The Pixel 9’s hidden desktop ...

Not everybody desires to lug round a laptop computer as their cell pc. Laptops have by no means been as mild or compact in 2025, however they’re nonetheless not as transportable as a pill. Which might be superb if pill working techniques weren’t such a mixed bag. That leaves an more and more unusual set of choices for anybody searching for one thing else. It is actually simply DeX, the characteristic Samsung gives on some Galaxy units, that allows you to run Android apps in a windowed, desktop-style surroundings.

That’s, except you recognize the place to look in your Pixel 9. The hidden desktop mode in Google’s smartphones is a developer device somewhat than a totally thought-out characteristic, however it suggests a doable future the place your Android telephone is a monitor, keyboard, and mouse away from being one thing like a light-weight ChromeOS machine. Having spent the previous few years realizing how a lot of my work can occur in an internet browser, it is a future I actually need.

The Pixel’s desktop mode will not be a alternative to your PC

Its principally unfinished, however you’ll be able to nonetheless attempt it

It is vital to caveat that the “desktop mode” on the Pixel 9 is unfinished to the purpose that it does not actually really feel like a “mode” in any respect. Nevertheless it does offer you a noticeably totally different expertise than utilizing your smartphone usually. The overwhelming majority of Android telephones max out at operating two apps side-by-side (or one on prime of the opposite). Having an entire monitor’s price of house to run windowed Android apps does allow you to do extra directly. It may additionally make you launch the bounds of the present design of some apps.

There are quirks to Google’s present implementation, too. For instance, you do not actually get any interface to regulate your expertise past entry to the app drawer for launching apps. It is also very exhausting to search out your mouse if it is by some means in your telephone display screen somewhat than the monitor you related to. (Bizarrely, the simplest approach I discovered to repair that drawback was opening an app on my telephone that does not settle for mouse enter.) The bigger situation, although, is that the Pixel 9’s desktop mode is simply not as fully-featured as DeX and even ChromeOS, which largely places you in an internet browser however can run Android apps.

What the characteristic does, even in its half-baked state, is offer you a glimpse of what is doable — a world the place your telephone can also be your desktop pc if you want it to be. That is still thrilling, particularly given the route Google might be taking ChromeOS. In case you’re curious to attempt the characteristic out for your self, this is easy methods to allow it in your telephone:

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Faucet on “About telephone,” after which repeatedly faucet on the part labeled “Construct quantity” till you see a notification that you are a developer.
3. Return, and faucet on System.
4. Faucet on “Developer choices.”
5. Be sure “Developer choices” is turned on on the prime of the menu.
6. Then toggle the next choices on: Allow Freeform Home windows, Pressure actions to be resizable, Allow freeform home windows on secondary show, and Allow non-resizable in multi window.
7. Restart your telephone in case your telephone prompts you to.
8. Join your telephone to your monitor to verify it really works.

Chrome OS may be rebuilt in Android

From a browser to one thing much more versatile

That this desktop characteristic exists in any respect is intriguing as a result of Google looks like it would attempt merging Android and ChromeOS. Android Authority reported in November 2024 that Google was migrating ChromeOS absolutely over to Android to make software program that is a greater match for in-between units like tablets. Including some credence to the concept, Google announced in June 2024 that it was incorporating a number of the Android tech stack into ChromeOS.

The considering on the time was that it might permit ChromeOS to shortly undertake new Gemini options, a lot of which have been launched on Android first. However when you think about that the corporate additionally reorganized its teams internally, uniting issues like Pixel {hardware} and shopper software program like ChromeOS and Android into the identical workforce, it appears much more probably it might all merge collectively. ChromeOS being rebuilt on Android does not imply that Pixels will get their very own model of DeX, however it might make that simpler to do. On the very least, it might imply that Google is serious about bringing ChromeOS to totally different sorts of units after largely counting on its companions to innovate new type elements.

A laptop computer is not the reply to all the things

However a smartphone has the potential to get shut

I’ve at all times been drawn to issues like tablet-only setups or Samsung DeX as a result of nothing in regards to the present approach we use computer systems has felt closing. Admitting that I can do a big portion of my work with an internet browser and cell apps actually opened me as much as the concept of working in a distinct. Essentially the most fascinating factor in regards to the Pixel 9’s buried desktop mode is that it makes it look like it might be doable with a tool I already personal.

Google will share extra of what it has in thoughts for ChromeOS and Android at Google I/O in 2025, however within the meantime, should you’re serious about exploring what living with Samsung DeX is like, Pocket-lint has dug in to it. And if one thing extra conventional is your velocity, you’ll be able to flip any previous laptop computer you might have mendacity round into a new Chromebook with out loads of work.