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Your Pixel
Limited to Pixel 8 and newer devices and no 4k yet.
Oh, so your Pixel, but not my Pixel.
Let's be clear, for a feature that Samsung phones have had for a decade at this point.
This feature debuted on the Moto Atrix in 2011. There was even a version of Ubuntu that could use the feature.
Yeah, I have a pixel 7 and was disappointed on vacation to learn that its USB-C port can't do video when I wanted to plug it into a hotel room TV.
I don't get why this is a Pixel thing at all and not an Android thing though. Shouldn't any Android OS device that can do full video output over USB-C be able to do this?
Video out is frustratingly uncommon. Samsung, some Sony's, and only very recently Pixels. Google was vocally against video out for a long time. And SD cards (gotta pay for drive). You were expected to roll the dice with whether Chromecast works with a random TV and wifi combination.
Pixels were popular for two reasons: the camera and "basic black rectangle" device (RIP Nexus).
This used to be exciting stuff about ten years ago when some of us still thought Google was doing cool things.
I think it is just supposed to be Samsung DeX
That's cool... I guess...
What I really want is to continue to use F-Droid though.
Install Graphene OS on your Pixel.
I'm not giving Google anymore money. I'm actively going to vote for their competitor, Motorola+GrapheneOS.
(Not buying used Pixel.)
This doesn't stop the drastic drop in popularity (and potentially development) of FOSS apps.
Lack of users means lack of donations.
We need to stop this BS instead of just trying to get a workaround.
Why say "Your Pixel can now..." when my Pixel can't? Why not say "Pixel 8 and newer devices can now...".
JTskulk, it is only your Pixel that can not. It works for older Pixels as well, but they specifically tied a few kill switches to your commonly known geo-locations and anyone who ties their shoelaces in a fashion deemed less mertiable.
their shoelaces in a fashion deemed less mertiable
Ian Knot ftw. Can't beat it.
So sort of like the Continuum mode that Windows Phones had, like, ten years ago?
Like desktop mode on Librem5 in 2020, convergence on PinePhone from 2021, or Samsung Dex from a few years ago, too.
And every Ubuntu Touch device with support for external monitors for the last ten years or so. Here's a demonstration running on a Fairphone 4.
Oh the Motorola Atrix from like, 2014? I still have the lapdock. Used it with an original RPi for a while to make a terrible laptop.
Wiki says the model is from 2011, and all that functionality was implemented on Android 2.3.x, impressive! Google is only 14 versions behind.
Literally every Samsung Android phone has come with their Dex desktop for like 10 years too.
I fucking hate Google at this point. They're just an even shittier version of apple now. Locking down their shit for no reason, and claiming decades old innovations are actually new and theirs.
i hope it comes to graphene os
Its already available in developer settings on grapheneos I use it daily
What is an android PC? Is that like a boat car?
All phones are PCs, this is just connecting external displays.
The shock is that it couldn't already.
Mobile devices tend to be much less versatile than PCs, mind you, and on purpose, due to one of Steve Jobs' most misguided apprehensions, that it'd be a good idea to hide the filesystem from the user. (Cue someone somehow claiming that's Good Actually in three, two, one...)
Hiding the file system is Good Actually because…
Tap for spoiler
Nope, can’t come up with a single reason. It’s fucking terrible.
Nah it's more like a toaster fridge
Anyone know if this works with GrapheneOS? I haven’t tested this in a very long time and then I was on stock. Android.
It does in fact work with GOS. I don't believe this build has been released yet though so you likely still need to toggle it on in the dev settings.
I last tried out the beta version of it on Graphene a couple of months back and it was rough. In fairness though, I was mostly using it to figure out how to use it to install a full fat Linux distro, which is probably a niche use.
My phone's just updated, so I'll give it another spin when I get home tonight and report back.
It works fine enough. It's not going to replace my desktop PC any time soon but it helps a lot for anything involving word processing/documents, as well as gaming on TVs and monitors.
A PC where I can't install what I want? WTF is the point of that bullshit.
Thanks but I'll stick to my steam deck for my portable Linux computing needs where I can do what the hell I want.
It works okay, but not great for me. I toss my phone on one of my old laptops docking station at work, but some apps like to force a shit resolution. It is pretty neat having them in moveable windows though.
Imagine what the world could be if we had repairable Arch Linux Phones that can go full desktop mode just like the pixel rn. Aaahhh that turns me on!🤤
I have a 9a running Graphene and with a "usb C laptop dock" I can use it in "desktop mode", but I would warn that it is still EXTREMELY buggy and finnicky.
Still neat though.
I've bought 1920x1200 IPS screen from temu. It is small, runs off the phone (if you want) power and works brilliantly. I'm using Windows RDP to use my desktop anywhere I want in the house. Works great for a few month, I had lower resolution for a couple updates, but the current version running on Android 17 Beta2 works just fine, at full resolution.
Since I have to carry a keyboard anyway, I'm just going to carry a full laptop instead.
And are there apps for normal desktop office work?
I'm surely not gonna use Google docs or Microsoft's cloud clobber.
