Samsung Second Screen for Drawing: What Works and What Doesn't

Samsung Second Screen is a feature that allows selected Samsung tablets to be used as external displays with S Pen support when paired with Windows 10 computers. This feature is only on Galaxy tablets running One UI 3.1 and later, and PCs running the latest version of Windows 10.

This feature works just like MacOS's SideCar which allows iPads to be used as external displays. Main difference here is you can use Samsung Second Screen with any brand of computer running Windows 10. The other difference is the image quality of SideCar looks better.

To use Samsung Second Screen, you have to go into the tablet's Quick settings panel, tap on Second Screen icon to turn it on.

Then on the Windows 10 computer, press Windows Key + K to look for the connection. You get the best performance when both devices are on the same Wifi network.

The display modes are same as what you get when connected to any external monitor: Duplicate (mirror), Extend, or show only on the connected display.

There's also the drawing mode vs video playing mode which supposedly has different latency or response lag. I've tried both and there's not much difference.

You can also choose the scaling for the Samsung tablet. I'm using a Samsung Tab S7+ here and without scaling the UI will look tiny.

S Pen will still work on the Samsung tablet. I was able to draw on Concepts (Windows) and pressure works.

Finger gestures also work.

In this case it doesn't make sense to use Concepts because this app is already available on Android. So the main advantage of using Samsung Second Screen is so that you can use desktop apps that are not available on Android.

Pressure sensitivity did not work for me. Actually I wasn't able to get the S Pen to draw anything. The S Pen can click on the menu, tools, and palettes, but it doesn't draw. S Pen works works with other apps I've tried, namely Adobe Illustrator, Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer, Concepts, Medibang Paint Pro, Clip Studio Paint, Sketchbook.

There's some lag with drawing performance but it's not too bad. Anyway, there are already a number of good drawing apps available on Android so using desktop apps for drawing with Samsung Second Screen may not be needed. The advantage as mentioned is you can use Windows apps not available on Android, and when you save files, you can save it directly into the Windows file system.

Hopefully Samsung can improve on Second Screen because it's a useful feature. More specifically improve on the latency and image quality.

There are viewers/readers who suggested to me to use SuperDisplay which also allows Android tablets to be used as external displays, but I just wasn't able to get it to work.

If you're using Samsung Second Screen, let me know what you think in the comments section. Also share which apps work or don't work for you.

Issues

When connected to your Windows computer, and you're getting 16:9 aspect ratio when you actually want 16:10, just install the Second Screen app for the Microsoft App Store and you'll have additional options from the Display Settings to change the aspect ratio.