Galaxy phone owners using a Dell, HP, Lenovo, or any other non-Samsung Windows 11 PC can now access Samsung Galaxy Connect’s continuity features on their existing hardware. Until this week, those features required a Samsung Galaxy Book. That requirement is gone, SamMobile reported, with WinFuture confirming the same day.
The catch: only Windows 11 PCs running on Intel or AMD x86/x64 processors qualify. ARM-based machines are excluded for now, both outlets confirmed. Samsung surfaced the change through the app’s changelog rather than a formal announcement.
What Galaxy Connect does and how it differs from Link to Windows
Many Galaxy users already know Link to Windows, which Samsung integrates into recent flagship phones including the Galaxy Z Fold6, Z Flip6, and S24 series, per Samsung Insights.
That app handles notifications, calls, texts, and screen mirroring. Galaxy Connect is a separate, deeper layer. Where Link to Windows surfaces phone content on a PC, Galaxy Connect ties the devices together so they operate more like a single system.
The continuity feature set, as described by WinFuture, includes five main capabilities:
- Cross-device clipboard: Copy text, images, files, or video on one device and paste on the other
- Storage sharing: Browse your phone or tablet’s files directly from Windows File Explorer
- Multi-control: Use your PC’s mouse and keyboard to operate a nearby Galaxy phone or tablet, with drag-and-drop transfer between devices
- Second screen: Use a Galaxy tablet as an additional display for the PC
- Webpage handoff: Resume a browser tab on the PC where you left off on your phone, though this requires Samsung Internet installed on both devices, SamMobile confirmed
SamMobile notes that Galaxy Connect was built to give Samsung users the same kind of seamless cross-device handoff that Apple offers between iPhone and Mac. The structural difference is straightforward: Apple’s continuity layer is built into macOS and iOS at the operating system level. Samsung’s version runs as a Windows app installed on top of Windows 11, which means it can be updated independently, extended to new hardware, and yes, restricted by processor architecture.
That OS-layer distinction matters for understanding why the ARM exclusion exists at all. Samsung can ship Galaxy Connect updates without waiting on a Windows release, but it’s also working within whatever the Windows 11 runtime provides for a given chip platform.
Samsung Galaxy Connect Windows 11 support: what changed and who qualifies
The update that opened Galaxy Connect to non-Samsung hardware is identified as version 2.1.6.0 by SamMobile and as version 2.16.0 by WinFuture.
The discrepancy likely reflects different version-formatting conventions between the two publications; readers should verify the current build number against the Microsoft Store listing. Either way, Samsung noted the change in the app changelog rather than through any external announcement.
Before this update, accessing any Galaxy Connect continuity feature meant owning both a Galaxy phone or tablet and a Galaxy Book PC. Galaxy phone owners using hardware from any other manufacturer were locked out entirely, no cross-device clipboard, no File Explorer access to phone storage, no multi-control regardless of how recent their Galaxy phone was, per both reports. The app is now available to a broader pool of users as a free download from the Microsoft Store.
To qualify, a PC needs to meet three conditions. It must run Windows 11. It must use an Intel or AMD x86/x64 processor. And it can come from any manufacturer, Samsung or otherwise.
Windows 10 is not supported, which will rule out some users, even among those with qualifying Intel or AMD hardware. Minimum supported Galaxy device models and One UI versions were not specified in available reporting, so universal compatibility across all Galaxy devices should not be assumed until Samsung confirms those details.
Who’s still excluded?
ARM-based Windows PCs, including Snapdragon-powered machines from Microsoft, Dell, Samsung itself, and others, are not supported, as both WinFuture and SamMobile confirmed. The “for now” framing in both reports leaves the door open for a future update, but nothing has been confirmed.
That exclusion is broader than it might first appear. Snapdragon-powered Windows laptops have moved from an enthusiast niche to a mainstream product category over the past two years, with models now available across multiple price points from major manufacturers. A Galaxy phone owner who picked up one of those machines is still blocked from every continuity feature Galaxy Connect offers. Windows 10 users face the same wall, and that’s a significant portion of the installed PC base.
The practical addressable audience is meaningfully larger than before this update. It just isn’t the full Windows market.
The broader pattern
The Galaxy Connect expansion fits a direction Samsung has been moving in across several products. Link to Windows already works on any Windows PC; it never carried the Galaxy Book restriction.
More recently, Samsung updated Android’s Quick Share function to bring Apple AirDrop compatibility to the Galaxy S26 series, enabling wireless file transfers between Samsung and Apple devices in close proximity, per PCMag. AirDrop support is currently limited to the S26 lineup, with Samsung indicating plans to expand it to additional Galaxy devices later.
The through-line across these moves is a bet that Samsung phones hold their value by working well with whatever devices people already own, rather than requiring users to build out a full Samsung stack. Galaxy Connect losing its Galaxy Book requirement is the clearest expression of that yet a feature suite that was explicitly exclusive to Samsung laptop buyers is now, with one update, accessible to the vast majority of Windows laptop users.
The ARM exclusion is the most significant remaining constraint on how far that opening actually goes. As Snapdragon-based Windows machines take a larger share of the market, keeping those users out will increasingly be at odds with what Samsung is signaling about hardware openness. Whether that gap closes and how quickly are worth watching.
Editor’s note: This article originally appeared on our sister publication, GadgetHacks.
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