Samsung galaxy s8 side light. Camera tips for Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus
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The smartphone market is fiercely competitive and intensifies every year. Manufacturers strive to outdo each other by introducing original features available on their gadgets. Especially against this background, Samsung Electronics distinguished itself, whose smartphones have a whole sea of useful "chips" that not everyone knows about.
Protected folder
A secure phone is good, and an extra secure area on your phone is even better. If you store sensitive information or important applications on your gadget, you can place them in this area protected by the Samsung Knox platform. It looks like "Android inside Android": a separate home screen, a separate application installation system, isolated from the rest of the OS. At the same time, both areas do not interact with each other: even if attackers gain access to your “main” operating system, they will not be able to get to the protected area.
multitasking
Fans of large displays and adherents of maximum productivity will benefit from the ability to open two applications on a smartphone at once in different windows, each on half the screen. This allows you to read news reports and watch YouTube videos at the same time, or work on documents and discuss them with a colleague via video call. Or, for example, scroll through Instagram and play games to take a break from such an effective work!
Smart switch
An easy and fast way to transfer data from your old phone to your new Galaxy smartphone. With the Smart Switch app, you can quickly transfer contacts, photos, as well as music, videos, calendar events, and apps to your new gadget. You can do this using a USB cable, computer, external storage, or wirelessly.
Screen capture with the palm of your hand
Taking screenshots on Samsung smartphones is as simple as swiping the screen from left to right with the edge of your hand. One gesture and you're done! We think it's much more convenient than holding down a few buttons.
Shooting by gesture or by touching the screen/keys/voice
All flagship Galaxy models support taking photos without monopods, just show the camera an open palm or give one of the following voice commands (and in Russian): “take a picture”, “take a picture”, “smile”, “shoot”, and for video - "video recording".
Samsung Smart View
This is an application that provides several convenient and useful functions at once. You can stream videos, pictures or even music from your smartphone to your Samsung Smart TV thanks to Dual View - watch TV through your tablet or phone when you're busy in the other room but don't want to take your eyes off your favorite series or sports program, and TV Remote mode allows you to use your smartphone or tablet as a remote control.
Always On display
Looking at the screen of the gadget dozens of times a day has become a habit of modern smartphone owners. However, each time you press the buttons to activate the screen, it is not very convenient, and this affects the battery life badly. To simplify this task, Samsung came up with the Always On Display mode. The function allows you to display useful information on the off screen: time, date, battery level, message and call notifications.
Samsung Pay (NFC+MST)
The Samsung Pay mobile service is unique in that you can pay with your smartphone almost anywhere. The secret is in the proprietary MST technology, which allows you to emulate the card's magnetic stripe. MST allows you to make contactless payments even on those terminals that do not support contactless payment.
Built-in kids mode
Just like on a PC, several users can work under different accounts, as on Samsung's flagship smartphones, you can create a personal account for a child with educational games, coloring books, sticker creation tools, voice changer programs and, of course, favorite cartoons. The child will never get to an unwanted site and will not see your personal photos - he will have his own gallery, and he will be able to call only those contacts to which you provide access.
If you prefer to control household appliances, such as a vacuum cleaner or a washing machine, using your voice, Yandex.Column with Alice voice assistant will help you - it supports device control from both Samsung and other manufacturers.
Scrolling screenshot
Another non-obvious, but very useful feature is the scrolling screenshot. It is often necessary to capture an image of an entire web page for one purpose or another, such as screenshotting a long infographic or article, and Samsung smartphones make it easy to do this. How it works? Open the page you want to take a picture of, press a combination of buttons or use your palm (which we mentioned above) to take a screenshot. After that, at the bottom you will see a scroll down icon. Hold it down until you have covered all the information you need. The function stitches multiple screenshots into one long screenshot.
fast charging
Remember how we used to go 3-4 days without charging our phone? With the advent of smartphones, the situation has changed a lot, the energy consumption of gadgets has increased significantly, and now you just have time to charge your smartphone every night. And if you didn't make it? Fast charging technology (wired and wireless) was invented for such cases. A special charger increases the power of the charge energy, which allows you to put the gadget on alert many times faster. Samsung has the Duo Pad, which comes with a turbo fan for cooling and can improve the wireless charging speed of the Galaxy S10 smartphone by about 33% compared to the Galaxy S9.
"Find phone"
The Find My Phone service, available on Galaxy devices, is a preventative measure against losing your smartphone. If you lose your gadget, the service allows you to remotely track its approximate location and movements, lock the screen and power button, and even disable access to Samsung Pay. You can also delete all data stored on your device. If the SIM card is changed on the lost gadget, you can check the new phone number through the application.
Bixby scenarios
The Galaxy S10 offers up to six personalized and nine preset scenarios based on the wearer's habits. For example, when you arrive home, the smartphone automatically turns on Wi-Fi and the sound of the call and notifications, and when you come to work, the device switches to silent mode. In the evenings, he himself will go into "dark" mode, lower the brightness of the display and activate the blue light filter.
The company recently released a software update for the Galaxy S10 that allows you to remap the Bixby button to get quick access to the selected app. You can activate the function in the menu Advanced settings - Bixby key. You can schedule the opening of the selected application with a double or single press of the button, while the Bixby assistant will be launched on the remaining combination.
Floating camera button.
The camera settings menu displays a floating shutter button that you can move anywhere on the screen. Click it to take a photo.
Slide the built-in shutter button up or down to zoom in or out.
Navigation buttons.
If you prefer the back button on the right and the recent apps on the left, you can change the default order.
Skip the lock screen.
Go to the navigation menu to skip the lock screen when you press the home button when the screen is off.
custom color.
Choose your favorite color for the navigation bar (back, home, recent apps) it's highlighted.
The sensitivity of the home button.
You can make the capacitive home button more or less sensitive to pressure.
Application shortcuts.
Press and hold the app icon for a couple of seconds to launch various shortcuts (yes, we know it's part of Android Nougat, it also mimics Apple's 3D Touch).
Application shortcuts 2.
Notably, Samsung has also programmed shortcuts to its native apps in the same way as the camera.
Online doctor's consultation.
Samsung Health has a new tab called Experts. If you are subscribed to a service provided by Amwell, you can see a doctor at any time (Russian users are out of luck here, as usual). If you have signed up for this service, you can tell your doctor what is bothering you and get advice over the phone.
One hand control.
Samsung did this a long time ago, but now things look different. Enable this mode and you will be able to shrink the screen at any time (it will not shrink immediately when enabled). You can scroll diagonally or press the home button three times to shrink the screen. The setup button you'll see makes it easy to switch back. Can you imagine the irony? We've spent so much time getting away from tiny screens, but sometimes we want to go back to them. In addition, everything in this mode looks amazing.
Stripes of color.
Look closely and you will see a thin blue line around the edge of the screen. Some notifications trigger this thin edging, but it is shown for a very short time
Applications button.
I like going to the home screen to get to apps. But if you prefer the Apps button, you can use it.
performance mode.
The Galaxy S7 had an offline game mode and battery optimizer, but this option is new to the Galaxy S8.
facewidgets.
Theoretically, you can see even more information on the Always-On display, but we haven't been able to get this to work yet...
Reminders.
Samsung's Reminders app is also a good place to save links you come across while using Samsung's own browser.
Do you want more?
There are even more advanced features and customization tools inside, many of which carry over from the Galaxy S7 and earlier models.
At today's Unpacked 2017 presentation, Samsung introduced two new devices: Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus. They have a unique design, as they do not resemble any of the existing smartphones. The new flagships have received a number of new functions and features, which we want to talk about first.
The Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus represent a new era of smartphones with huge screens, thin bezels on all sides and relatively compact size.
New functions and features of Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus:
1. Frameless screen
In keeping with the latest trends, Seoulites have abandoned the standard 16:9 screen aspect ratio in favor of a new, more elongated 18.5:9. The company made the top and bottom edges as thin as possible, but it had to move the fingerprint scanner to the back. This means that Samsung has increased the diagonal, but the dimensions of the new products have remained the same, that is, like last year's generation.
2. Increased resolution and screen-to-body ratio
Both the flagship 5.8-inch S8 and 6.2-inch S8 Plus are equipped with Super AMOLED panels with the same resolution of 2960x1440 pixels (WQHD+). The screen-to-body ratio is an impressive 83%. As it was said at the presentation, the panels of the new generation have 500 thousand more pixels than those installed in the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge.
3. Bixby voice assistant
Google, Microsoft and Amazon already have a virtual assistant, so Samsung decided to introduce its own solution. The flagships of the new generation of the company received a voice assistant called Bixby, to call which you can use voice commands or a physical button. The AI-powered solution will play a major role in the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus, as well as many other products from the company.
Bixby is able to understand the context in various applications, help you make purchases, and also integrates all the services and wearable gadgets available to you.
4. On-screen buttons with tactile feedback
Due to the new frameless screen, which Samsung called Infinity Display, there was no room on the front panel for mechanical navigation buttons. The company replaced them with virtual ones, and the fingerprint scanner migrated to the back of the case.
To make up for the lack of a physical home button, the South Korean manufacturer's engineers used a handy tactile feedback technology. It gives the user the feeling of pressing a button, which has a positive effect on the experience of using a smartphone.
5. Updated user interface
In addition to the appearance of new products, Seoul also updated the design of the user interface. They have changed how the notification bar looks like, making it more minimalistic than before. The theme store has even more icons that fit the overall style. And the application menu in the standard launcher opens with a swipe up, like on a Google Pixel.
6. Iris scanner and face recognition
The Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus carry over the iris scanner that first appeared on the Note 7. Both phones support face recognition to unlock the screen.
7. Improved front camera
Samsung has not only increased the resolution of the front camera on the new Galaxy devices to 8 MP, but also added autofocus, which will allow you to instantly focus on faces.
8. Headphones from AKG included
As announced at the Unpacked 2017 presentation, each Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus smartphone will come with headphones from AKG. We cannot say anything definite about the sound quality, but the products of this brand have long established themselves in the market. Last year, the Seoulites acquired Harman International, which owns AKG Acoustics, and this is how their collaboration began.
9. New colors
The gadgets announced today will appear on store shelves in five different colors: black, silver, gray, gold and blue. It is not known what shades will be available to Russian consumers.
New Samsung Galaxy S8 is already starting to be officially sold in our countries, which means that the first owners of the novelty have appeared with the first questions about the smartphone. In this article on Galagram, we publish 8 answers to common questions about the flagship, which will help you quickly understand the phone and use it to the maximum benefit for your productivity.
Which unlock method is more convenient for you
The first thing you should do after turning on your phone and transferring your personal data to it is of course to set up all the various biometric methods that the Galaxy S8 offers to unlock your phone. The smartphone has a traditional fingerprint scanner, but it has not received the best location at the top on the back. In everyday life, constantly reaching for it will cause discomfort. But Samsung also offers Face Unlock, Retinal Scan, and other unlock methods. We advise you to configure all the methods to understand which one is preferable for you.
Many users have already noted the effectiveness of the combination of a fingerprint scanner and an iris scan. It is fast, reliable and convenient in most situations. To do this, go to Settings > Screen lock > Security to activate all blocking methods, and then leave the most convenient for you.
How to Customize the Buttons Under the Screen in Galaxy S8
The S8 is the first flagship phone from Samsung to use virtual buttons right on the display, instead of physical and touch buttons below it. But their standard location is not very convenient and logical. Tabs from left to right: Task Manager, Home, Back. This can be misleading if you've used Nexus or Pixel smartphones before. In fact, the back key is not in the place that we are all used to.
Fortunately, you can customize the location of these keys to your liking. Now we will tell you how to make the back button on the left, the home button in the center, and the application manager on the right. This option can be found in the application Settings > Display Panel & Navigation. Another small life hack: in the same menu, you can “paint over” the bottom panel with the color you like best.
How to enable notifications on the edge of the S8 display
One of the best things about the Galaxy S8 software is the ability to make the edges of the screen light up when notifications arrive. In addition, the S8 offers notification visuals from stock Android. For some reason, these features are disabled out of the box, so you'll need to dig into the settings to enable them. Below we show you how to do it quickly.
Go to section Settings > Display > Edges, then turn on edge lighting to activate edge notifications. You can enable this feature for all programs, or limit its use to only the most important application notifications for you.
How to change screen zoom on Galaxy S8
If you opted for the smaller 5.8-inch Galaxy S8, you may have noticed that many on-screen elements, such as text and buttons, look too big. Fortunately, you can adjust the display scaling so that these elements are smaller and you can see more information on one home screen. Below, we'll show you how to display more content on one screen.
To do this, go to the menu Settings > Display > Screen scaling and font. Slider Screen zoom move to the left to display even more useful information on your screen.
How to Change Theme on Samsung S8
The software interface of the Galaxy S8 is quite nice and much more attractive than previous versions of Samsung's TouchWiz. But if you're not a fan of the white background for your notification shade or system apps, you can easily download another theme to completely change the look of the interface.
Go to section Settings > Wallpapers & Themes to view the various themes available. In the Samsung content store, you will find both paid and free themes for your phone.
How to enable always active screen (Always On)
If you are still customizing the interface for yourself, you can also activate the Always On Display feature. By default, it can display the time, date, battery level, new notification icons, and a virtual home key. But if you go to the theme customization section, you can download a lot of other options.
At today's Unpacked 2017 presentation, Samsung introduced two new devices: Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus. They have a unique design, as they do not resemble any of the existing smartphones. The new flagships have received a number of new functions and features, which we want to talk about first.
The Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus represent a new era of smartphones with huge screens, thin bezels on all sides and relatively compact size.
New functions and features of Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus:
1. Frameless screen
In keeping with the latest trends, Seoulites have abandoned the standard 16:9 screen aspect ratio in favor of a new, more elongated 18.5:9. The company made the top and bottom edges as thin as possible, but it had to move the fingerprint scanner to the back. This means that Samsung has increased the diagonal, but the dimensions of the new products have remained the same, that is, like last year's generation.
2. Increased resolution and screen-to-body ratio
Both the flagship 5.8-inch S8 and 6.2-inch S8 Plus are equipped with Super AMOLED panels with the same resolution of 2960x1440 pixels (WQHD+). The screen-to-body ratio is an impressive 83%. As it was said at the presentation, the panels of the new generation have 500 thousand more pixels than those installed in the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge.
3. Bixby voice assistant
Google, Microsoft and Amazon already have a virtual assistant, so Samsung decided to introduce its own solution. The flagships of the new generation of the company received a voice assistant called Bixby, to call which you can use voice commands or a physical button. The AI-powered solution will play a major role in the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus, as well as many other products from the company.
Bixby is able to understand the context in various applications, help you make purchases, and also integrates all the services and wearable gadgets available to you.
4. On-screen buttons with tactile feedback
Due to the new frameless screen, which Samsung called Infinity Display, there was no room on the front panel for mechanical navigation buttons. The company replaced them with virtual ones, and the fingerprint scanner migrated to the back of the case.
To make up for the lack of a physical home button, the South Korean manufacturer's engineers used a handy tactile feedback technology. It gives the user the feeling of pressing a button, which has a positive effect on the experience of using a smartphone.
5. Updated user interface
In addition to the appearance of new products, Seoul also updated the design of the user interface. They have changed how the notification bar looks like, making it more minimalistic than before. The theme store has even more icons that fit the overall style. And the application menu in the standard launcher opens with a swipe up, like on a Google Pixel.
6. Iris scanner and face recognition
The Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus carry over the iris scanner that first appeared on the Note 7. Both phones support face recognition to unlock the screen.
7. Improved front camera
Samsung has not only increased the resolution of the front camera on the new Galaxy devices to 8 MP, but also added autofocus, which will allow you to instantly focus on faces.
8. Headphones from AKG included
As announced at the Unpacked 2017 presentation, each Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus smartphone will come with headphones from AKG. We cannot say anything definite about the sound quality, but the products of this brand have long established themselves in the market. Last year, the Seoulites acquired Harman International, which owns AKG Acoustics, and this is how their collaboration began.
9. New colors
The gadgets announced today will appear on store shelves in five different colors: black, silver, gray, gold and blue. It is not known what shades will be available to Russian consumers.