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Samsung DeX Pad gets US release date, price tag
- Samsung’s DeX Pad will be released May 13 in the U.S..
- It’ll be priced at just $99.99, or free with your Galaxy S9 or S9 Plus purchase from Samsung.com.
- The DeX Pad price is $50 cheaper than last year’s DeX Dock.
Last year saw Samsung take a stab at desktop/mobile convergence with the DeX Dock, giving Galaxy S8 and Note 8 owners some PC-style functionality on a big screen. Android Authority‘s Edgar Cervantes tried it out for a week as his primary work device, criticizing the lack of portability and calling it a “smartphone enhancement” instead.
Fortunately, at the Galaxy S9 launch event, Samsung showed off the DeX Pad, a successor to the original dock. The second-generation dock lets you use your smartphone as a trackpad and keyboard, as opposed to the mouse/keyboard requirement of the first model.
Now, the company has revealed a U.S. release date of May 13, along with a $99.99 price tag. Customers can pre-order the dock via Samsung.com from April 9. The Korean company is also tossing in a DeX Pad if you buy a Galaxy S9 or S9 Plus via its website.
The DeX Pad price makes for a noteworthy drop over the original dock’s $149.99 launch price, potentially suggesting that the company is hoping to shift a lot more units.
The past few months have also seen Samsung add more features to DeX, but it’s the news of Linux support that has some intrigued. Taking the form of a “Linux on Galaxy” application, the app will let customers use a variety of Linux distributions on their phone or via DeX.
Taken together, it’s clear that Samsung is hoping to corner the nascent desktop/mobile convergence space, with Huawei’s PC Mode being the other major platform in this arena. The Chinese firm’s mode eschews a dedicated dock in favor of using a USB Type-C to HDMI cable, using the phone as a trackpad/keyboard.
You can pre-order the DeX Pad via the button below. So, who’s buying?