The Samsung Galaxy S9 and its larger screen version (S9 Plus) are without a shadow of doubt among the best phones of 2018, considered by many to be true alternatives to the iPhone X.
Now the new smartphones, in the absence of sensational innovations that for now nobody seems able to pull out, they are different than previous models both for the hardware features, more and more powerful, more and more quality, faster and faster, and also on the software side, with interface updates that go beyond the Android system.
On all Samsung Galaxy the firmware that governs the menus and the list of applications, which was called Touchwiz, was renewed about a year ago with the name Samsung Experience Home.
If we are among the lucky owners of a Samsung Galaxy updated with the new Touchwiz, we see here the best tips and tricks to use the settings of Samsung Experience Home and the most important personalization of the screen, so as to get a smartphone smarter and easier to use in any condition.
1) Easy Mode
Samsung offers two types of boot modes: Standard and Easy.
The standard one uses the new launcher with all the features, while the Easy mode is a simplified version, with larger screen elements, an essential navigation and a page dedicated to contacts.
This is ideal for older people.
To activate the Easy mode, go to Settings> Display.
2) Color Balance
The Samsung Galaxy S9 allows you to adjust the intensity of the colors of the screen, so as to obtain more brightness or greater compactness of the same according to the perceptions of our eyes.
To set one of the parameters provided by the operating system, simply go to Settings -> Display -> Screen Mode.
To balance the color we can either use one of the provided options, or move the color temperature bar and (at the bottom of the page) open the advanced options and adjust the three primary colors (RGB) as needed.
3) Change home screen settings
To access the main screen settings you can go to Settings> Display> Home screen or just long press on an empty space on the main screen of the phone.
From the settings you can customize the appearance of the Samsung Galaxy in various ways including: change the page order on the main screen, disable the list of applications, change the size of the icon grid, activate the gesture of scrolling with the finger down to open notifications, change notification style.
4) Aligning icons
When we move apps on the home screen, they occupy a random position.
Instead of manually positioning them, Samsung Experience Home offers an alignment option.
To align the icons on the home screen, tap and hold on the blank to enter edit mode and use one of the two alignment icons, one at the top and one at the bottom.
5) Using the smartphone with one hand
If the screen of the Samsung phone is too large (especially if we use the model S9 Plus), we can activate the one-handed mode that allows you to reduce the size of the screen and everything that appears ( including the keyboard), so you can use one hand to do everything!
To activate this mode simply go to the menu Settings -> Advanced settings -> One-hand mode.
6) Activate HDR10 on all videos
The HDR allows you to expand the dynamic range of color, resulting in much higher contrasts and saturations in the videos.
If the selected content is already HDR the S9 will play it without problems, but most of the videos on the net or available in streaming are not; we can force the HDR10 to be activated (as a video filter) for all contents by going to the Settings -> Advanced Settings-> Video Enhancer menu and activating the option provided.
At the bottom of this screen we will also see the apps compatible with this feature.
We activate this feature and choose how to apply it on our smartphone: we can choose the gesture (just drag the finger diagonally starting from one of the upper corners) or a button (just press the Home button 3 times to activate it).
7) Activate the bokeh effect on the photos, front and back
If we often take pictures of food or want to give a little creativity to our selfies we can add the effect of advanced blurring directly during the shot, without having to use dedicated programs or other photo apps third parts.
To do so just open the Camera app and choose the right options based on the camera we are using: Live Focus on the rear camera and Selfie Focus on the front camera.
8) Automatically close unnecessary apps
The battery of the two Samsung models is adequate for standard use, but if we notice that it lasts too little for our needs we can use the tools made available by the operating system to optimize battery consumption.
Let’s go to the Settings -> Device Management menu and tap the Battery button; in this screen we can choose whether or not to activate the energy saving and, more importantly, we can control which apps consume more battery.
Selecting apps that we do not use often will be closed and hibernated (they will not be able to reboot until we open them) automatically as soon as we turn off the screen or under certain conditions.
To avoid problems with the apps that often send notifications (social, chat) we exclude the apps that we do not want to be closed by unchecking the check mark next to the corresponding app.
9) Reduce screen resolution
The screen of the two S9 models offer a WQHD+ screen resolution, ie 2960 x 1440 pixels.
This resolution makes the screen very clear and sharp, but can consume a large amount of energy for the battery.
If we want to increase the autonomy considerably we can reduce the resolution by opening the menu Settings -> Display -> Screen resolution.
In the menu that will open we will have a slide with which to decide the resolution of the screen; to get a good saving we can select FullHD+ (2220 x 1080 pixels), but if we need the battery to arrive until the evening we can also select HD+ (1480 x 720 pixels).
10) Reduce CPU speed
If the battery still does not satisfy you despite the tricks recommended so far, we can lower the clock speed of the CPU contained in the smartphone, so as to get a good battery saving sacrificing only a small part of the performance (the phone will remain however fast for most daily apps).
To activate this energy saving let’s go to Settings ->Device management -> Battery, we select the energy saving mode that we intend to use and make sure to activate the option that puts a limit on the speed of the CPU.
From now on, when the energy saving profile will be active, the CPU will be slower but the phone will have more autonomy.
11) Improve the sound quality
In order to enjoy the highest quality video and movie sound, we can activate the Dolby Atmos feature, whose icon is available in the quick settings of the status bar.
If instead we like to listen to music, we turn off Dolby Atmos and go to the Settings -> Sound Quality menu and effects and activate the UHQ upscaler and Tube Amp Pro options.
In this way we will always have a smartphone that can reproduce sound with truly impressive quality for a smartphone.
12) Use two Bluetooth headphones at the same time
With the presence of Bluetooth 5.0 on Samsung smartphones, we can connect two Bluetooth headsets simultaneously to the device to listen to the same music or watch the same video with another person.
To use it, you need to connect the two devices to the phone via the Bluetooth menu and, in the advanced settings, activate the Dual Audio feature.
Once activated, the phone will “split” the audio so that it can be sent to two different devices.
The audio may have a different delay between the two devices (also in relation to the distance), but anyway it is a comfort not indifferent when traveling in pairs or we want to listen to the phone audio on two devices.
13) Illuminate the edges when the notifications arrive
If the screen is off, we will have to rely on Always-on notifications to see if we have received new messages or new notifications from the app.
Alternatively (and with a considerably lower battery consumption) we can make the edges of the display light up to signal the arrival of the notifications.
Screen -> Edge and activate the option that allows Edge lighting.
14) Disable Bixby
This is perhaps the first thing to do on every Samsung phone, because Bixby is a superfluous virtual assistant, less than the Google, which is not needed.
To do so, long press the home screen to switch to edit mode, scroll right to go to the Bixby Home screen and turn off the switch at the top.
In the guide on how to solve the most frequent problems with Samsung Galaxy we have also seen the way to prevent Bixby reappears.
15) Brightness filter
The Blue Light Filter option in the Display settings allows you to program the activation of the brightness filter, so that in the evening the screen is less annoying to the eyes by attenuating the blue lights.