- Google appears to be working on making it easier to use an external display with your Android phone
- Currently, changing display settings requires a dive into the settings app
- Google has issued no release date or official confirmation of the new feature
Android 16 could bring a Samsung DeX-style desktop mode to more of the best Android phones, according to as-yet-unreleased code.
As Android Authority reports, Google is apparently working on new external display tools for Android 16 that should make using your phone with an external monitor much more approachable.
This was discovered by manually enabling unreleased code in Android 16 Beta 2.1.
Currently, Android 15 offers a limited number of developer settings that allow users to adjust their external monitor experience, though these changes aren’t real-time and are still more restrictive than a laptop or some tablets can offer.
For example, the current implementation on Google Pixel phones only allows the mouse to appear on one screen at a time, and does not allow for realtime switching between screen mirroring and extension.
And as GSMArena notes, plugging in an Android phone to an external monitor currently defaults to screen mirroring, and the option to change this is squared away in the external display settings.
It seems that Google is working on making using external monitors easier; these changes include allowing the mouse to travel across various displays, and adding the ability to swap between screen mirroring and extending the display with a simple toggle.
Also on the cards is the ability to rearrange the position of external displays and change the scaling of icons and text on the external screen, both features offered by desktop operating systems like Windows and MacOS.
These new tools could hint at an ambition to morph Android into a viable desktop operating system. Some Android tablets, like the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra, already offer a comparable experience to most laptops when paired with a keyboard and mouse, so this doesn’t feel too far off.
Then again, Google could just be looking to give users more options when it comes to using their Android phone.
In any case, we’ll keep an eye on this through our dedicated Android phones coverage. Would you use your phone as a desktop replacement? Do you use external displays with your phone already? Be sure to let us know in the comments below.