Galaxy Book 2021 (software)

Well, well, well… It is time! In a post that I did about the Galaxy Unpacked event, I had some questions about Samsung softwares. Basically, I wanted to see if the new software features would come to the previous gen Galaxybooks! Guess what?! They came! Today I am going to show you all the software, how you can get them on a previous gen Galaxybook (in my case, the flex alpha), and see how good they are!

How to Get These on Your Galaxybook:

Getting these on your galaxybook should be easy; You can go to the Microsoft Store and search for any app or “samsung” like I did in the below screenshot. Samsung has two app developing pages that I found, you want to go to the one that has the screen recorder.

You should see some apps. Smart things and Screen Recorder are both new programs. If you have seen the ratings… you are not alone. I am trying my best to ignore the ratings until I can try the software out. 😂 I did check and Most, if not all, of these things are exclusive to Galaxybooks.

Screen Recorder:

Now, I am going to start off with one that I was pretty hyped about! I really don’t know why I am excited, being that I use OBS, but I am. If you know Windows and use Windows devices, the only screen recorder that is baked into the software is in Microsoft Gamebar. Now if you’ve ever used it, you may know that it kinda sucks (at least I think so).

The Microsoft Store says that this was released in November 2020 and if that is true, I am kinda suprised I hadn’t seen it before… It is a super small app sitting at just 9.98 mb (nice!). I looked through the screenshots, I won’t show them in case of copyright infringment, but they showed a decent looking software!

Now it is time to open it up and see if all the hype was worth it!

Above I have a screenshot of the software. I opened up a camera to the bottom left. Also, you can see some funny spam comments on my main blog. You can move around the camera, change it’s size, and change its shape (from a circle to square). Already, the camera is unique; other recording softwares give you a box camera.

Below I have a screenshot of where you can save things. I think that it is pretty nice that you can save screenshots in different file formats (png, jpeg, tiff, and bmp).

You can also change the mouse color according to a right or left click, change audio sources and lower the recording fps. There is a screenshot feature which just does a quick fullscreen capture too, but I still like the snipping tool better. I do wish that you could record a certain window and not just a full screen…

I am going to do a recording of some photo editing, side by side with OBS. Quick note here: I actually was reading a blog post from Benjamin Walker on video sharing sites and came across Rumble. I have never uploaded there before, so let me know how the video turns out!

https://rumble.com/vh8hzn-obs-recording-vs-samsung-recorder.html

Okay, if you got chance to watch the video, there are pros and cons of using both programs… The yellow line in the recording from Samsung is just from OBS recording, so I can’t really take away points from Samsung for that.

My first real negative point goes to Samsung. There seems to be some wobbling of sorts. I don’t know if it is just me, but OBS seems stable bot for whatever reason, it looks like the Samsung recorder isn’t…

The next negative point is for OBS. It is sooo laggy in this recording. I don’t normally have trouble with OBS but this recording was so laggy! I was recording at 60 fps too! It may be to do with chrome being filled with open tabs and running a photo editor and two softwares recording the screen… OBS by itself already takes up about 30% of the CPU while running so… I could see why it would become laggy.

If it looks like the recordings are low quality, I realize that Rumble has uploaded them in low quality. The screen was recorded in HD, I promise.

This is super annoying as well; Samsung showed the bar with the recording pop up! OBS didn’t show any of the recording controls from Samsung, but Samsung did. This is why the Samsung Recorder needs single window recording.

Galaxy Buds:

Next up is a very frustrating one: The new Galaxy Bud app for Windows. I think that it was released like yesterday but… why would they release an unfinished app???? That is such a strange thing to do! Okay, this is the app:

Yes, you can literally only use the app with one model of the Galaxy Buds! ONE! Also, it looks like the original Galaxy Buds, what I use, isn’t even “coming soon”! Yes, this app is new, but why release it when it really isn’t ready! Of course, you still can connect Galaxy Buds just like normal through the Windows Bluetooth settings, you just won’t get ambient noise control or remap the touch gestures like you can on your phone.

Keep an eye out, because updates will certainly be coming.

Smart Things:

For the last new software, I want to briefly look at smart things. I do not use many smart home devices in my house. Right now I use a Google Nest Mini and two Sengled smart lights. Guess what? Sengled lights are not compatible with Smart Things even though they are compatible with Google Home.

Anyways, here is the software.

As you can see, it has a clean design and a few simple menus. Interestingly, you have to still set up the devices on your phone… So much for making laptops more like phones 😂. If they really want laptops to be more like phones, why is it like this!

Others:

Samsung had other softwares announced at Galaxy Unpacked. I couldn’t find any camera app add ons compatible with intel. I found the extra settings app, but it says that it has to be an ARM Samsung machine. I am sure that these are coming soon. Finally, we have the Windows Your phone. Right now, I use it for texting, getting photos, and sometimes calling but I have a Google Pixel phone. Apparently, even though it has been requested since launch, there is no support for mobile apps to run off of Pixels to a “samsung laptop”. If you can tell, I am a bit frustrated about that. Sometimes I will use bluestacks, but it isn’t as good. For Pixel users, all I can say is, keep on asking for the support.

Conclusion:

The softwares do have their pros and cons but overall, they work decent from what I can tell. As you read, I only was able to use the recorder which does have some cool features that OBS lacks. If you are buying a new gen Samsung laptop, keep in mind that Samsung really did rush it a bit too much. I have been seeing on Reddit and other blogs that the machines promise some of the features in the future, but not all the development is done.

I really hope that you found this post useful and enjoyed it! I am about to start watching Google I/O for a post coming on Friday (most likely). If you want to see that post, follow me here on Medium.com. If you want to see my photography blog posts, go to my main blog at:

digitalwondersandsmiles.wordpress.com

Thank you so much for reading!

-Digital Wonders & Smiles 😊📸