The Galaxy S26 Ultra is Actually a Powerful Desktop PC!

The allnew Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra isn't just a phone. This is packing enough power to be a full-fledged desktop PC. And in this video, we're going to be taking a look at exactly what this thing can do. From work to native Android gaming, retro emulation, and even Steam game emulation inside of Dex on the Galaxy S26 Ultra. If you're not familiar with Samsung Dex, uh most of the S devices do contain this feature. And basically what you can do is plug this into a USB type-C to HDMI adapter or even use it wirelessly to a Windows PC. And with this, we can also use the phone screen as a touchpad in case you don't have a keyboard and mouse. But with this setup here, I've got a Bluetooth keyboard, a Bluetooth mouse, and even a controller because I will be doing some gaming on this for sure. And before we jump into the testing, I did want to give you a quick rundown on the specs here because a lot has changed from the Galaxy S25 or the 25 Ultra. For the CPU, they opted to use the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. And on the channel, I've been testing this chip out for about a month and a half in the Red Magic 11 Pro. But this does have a bit of a higher clock. It's an octaore ARM SoC, and we've got two Orion V3 Phoenix large cores up to 4.74 GHz, which is crazy for a mobile device. We've also got six Orion V3 Fenix medium cores at 3.62 GHz. It's got the Adreno 840 GPU and this will clock up to 1200 MHz. I've got the 12 GB version of this with 256 GB of internal storage or even go up to the version with 1 TB of storage and that'll give you 16 gigs of RAM, but I don't want to spend that much. I got the lowest end version and it works just fine for me. And of course, there's a lot more that goes into this device like the screen, cameras, and everything like that. I will have a full video checking it out just like it is. But I wanted to go into Dex mode here and turn this into a full-fledged PC. So, let's go ahead and move over there now. And once we have Dex enabled, it's going to look something like this. And yes, you can use the built-in touchscreen on the phone's display if you want to, but a mouse and keyboard is just going to make it a lot easier. And as you can see, it's a full-blown desktop operating system. If you've used anything from Mac to Windows or Linux, you should be able to navigate this really easily. And right down here in the lower lefthand corner, we've basically got our Android controls. So, we've got our back button. We've also got our home. And we've got recents, but this will also kind of act as a desktop mode. So, if you want to add another desktop, you can definitely do that. Right here, we'll go over to desktop one. I've got desktop 2 up and running. and you can go from there if you wanted an extra. And down here in the lower lefthand corner, we've got basically our control center. So, we've got our quick settings right here. This is going to give us access to our volume, uh, sleep mode, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi. We can lock it. We can up the volume from here. And right here, media output. This will either allow us to use the phone speakers or the speakers on the display we have it connected to. Now, I'll tell you with this, we can actually go up to a 4K resolution. What I like to do is use a third party application known as Good Lock. You can get this from the Galaxy Store. This gives us a bunch of different plugins for our Samsung devices. And Multistar really helps out with multitasking. And right down here, high resolution for external display. I believe we can only do up to 1440p without this enabled, but once you check this off, restart Dex, you can go up to a 4K resolution. And I'll show you right now, if we go to our settings, we've got dedicated DEX settings here. So, we'll go to Samsung Dex connected display on screen keyboard, mouse, and trackpad. We can change the sensitivity directly from here. S Pen, command arrows to move the windows. So, you can actually set up a couple different uh keyboard shortcuts with Dex now and play sound on connected display. So, this will automatically swap over to the connected display speakers if it has them. Our connected display, we're in extended mode, which is Dex mode. You can also mirror the screen on the S26 Ultra. And right here, display resolution. So, right now, I'm connected to a 1440p display. So, I can do up to 1440 at 16x9. At a 16x10 resolution, I'm up to 1920 x 1200. And at 21.9 widescreen, 2560x 1080. But I'm going to connect to a 4K display real quick to show you the other options we have here. And this comes into play because I did enable multi-star inside of Good Lock. So, 3840x 2160. And it even gives us an option down here at a 21x9 aspect ratio. So we can do 3440 by 1440. And of course in Dex mode we also have multi-wind support. So I'll go with Chrome. We'll do play. Let's run a calculator also. And each one of these windows is resizable. So if we want to set this somewhere specific, we definitely can. Plus it's got a snap feature. Left hand side. We'll take uh Chrome right over here. And you can go between these maximize. We've also got our full screen mode. So if we want to maximize, it's just going to pull it out. We can totally go full screen with basically any app now also, which is really awesome. Hovering over the very top is going to bring that menu back up and we can bring it back down. But being able to resize all of these windows for work is really nice. So, we can have a bunch of different apps up and running at one time. You can set them up however you want. And it just makes it really easy to utilize the space index. And when it comes to using this as a workstation when you're on the go, it does come in really handy. Really depends on what you're going to be doing because obviously you can do some email checking, uh, web browsing, you can watch movies if you want to. We've got access to Word here. And with the snap feature, just the multi-wind feature, you can have a few things going at one time. So, you can definitely edit documents, you can write emails, you can do your homework on this as long as you've got access to whatever kind of app you need via opening up a PDF or a Word file, Android probably has you covered there. Now, another thing, when I'm on the go, I usually bring my uh Galaxy S25 Ultra. I've been using that for the last year, but with the S26, we've got a lot more power here. Photo editing. Not a huge fan of doing it on the go with something like this, but it is possible. Full screen. Got the mouse and keyboard going here. Got some adjustments. Let's uh lighten this up a bit. And we'll bring those whites up. Make it look a bit older. I think we can do some grain here. Yeah, there we go. So, you can do photo editing. shouldn't be an issue. As long as you've got an application that you're used to using, you could definitely do it. And I do wish that they would bring full Photoshop over. I know they did on the iPad. To tell you the truth, I personally don't consider it full Photoshop, but you know, it'd be nice to have something at least like they have over on the iPad here with Android. You could even tackle some video editing. And I'm not sure what everybody would be using on the go. There's several different apps to choose from. I usually go with Rush. So, we'll full screen this. And it's kind of cool because it is optimized for a keyboard and mouse here, even in Android. We'll create a new project. Let's do some sample media. We'll create and scrubbing the timeline here. Really, really smooth. We can add effects. We can add transitions. Let's do we'll do some slides right here. Yeah, just to show you real quick. Good morning, Philippines. Good morning, Philippines. Let's add a little filter here. We'll go with cinematic. And it definitely needs some adjustment to look good, but it's there. But yeah, you could definitely do a little bit of video editing on the go with something like this. And of course, you could do it on the built-in phone screen, but just being able to have a much larger space to work with is really nice. But I'll tell you, one of the main things I like to do here in kind of Dex mode or big screen mode is gaming. And there's really no performance loss from the built-in phone screen over the Dex here, especially with the new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. So, for instance, let's test out Destiny Rising. And unfortunately with Dex right now, we can only do up to 60 hertz. A lot of these newer games with this chipset on the S26 Ultra do support 90 or even 120, but while we're connected here, we can only do up to 60, which is still great because we can max all of the graphics out. There's really nothing on Google Play that we can't max out with this chipset. So, let me get in here just a bit. And with the new S26 Ultra, there's a lot of gaming ccentric features built in, but they only work on the built-in screen, like an on-screen frame counter using Samsung's gaming hub. I thought that was really great, but it just won't work in Dex. Either way, we've got this at 60fps ultra setting. And if we were to take it up to 90 fps, we can only go up to high. And at ultra, I mean, it looks great on this big display. I'm using an Xbox controller connected over Bluetooth, but I did notice that this game fully supports a mouse and keyboard, and I thought that was really nice for an Android game. Another game I figured I'd show off here is Fortnite, and I'm maxed out from the settings, so we're at epic settings with the resolution scale set to 100%. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 can handle this game, even up to 90 hertz with those settings. But you can see I've got the frame counter up in the top right hand corner. That's the built-in game frame counter. We're at 60 because we're in Dex mode. But like I mentioned, when it comes to native Android games, the Galaxy S26 Ultra is going to be able to run everything maxed out. Another thing I've been doing a lot recently with Android is Steam game emulation. And since we've got that newer Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, I personally use GameHub here. I just find it a bit easier to get in here and get things working with this newer chipset. And yeah, we can play PC games on Android. And I'm not talking about cloud gaming or streaming here. We can emulate these PC games on our Android device. And within the past few weeks, I've made a couple videos showing this off. I showed you how to do it with another application known as Game Native. So, if you want to try that out, I'll leave a link in the description. Starting out light here. This is one that basically runs on most devices. I've even tested this on the older Snapdragon 865 Silk Song. Little over 60. And it's kind of weird because I did lock this down at 60. This is the built-in frame counter, the built-in performance monitor within GameHub, but you can see sometimes it does go up to like 64. I'm not sure if it's because I'm in Dex mode with this. This is kind of the first time I've really tested it with Dex mode, but it runs great on this device for sure. taken it up a bit to the Witcher 3. And I can't stress this enough. This is not cloud gaming. It's not streaming from anything. This is being emulated on this ARM chip. I'm at medium settings, 720p, and we're almost able to lock this at 60. If I take it down to low, I could lock it, but I wanted to see what we do at medium. Still feels pretty smooth like this for sure. It's just pretty amazing to see this running on an Android phone. And the final one I wanted to test here was Cyberpunk 2077. So recently, I've been testing out the Red Magic 11 Pro. It's the world's first phone with a built-in liquid cooler, and it's using the Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, just like we have here. Actually, I believe this is the Samsung variant, so Samsung every year gets a little bit of an overclock, but either way, I don't think it's going to make much of a difference over there. Since we can cool this chip off and try to keep it cooler, we can actually hit over 60 fps with Cyberpunk on that thing. And of course, we're at low settings, 720p. We're emulating this on an ARM chip. It's very early. Improvements for this kind of stuff have been coming every week. But with the Galaxy S26 Ultra, I find locking it at 30 does kind of alleviate a lot of the thermal throttling, but I do think with an active cooler on the back of this, we could get a lot more out of it. The last thing I wanted to take a look at was an emulation on the Galaxy S26 Ultra. I've got the Dolphin emulator running here and in Dex, it does look really good on this screen. I want to show you from the settings if we head to enhancements resolution, we're at 4x, which takes us up to 2560x 2112. This is Tatsino versus Capcom. And I did go through and test some other games. I'll give you a look at that in just a second, but uh it's pretty awesome that we're able to do this. We can take the resolution way up on a lot of these higherend emulators for sure. >> I also wanted to show off some PS2 emulation. I'm using Nether SX2, Gran Turismo 3 4x resolution, and it really depends on the game because even at 4x your resolution may differ just a bit per game, but it takes this game up to 2240x 1568. And to give you an idea, I went through and tested five more games here with the Dolphin emulator. So, Time Spplitters, Wind Waker, F-ZeroGX, Automoilista, Smash, all of that at 4X, no problem at all. And kind of the same thing here with PS2 emulation using the Ether SX2, Sly Cooper, Tekken 5, got some Crash, Metal Gear Solid 2, all of that at 4X. The only one I had to drop down was God of War 2. That's one that's kind of given us an issue. It just falls on its face every once in a while, but at 3x, it still looks great. So far, I've been having a great time with the Galaxy S26 Ultra in Dex mode, and I will have more videos coming up. I do want to show you what this thing can do in just basic handheld mode. It's putting down a lot of power with that Snapdragon 8 Gen 5, and I've been really impressed by what it can do there, also. So, if you're interested in seeing a video like that, it'd be pretty cool if you could hit that like button and think about subscribing. I'll also leave some links in the description in case you want to pick up a Galaxy S26 Ultra. You can get it from their official website. I think Amazon's got them. I know Best Buy does. I'll leave a few down there. And if there's any specific games or applications you want to see running on this when I do my full review, just let me know in the comments. That's it for this one. Like always, thanks for watching.

The New Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra is also a powerful desktop PC using DEX mode! Play games, do work, emulation, and even play real PC games using Gamehub! Powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 and backed by up to 16GB of RAM, the S26 Ultra is a powerhouse, and when connected to an external display using DEX, this thing is an amazing desktop replacement powered by ARM. Buy the Galaxy S26 Ultra: https://howl.link/t55d1v38ivyxc Follow Me On Twitter: https://twitter.com/theetaprime Follow Me On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/etaprime/ Vip-URCDKey 25% code for software: ETA Windows 11 Pro Key($25):https://biitt.ly/RUZiX Windows 11 Home Key($23):https://biitt.ly/SQKqi Windows 10 Pro OEM Key($20):https://biitt.ly/KpEmf Windows10 Home Key($17):https://biitt.ly/2tPi1 Windows 10 LTSC 2021 Key($15): https://biitt.ly/W564e Office 2019 pro key($63):https://biitt.ly/o0OQT 2016 pro key($32): https://biitt.ly/xWmvn Buy Windows 11 Pro Key at: https://www.vip-urcdkey.com DISCLAIMER: This video and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission at no extra cost to you! 00:00 - Intro & What to Expect 01:18 - Snapdragon 8 Gen 5 Specs & Hardware 02:35 - Entering Samsung DeX & UI Walkthrough 04:10 - Unlocking 4K Resolution with Good Lock 05:30 - Multi-Window & Desktop Workflow 07:15 - Photo & Video Editing on the Go 09:00 - Native Gaming (Destiny Rising & Fortnite) 10:40 - PC Emulation on Android (Silksong & Witcher 3) 12:15 - Cyberpunk 2077 Performance Test 13:10 - GameCube & Wii Emulation (Dolphin at 4X) 14:05 - PS2 Emulation (AetherSX2) 14:50 - Final Thoughts & Outro #etaprime #galaxys26ultra #samsungdex THIS VIDEO IS FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY!