Windows phones may not be as dead as you think. YouTuber Mark Spurrell has attempted to revive them, but with a twist. The tech geek has managed to run Windows 10 on a recently released foldable phone, the Galaxy Z Fold 4.
The YouTuber recently uploaded a detailed video that shows the foldable phone’s transformation into a Windows device. Spurrell used a combination of two Android launchers as well as Samsung’s Bixby Routines to do so.
Since it is a foldable phone, it is running a combination of the Windows Phone experience and Windows for desktop. The smaller outer screen looks more like the home screen of a Windows Phone with large square tiles and only a single color palette across the board.
To go into desktop mode on the inner screen, you simply have to tap the Windows button at the bottom of the outer screen and unfold the device. The inner screen looks and works exactly like a Windows PC. It has a taskbar at the bottom and a start menu button in the bottom left corner which opens a catalog for all your apps. These apps can easily be moved to the main screen for quick access.
There is also a quick settings button on the right corner of the taskbar, just like on Windows PCs. This can show all your notifications so you don’t have to swipe from the top like Android. The date, time, and calendar can also be found here. A file explorer can be opened through the “This PC” icon and the Recycle Bin below works just like it should.
However, tapping on one of the settings will take you to the default settings app of your phone. This is because it is only a launcher working on top of Android and not an actual Windows phone. In fact, there are two launchers at work here, one for the outer screen and one for the inner screen. The outer screen is powered by Square Home while the inner display is covered by the Win X Launcher.
Getting Win X Launcher to work seamlessly is quite the process and we recommend watching the video for more details.