I recently had a dilemma where my Samsung Galaxy S10 Plus had a broken screen and I could not unlock it or even power it off. Naturally I wanted to get my data off the phone and reset it before selling it or donating it to a repair center.
I’m happy to report – specifically for Samsung Phones, but possibly for others too – there is a solution!
Samsung has a feature called DeX built into their phones which allows you to plug a monitor and keyboard/mouse into it via the USB charging port! See demo and explanation here:
https://insights.samsung.com/2021/01/14/the-beginners-guide-to-samsung-dex-6/
Other phones may at least benefit from being unlocked by use of a keyboard which Android supports natively across nearly all their smartphones.
I ordered this QGeeM 7-in-1 USB C Hub to HDMI 4k, 3 USB 3.0 Ports adapter…
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07QXMNF1X/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
…which accomodates ALL the aforementioned required accessories, essentially turning my phone into a desktop computer, and it worked PERFECTLY! I was able to see the lock-screen on my monitor, enter the passcode from the keyboard and navigate the entire phone using my mouse. Brilliant!
The only thing this approach does NOT allow one to do is to hard (factory) reset the phone (Dex blocks it by design), but I was able to recover my data by pushing it up into Google’s DRIVE platform, which gives everyone with a Google account 1 terabyte of storage for free.
THANK YOU Samsung, for such a BRILLIANT feature on your most excellent smartphones!
E-RazorHead 