The Pixel 9’s hidden desktop mode is a glimpse of a future I need

Not everybody needs to lug round a laptop computer as their cellular laptop. Laptops have by no means been as gentle or compact in 2025, however they’re nonetheless not as transportable as a pill. Which might be fantastic 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 function Samsung presents on some Galaxy gadgets, that allows you to run Android apps in a windowed, desktop-style surroundings.

That’s, except you already know the place to look in your Pixel 9. The hidden desktop mode in Google’s smartphones is a developer software fairly than a totally thought-out function, 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 online browser, it is a future I really need.

The Pixel’s desktop mode will not be a substitute on your PC

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

It is essential to caveat that the “desktop mode” on the Pixel 9 is unfinished to the purpose that it would not actually really feel like a “mode” in any respect. But it surely does offer you a noticeably completely 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 value of area to run windowed Android apps does allow you to do extra without delay. It may also 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 manage your expertise past entry to the app drawer for launching apps. It is also very laborious to seek out your mouse if it is by some means in your telephone display fairly than the monitor you linked to. (Bizarrely, the best method I discovered to repair that downside was opening an app on my telephone that does not settle for mouse enter.) The bigger challenge, 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 online browser however can run Android apps.

What the function does, even in its half-baked state, is offer you a glimpse of what is doable — a world the place your telephone can be your desktop laptop if you want it to be. That is still thrilling, particularly given the path Google could possibly be taking ChromeOS. When you’re curious to attempt the function out for your self, this is the best way 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. Make certain “Developer choices” is turned on on the prime of the menu.
6. Then toggle the next choices on: Allow Freeform Home windows, Drive 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 is perhaps rebuilt in Android

From a browser to one thing much more versatile

That this desktop function 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 gadgets like tablets. Including some credence to the thought, Google announced in June 2024 that it was incorporating a few of the Android tech stack into ChromeOS.

The considering on the time was that it could enable ChromeOS to shortly undertake new Gemini options, a lot of which had 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 crew, it appears much more possible 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 taken with bringing ChromeOS to completely different sorts of gadgets after largely counting on its companions to innovate new kind components.

A laptop computer is not the reply to all the pieces

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 method we use computer systems has felt ultimate. Admitting that I can do a big portion of my work with an online browser and cellular apps actually opened me as much as the thought of working in a special. Probably the most attention-grabbing factor in regards to the Pixel 9’s buried desktop mode is that it makes it appear to be it could possibly 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, in case you’re taken with exploring what living with Samsung DeX is like, Pocket-lint has dug in to it. And if one thing extra conventional is your pace, you’ll be able to flip any outdated laptop computer you’ve gotten mendacity round into a new Chromebook with out loads of work.