This is my yearly look at Android Desktop Mode.

The idea is to use my phone, docked to a screen, keyboard and mouse as a remote desktop platform. The goal is to run a remote desktop through RDP, Citrix Workspace, or another such app, and use MS Teams and other stuff supplied by that remote machine/VM. That way, I would not need a laptop since my phone has enough power to do the RDP thing.

Phone version

Pixel 9 XL

GrapheneOS 20251225

Android 16

Setup 1 ("Amazon Basics")

Phone connected to Amazon Basics USB-C docking station with HDMI display

Screen gets recognized and added (1600x900 or 1920x1080 resolution), a taskbar shows up at bottom, but no tasks other than Camera can be launched from it. After the screen lock activates, the taskbar is gone. Mouse works, keyboard not tested (?!). Taking a screenshot of the Android Desktop is not possible.

Setup 2 ("HP")

Phone connected to HP USB-C docking station with HDMI display.

What works in Android 16

HP: Desktop appears on HDMI screen, mouse and keyboard work. Taskbar at the bottom of the HDMI screen. Remote desktop works and displays. Phone-local apps and the remote desktop can live on the phone desktop and can be resized without problem.

What doesn't work in Android 16

HP: Screen resolution is weird. Smaller screen space, but pixel count seems to be full-width and then scaled down to smaller screen space.

Fennec HTML zoom is very weird and seems to orient itself on the phone-screen measurements, not on the HDMI screen measurements. Further debugging is needed.

External camera and microphone don't seem to work with the Citrix Workspace app.