Top 5 lessons from living in a fully Samsung ecosystem

Thanks to Intel and Samsung I experienced Christmas in July.?I’m a geek, so getting a new smartphone or PC is always a treat. But I don’t think I’ve ever had the chance to update all my devices at once.?And by all, I mean all: PC, smartphone, tablet, smart watch and ear buds. This was my chance to experience the best Samsung has to offer and see how their devices work together.?What was it like?

My top takeaways:

1.?????Better hardware - on paper and in real experience. The Samsung devices are thinner, lighter, and the PC included the newest Wi-Fi 6e and Thunderbolt 4.?And they don’t make you give up battery life to get these advantages. They offer touch and the laptop and tablet both include a stylus (vs require you to buy one).?The Galaxy Book Pro 360 is the thinnest Intel Evo laptop design. (More on Evo here .)

It feels like you’re carrying a 13” laptop (it’s lighter than many) yet it has a roomy 15.6” screen that lets you work with two apps side by side using Microsoft Snap.?

This is a huge advantage when working remote without an external monitor.

Many people think of Macs as some of the best devices, so here’s how the Samsung laptop stacks up.?There’s no perfect Mac to compare with, so I chose the 16” Pro which has a slightly larger screen but has been around for a while, and the newest Macbook which is the 13” Pro.

Simply put, the Galaxy Book Pro 360 offers more of the things I care about.

I won’t compare all the other Samsung devices, but as someone who has spent many years working in the smartphone market the camera system in the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra Max is amazing.?It offers 10x optical zoom (compared to the Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max’s 2.5x). It’s like having binoculars built into your smartphone.?I often use it to spot things in the distance. ?Here’s a test from my morning run:

2.?????Gorgeous screens.?I broke this out from the hardware section because the AMOLED screens are that special. You use the display on your device all the time compared to features like the camera or stylus you only use part of the time.?Watching Netflix, editing photos in Lightroom, or video conferencing on Teams is just better.?If you moved from an LCD TV to an OLED TV you know what I am talking about – there’s no going back.?There’s lots of speculation in the tech press about when another PC manufacturer will move from LCD to mini-LED displays.?All these Samsung devices already have AMOLED which is better.

3.?????Software that connects your devices.?The laptop, tablet and phone come with an app called Samsung Flow.?It allows you to share files and messages across all these devices.?There’s no more emailing a photo to yourself from your phone and opening it on the PC (or needing to use a cloud or thumb drive).?Messages sent to your phone on various apps (e.g., Google Messages, WhatsApp) show up on all your devices and you can reply from whichever you are using at the time.?

This lets you use your PC interrupted, reply to phone messages with a real keyboard, and stay in the flow of what you were doing.

4.?????USB-C everywhere.?This is also hardware, but it’s worth calling out.?My days of proprietary cables are over. When all your devices use USB-C all your chargers and all your cables work together. I have a couple GaN chargers and USB-C cables that let me charge all my devices.?This is a huge convenience, especially when travelling. ?And the laptop has Thunderbolt 4 which allows you to connect multiple 4K monitors.

5.?????Open ecosystem. ?This may or may not matter to you, but it does to me.?I want to be able to install apps from any developer.?

App stores are convenient, but please don’t limit my options assuming I don’t know what I’m doing.?

I also want to be able to use hardware from any company – if I want to use an external SSD drive I know this will work on a system with Windows and Intel inside. ?And I feel confident that Microsoft and Intel remain committed to an open approach.?I look at my device purchases as an investment and don’t want them getting locked down after I’ve made my purchase.?

A fair question if you’ve read this far is: what are the downsides of being in the Samsung ecosystem??There are always tradeoffs.?The main is that you are using interfaces from Android and Windows on the tablet and PC.?If you haven’t used both these OSs there is a learning curve.?They are designed by different companies with different user interfaces. (This will get better in Windows 11 thanks to Intel Bridge Technology .) To me, as a loyal Android user, this was not an issue.?It would be a much bigger issue to have to give up a touch screen and stylus on my laptop now that I'm used to them.

And now for some caveats: the above is based on my experience.?I’m not a reviewer, I’m not an engineer. I have personal experience working with Apple, Microsoft, and Samsung and work at Intel today.?I’ve bought lots of Macs and iPhones and iPads.?I’ve owned lots of Galaxy Notes and Tabs. And I’ve built and bought lots of PCs.?Is the above based on a mix of facts and opinion??You bet, and I’d love to hear your opinions too.??