Robert Triggs / Android Authority
TL;DR
- New Xiaomi phones come preinstalled with Microsoft’s Link to Windows app, which provides various cross-device features.
- By preinstalling Link to Windows, Xiaomi devices will have access to new features including clipboard sync and app streaming.
- So far, only the new Xiaomi 14T comes with Link to Windows preinstalled.
If you buy one of the best Android phones on the market, there’s a decent chance you already have or plan to pick up a laptop as well. To encourage you to buy or stick with the Windows ecosystem, Microsoft created the Link to Windows app to make your Android phone and Windows PC work better together. For Link to Windows to work best, though, it needs to be preinstalled on your Android phone, which not many do. Thankfully, this has changed over the years, though there are still some notable holdouts. Today, though, one of the major smartphone brands that held off on bundling Link to Windows has changed course.
Xiaomi, the smartphone brand that just momentarily dethroned Apple as the world’s number two seller, announced its latest flagship phones today, the Xiaomi 14T and Xiaomi 14T Pro. Ahead of the launch event, Xiaomi shared a document with us that highlighted how “Link to Windows provides a genuinely integrated PC computing experience” on the 14T Pro. We asked the company what it meant by this and were told that it plans to integrate the Link to Windows app into HyperOS, which is Xiaomi’s flavor of Android.
Although Link to Windows wasn’t preinstalled on our Xiaomi 14T Pro review units, we were told that it would be added in the upcoming 1.0.10.0 update. Indeed, the Xiaomi 14T Pro demo units at the media briefing were running this very version of HyperOS and had Link to Windows preinstalled. Xiaomi devices that have Link to Windows installed will have a “Link to Windows” entry under Settings > More connectivity options, as shown below.
Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority
Anyone with a Xiaomi phone can download Link to Windows today from the Google Play Store, but as I mentioned before, it works best when it’s preinstalled on the device. That’s because Link to Windows can’t perform certain functionality when it isn’t preinstalled as a system application, such as syncing the clipboard or streaming apps. It can still sync notifications, text messages, phone calls, photos, and media player controls without being a system application, though. Syncing the clipboard and streaming apps from your Xiaomi phone to your Windows PC just makes for a better cross-device experience, though, so it’s nice to have these extra features.
On some devices, Link to Windows can also turn your phone into an instant hotspot. While Link to Windows’ instant hotspot functionality used to be exclusive to Samsung phones, it recently became available to select OnePlus phones. I don’t know if the new Xiaomi 14T series supports the instant hotspot feature, but I’ll find out after the 1.0.10.0 update is pushed to my review unit.
Xiaomi is joining Samsung, HONOR, ASUS, OPPO, OnePlus, and vivo in bundling Link to Windows out of the box. Lenovo and Motorola have their own Smart Connect software that offers similar cross-device functionality. Apart from Quick Share for Windows, Google doesn’t offer any such cross-device software on its Pixel devices, which makes sense since it wants people to buy Chromebooks instead of Windows PCs. Xiaomi, however, sells its own line of Windows PCs, so it’s important for them to offer features that make their phones and PCs work better together.
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