I got another chance to run DeX on another Samsung device and compare it to the Galaxy S22+. My expectations were low due to the tablet’s mid-range Snapdragon 750G chipset hidden under the hood and the low amount of RAM (4GB). Boy, was I cheated!
The Galaxy Tab S7 FE caught me off guard and exceeded my expectations. More so, it really made me doubt the viability of the Galaxy S22+ as a portable DeX machine.
Galaxy Tab S7 FE supports ultra-wide resolution in DeX on Monitor via third-party hub, S22+ does not
If you’re using Samsung DeX on Monitor by connecting your Galaxy smartphone to an external display via an HDMI hub, you’re probably aware of the usual restrictions. Mainly, DeX doesn’t support ultra-wide resolutions if you’re not using an official DeX hub. If you’re running DeX with a third-party hub on an ultra-wide monitor, you’re stuck with a wide resolution.
I had to buy a third-party hub when I started using DeX because Samsung no longer makes the official DeX Hub and DeX Station. This limited my Note 10 (and later Galaxy S22+) in DeX on monitor to a wide resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels.
The Galaxy Tab S7 FE is a different beast. Imagine my surprise when I hooked up the 2021 Fan Edition tablet to the same DeX setup and third-party hub I’ve been using for the past two months, only to find that it can run DeX on an external monitor at ultrawide resolution (2560x 1080).
I’m afraid I don’t have an answer as to why the Galaxy Tab S7 FE can render ultrawide resolutions in DeX and the Galaxy S22+ cannot, given that the smartphone has a more powerful Exynos 2200 chipset .
But it’s something else that caught my eye: Samsung DeX on Monitor runs smoother and more stable on the Galaxy Tab S7 FE than my Galaxy S22+. Needless to say, the Fan Edition tablet shattered my DeX expectations, even though it has a midrange (8nm) Snapdragon 750G chipset and just 4GB of RAM.
To be fair, the experience isn’t ideal on the Galaxy Tab S7 FE either. It doesn’t load apps or web pages as quickly as the S22+. Apps don’t stay open in the background too long before falling asleep due to low memory, and web tabs usually reload on a re-visit. I optimized RAM Plus, but I can’t request more than 4GB from Samsung’s memory management app.
Still, even with those limitations imposed by 4GB of RAM, Samsung DeX on Monitor felt much more stable and responsive – or at least consistent and less choppy – on the Galaxy Tab S7 FE 5G compared to the S22+ throughout. of the day. This phenomenon stirs up a contradiction in my mind, as I am both pleasantly surprised by the tablet and disappointed by the 2022 flagship smartphone.
Samsung DeX crash on Galaxy S22+ seems to be an S22 issue
Display resolution issues aside, one of my other pet peeves using Samsung DeX on Monitor has to do with system stability. DeX on the Galaxy S22+ almost always looks like it’s about to crash on the desktop or start on the Android smartphone environment, because it often does.
Samsung DeX has fatal crashes on my Galaxy S22+ daily (one or more times), and apps often become unresponsive, even with RAM Plus maxed out. The Galaxy Note 10 didn’t exhibit this behavior and felt much more stable than the 2022 flagship. And playing devil’s advocate, I blamed these issues on my relatively inexpensive third-party DeX hub when I upgraded to S22+ and left the Note 10 behind.
But now that I’ve tried DeX to Monitor on the Galaxy Tab S7 FE using the same setup, it turns out that the Galaxy S22+ may have been the problem all along.
Despite the lower RAM and poorer chipset, the Galaxy Tab S7 FE running Samsung DeX on the monitor hasn’t crashed yet, the mouse cursor is more responsive and doesn’t freeze as much when I open dozens of Chrome web tabs at once, and the Chrome mobile app becomes unresponsive.
Snapdragon versus Exynos? Tablet versus phone? 8nm versus 4nm SoC? What could be the reason?
I don’t claim to have the answer as to why DeX on Monitor is so much more stable on the Galaxy Tab S7 FE than my Exynos-powered Galaxy S22+. It could be the chipset design or the new 4nm manufacturing process and ARM architecture, the latter of which can generate excessive heat. This discrepancy in system performance and stability could be explained by a different approach to memory management used by the smartphone or the DeX UI lacking some background blurring effects on the Galaxy Tab S7 FE running One UI 4.1.
Maybe the Galaxy Tab S7 FE handles DeX better and allows for ultrawide resolutions because it’s a tablet and has better heat dissipation capabilities than a Galaxy smartphone. Again, the Galaxy Note 10 never crashed in DeX while I was using it for a few weeks. It is definitely something worth considering.
Anyway, after just a day with the Galaxy Tab S7 FE in DeX mode, I now much prefer using it as a desktop replacement instead of the 2022 flagship phone. makes a big difference to me, and the increased system stability is liberating to say the least.
More importantly, I now know that the issues I had with (and only with) the Galaxy S22+ running DeX on Monitor were not related to my USB-HDMI hub or any of the accessories I use. . These issues may have been caused by the phone, and that’s a little disappointing considering I like most of the Galaxy S22+ experience.
Hopefully Samsung will continue to improve the S22 with future firmware updates and give DeX some much-needed attention. The Galaxy S22+ can certainly handle DeX given its superior app and webpage loading speeds, but stability is lacking, and it’s annoying that it doesn’t support ultrawide resolutions while the Galaxy Tab S7 FE does. Then again, the Exynos Galaxy S22+ runs pretty hot in DeX as is, and perhaps ultrawide resolution would push it over the limit.
Note: This article is about Samsung DeX on monitor rather than DeX running natively on the Galaxy Tab S7 FE without an external monitor.
Galaxy S22+ review | Galaxy Tab S7 FE review
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