Galaxy S8 Tips
How To: Hide the Navigation & Status Bars on Your Galaxy S8 for Even More Screen Real Estate — No Root Needed
The Samsung Galaxy S8's almost bezel-less display is truly a sight to behold, especially when set to Immersive Mode. While transparent when on the home screen, the navigation and status bars on the S8 will often turn opaque depending on what app you're using at the moment. This, in turn, can detract from the overall experience when viewing anything from the S8's display, as the bars along the top and bottom of the screen bump the phone's aspect ratio down to lower levels.
How To: Bring Back the Vertical Recent Apps Menu on Your Galaxy in Android Pie
The Android 9 Pie update brought a lot of visual changes, some of which are a little too reminiscent of iOS. There's the new gesture controls, which are okay, but then there are things like a left-justified clock and the fact that the recent apps menu now scrolls horizontally instead of vertically. Luckily, Samsung has given us a way to bring back the classic Android style.
How To: Galaxy Vibrates Randomly? Use This App to Figure Out Why
Random vibrations, ghost buzzing — whatever you call it, when your phone goes off for seemingly no reason, it's pretty frustrating. Finding the source of a phantom vibration can be almost impossible if there's no associated notification, especially given the myriad apps and system processes that run on your Galaxy device.
How To: Everything You Need to Disable on Your Galaxy S8 or S8+ for Privacy & Security
Our smartphones are full of personally-identifiable information. So much of what we do with these devices is tracked and recorded to make our experience more streamlined and personalized. For many users, that's a fair trade — but for privacy-minded folks, it's a raw deal.
How To: Fix Delayed Notifications on Your Galaxy S8 or S8+
The Note 7 debacle taught Samsung an important lesson on cramming oversized batteries into their handsets, and they've applied it diligently to their Galaxy S8 and S8+. You might even say the company has gone a little too far in trying to achieve a balance between battery size and battery life, as it not only not only sets screen resolutions to 1080p by default and warns users about maxing out display brightness, but it also keeps close tabs on individual apps' battery usage.
Tip: Quickly Switch Between Front & Rear Cameras on Your Galaxy S8
It's never fun to fidget around with your phone's camera while you're out and about, especially when it comes to transitioning between its front- and rear-facing cameras. Thankfully, Galaxy S8 users can scratch this one off their list of inconveniences, as Samsung has built in some nifty features that let you switch from the main shooter to the selfie cam without having to look at the screen or tap on the camera switch icon.
How To: Turn Your Samsung Galaxy's Rear Flash into a Notification LED
Even though Samsung has features like the always-on display, you still might miss some notifications now that the alert LED is gone. But baked in One UI is the ability to turn the rear camera flash into a notification LED. Any incoming alerts or calls will cause the camera LED to blink, so you won't miss a thing.
How To: Your Eyes Are All You Need to Keep Your Galaxy's Screen On
Having your phone's display suddenly dim and black out while reading is an annoyance we've all had to live with. If you have a Samsung Galaxy like the Note 10, however, there's a simple setting you can enable to take care of this problem once and for all.
How To: There's an Easy Way to Change Flashlight Brightness on Your Galaxy Phone
Before all the fancy night mode settings in phone cameras, we used the LED flash to take low-light photos. While it's not used for pictures as much anymore, the LED on the back of your Galaxy is still pretty handy as a flashlight. But did you know there's an easy way to adjust the brightness of this flashlight?
How To: Completely Revamp the Lock Screen on Your Galaxy S8 or S9
Samsung's Good Lock app has has breathed much needed life into its TouchWiz UI by giving us the ability to customize our Galaxy phones in ways that previously would've required root or a custom ROM. One companion app in particular even lets you personalize your lock screen to set it apart from the rest of the crowd.
How To: Permanently Remove the 'No SIM Card Inserted' Notification on Your Samsung Galaxy — No Root Needed
Your Galaxy's lock screen already lets you know there's no SIM card installed if it's missing on your device, so there's really no need to have a persistent icon for it on the status bar. If you want to hide the pesky symbol and accompanying notification for good, there's a nifty app you need to check out right now.
How To: Fix Screen Burn-In on Your Galaxy S8 (& Prevent It from Happening Again)
Everyone's been talking about Samsung's new Galaxy S8 and S8+, but not all of the chatter is positive. The fingerprint scanner is in an awkward location, the North American variant is simply not as smooth and fluid as the international model, and Samsung Experience is nothing more than TouchWiz with a bow on it. But perhaps worst of all, user reports are starting to roll in that indicate the Galaxy S8 may have a serious problem with premature screen burn-in.
How To: It's Super Easy to Get Full-Size Thumbnails in Samsung's Gallery App
Is it just me, or are the thumbnail in the Samsung Gallery app a bit small? I spend quite a bit of time looking through rows of images, one at a time, to find the right photo. Wouldn't it be so much easier if the thumbnails showed the entire image instead of a cropped square? Well, there's a way to do just that.
How To: Get a System-Wide Dark Theme on Your Galaxy S8 — No Root Needed
Samsung's recent TouchWiz rebranding didn't really change much — the skin is still as bloated as ever, and the UI still uses tacky accent colors. But while you can't fully remove TouchWiz without rooting, there are ways to make it look a lot better.
How To: Remove the 'Connected to VPN' Notification on Your Samsung Galaxy Device
If you're using a VPN app to block ads or secure your Galaxy's internet connection, Samsung has decided you need yet another non-dismissible notification from One UI to tell you about it. Not just a status bar indicator like Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, but a full-size alert that can't be dismissed. The entire time your always-on VPN is running.
How To: Shoot Selfies Without Touching Your Galaxy Phone
Smartphone photos look a lot better when you keep the camera steady, but selfies by nature make you do finger gymnastics to hold the phone while keeping your thumb free to hit the shutter button. If you have a Galaxy phone like the S10, however, there's an ingenious feature you can use to help ensure perfect selfies on the first try.
How To: Make Your Headphones Always Control Your Favorite Music App on Your Galaxy
I don't know about you, but I like to listen to music throughout the day. As I am writing articles or doing some cardio at the gym, I go through my playlist, only stopping the music in situations where I have to. And ever since I switched to the Samsung Galaxy S10+, this has gotten even easier to do.
YSK: Samsung's Keyboard Lets You Copy & Paste Multiple Items
Copying and pasting is even more important on a phone since there's no mouse and keyboard. And like on a computer, copying is usually limited to one item at a time — but with the Samsung Keyboard app, you have the ability to copy multiple sets of text.
How To: Disable the Post-Screenshot Toolbar Overlay on Your Samsung Galaxy
With Samsung's One UI version of Android, it's easier than ever to take a screenshot and quickly edit the captured image. However, the downside to that convenience has manifested itself in an overlay ribbon that can also get in the way.
How To: This Setting Makes It So Much Easier to See Notifications on Your Galaxy
Phones are getting bigger and taller, so it's increasingly harder to reach the notification tray. But Samsung is here to the rescue, as they've introduced into One UI for Galaxy devices a gesture that makes it easy to access the notification drawer on your home screen.