These days, it’s not enough to make a good smartphone. To compete with Apple — and to stop Android users from being lured in by iMessage — you need to have a great ecosystem to match. Nearly every tech company big or small is trying to develop their own custom connections between products, but unsurprisingly, no one has pulled it off quite like Samsung. As one of the biggest Android manufacturers in the world, it’s managed to knit together a tapestry that brings your matching gadgets together like never before.

In the wake of Samsung’s most recent Galaxy Unpacked, there’s a good chance you — or someone you know — are considering upgrading to the company’s latest gadgets. From the Galaxy Z Fold 5 to the Galaxy Tab S9 series, I’ve been mighty impressed with what the brand has brought to the table. But when it comes to how these products work together, the only way to find out how successful Samsung’s ecosystem truly is was to put it through its paces.

I took five of the most essential inter-device aspects and put them to the test. From notifications to photos to tracking your device, here’s how Samsung’s ecosystem syncs together.

1 Notifications

A shared ecosystem is only as good as your ability to see incoming notifications on all of your connected devices. Sometimes, this is handled directly by apps. Install Instagram on your smartphone and tablet and you’ll see notifications roll in on both devices without an issue. But there are plenty of times where you might only want a specific app on one device or another — Instagram included, given its lack of a tablet UI.

When it comes to shared notifications, I used a tool that’s bound to become pretty familiar throughout this guide: Samsung Flow. It’s not a perfect app, but Flow is an established add-on found in both the Play Store and the Galaxy Store that brings your gadgets closer than ever. While it’s perhaps best known for syncing your smartphone to your Windows PC, pairing your Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Tab S9 together is also possible.

Once you’ve synced the two devices together by matching codes in their respective apps, you don’t have to go particularly far to start seeing your notifications mirrored between devices. Rather than duplicating everything, Flow keeps your smartphone’s incoming messages and alerts grouped in a single notification channel, alongside a persistent icon as the service stays running in the background.

Granted, this isn’t always perfect. Getting a deals alert on Twitter, for example, doesn’t help me much when Twitter (or, you know, X) isn’t installed on my Tab S9. Although it’s great to see it appear in my notification tray, clicking on it opens a basic text window in Flow for responding to a tweet. That doesn’t help me here — it doesn’t even show the actual tweet itself. Even when the app is installed, I get a basic white box without any specific detail.

Things are a little better with messaging apps, though — more on that below — but overall, Samsung’s notification mirroring works best for just that: mirroring. If you’re trying to take action on a specific task with an app only active on your Z Fold 5, you’re still better off pulling that out instead.

2 File sharing

Honestly, notifications are child’s play. There are all sorts of apps on the Play Store that can manage a similar feat. File sharing is a little more complicated. Everyone knows about AirDrop on Apple devices, and while Nearby Share remains a great option, it hasn’t quite gathered the same level of public consciousness as its fruit-based alternative. Personally, though, I’ve always found Nearby Share a little finicky to use, with devices often unable to find each other. Thankfully, Samsung has its own tool.

Nearby Share active on a Galaxy Z Fold 5.

Dive into the Connected Devices section in settings on either your Z Fold 5 or your Tab S9 and you’ll find something called Quick Share. It’s easily accessible through Android’s basic share menu, so sending documents or any other content between your foldable and tablet is super quick.

And because you’re logged in with your Samsung account between devices, you’ll find your tablet already available as a target, no scanning required. Just tap on the device and you’re ready to go in seconds.

3 Messages

Like with file sharing, the best way to pair your Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Tab S9 together for messaging can be found under Connected Devices. This time, you’re looking for the ability to call and text from your tablet. The pairing method is simple — as long as you’ve signed in with your Samsung account, you just scan the QR code on your tablet using your smartphone. From there, phone calls and messages (using the Samsung Messages app) will appear on your tablet. Only want one or the other? You can disable them using the toggles in settings.

Sure enough, it works exactly how you’d want it to, with phone calls ringing on both my phone and my tablet whenever someone rang.

Of course, these days, you probably aren’t restricted to just one messaging app. What happens if multiple people send you texts over SMS, DMs on Instagram, and a link through Telegram? Perhaps it’s unsurprising that Samsung Flow comes into play here. It’s the easiest way to respond to any incoming messages regardless of their origin, though it’s not always perfect.

Group chats seem to throw it for a loop, for example, leaving me unable to parse the conversation until I actually open the app on my phone. Meanwhile, if you respond to something on a different device, you’ll still only see the incoming notifications, not the context you provided to the conversation. It’s a nice tool to have, but for the most part, you’re better off seeing if the app of your choice allows for multi-device conversations to read and respond to messages on your Tab S9.

4 Photos

Most Android Police readers likely keep their photos automatically backed up to Google Photos or the alternative of their choice, but if you prefer to send a collection of images between your devices, that’s easy. Samsung’s ecosystem actually has its own method for backing things up, but if you’ve never dug into the Gallery app, you’d be forgiven for missing out on it.

The Galaxy Z Fold 5 syncs your photos and videos directly with Microsoft OneDrive, though unfortunately, you’ll have to supply the subscription plan. Samsung and Microsoft do prompt you to select a plan when you link your accounts, however, so if you’re in the market for cloud storage, it’s not a bad place to start.

Of course, photos are, at the end of the day, just files, so if you’re just looking to send a handful of images between your gadgets, Quick Share can really help you out here. You won’t need to pay for cloud storage, or even upload your images to the internet. Instead, they’ll be transferred between devices directly, just like you can with any other file.

5 Device location

We’ve all had that thought. What happens if you head out to dinner, or you’re out at a concert, and suddenly you realize your phone is gone. If you accidentally leave your Galaxy Z Fold 5 on a table, you aren’t out of luck. Tracking device location between various Samsung gadgets is super easy, and with your Galaxy Tab S9, finding your expensive foldable before it’s too late isn’t out of the question.

As long as you have access to your Samsung account, you can head to the SmartThings Find website to locate, track, ring, or even lock your lost gadgets. There’s no dedicated app here, although it works great on both the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Tab S9’s large displays. Simply select the smartphone, tablet, or wearable you’ve lost from the list and Samsung will do its best to display its previous location.

A Galaxy of connected products

Samsung’s ecosystem isn’t perfect, but thanks to years of the company working to build it out, it’s become something that can rival Apple’s lineup of interconnected devices. In fact, it might be enough to convince Galaxy Z Fold 5 owners to skip out on something like the Pixel Tablet in lieu of one of Samsung’s in-house tablets. Thankfully, you have plenty of great options to pick from.