Hot Samsung Posts

How To: Turn Your Samsung Galaxy Smartphone or Tablet into a Second Display for Your Computer

An iPad can serve as a second screen for a Mac via Sidecar, available since iPadOS 13, but Apple isn't the only manufacturer to support such a feature. Samsung has had a similar tool since One UI 3.1 that lets you turn certain Samsung Galaxy tablets into second displays for your PC — and there's a hidden feature that expands it to more tablets and even Samsung Galaxy smartphones.

How To: Adjust Your Samsung Galaxy Note's S-Pen Sensitivity for Better Touch Response

Touchscreens are all the rage these days, and it seems that the stylus has become a relic of the past thanks to newer and better fingertip responsive smartphone displays. But when it comes to phablets like Samsung's Galaxy Note line, the added S-Pen is definitely helpful for more accurate and precise actions (and a less greasy screen). Of course, there are disadvantages of using an S-Pen too, one being hardware issues. Unlike your finger, the S-Pen can malfunction and become a huge problem, n...

How To: Remove the Black Bar Under Your Galaxy's Keyboard

Back when Android used navigation buttons, there was a large black bar at the bottom of every screen to house the back, home, and recent apps buttons. But after switching to full-screen navigation gestures in 2019, there was no longer a need for it — however, a vestigial black bar still shows up when you're using your keyboard.

How To: Enable "Unknown Sources" in Order to Download Independent Apps on Your Galaxy Note 2 or 3

Installing applications that are not on Google Play requires you to enable a certain permission in the settings so that the whole process goes down smoothly. If you're downloading one of these third-party applications (in the form of an APK), you'll need to enable Unknown sources.

How To: Disable App Icon Badges and Unread Notification Counts on Your Samsung Galaxy Smartphone

If you scan the notification panel on your Samsung Galaxy smartphone daily, all those red circles with numbers that litter the apps on your home screen and app drawer can feel like persistent nagging and unnecessary clutter rather than friendly reminders to check your app alerts — but you can do something about it.

How To: Secretly Call & Message Contacts Using an Innocent-Looking Android Calculator

Whether you're a secret spy or just a regular person with a few secrets, you may want to keep certain information on your smartphone private, and it's totally possible on Android to do so.

How To: Hide Apps on Your Samsung Galaxy's Home Screen, App Tray, and Search

You don't have to see every app installed on your phone if you don't want to. Samsung One UI makes it easy to hide apps from your Samsung Galaxy's home screen, app tray, and search tool, whether you want to declutter, simplify things, or keep other people from seeing some of the apps you use.

How To: This Innocent Calculator Is Really a Secret App Safe for Android

Trust can be a touchy subject in general, and is often required when sharing personal information—especially so when handing our phones over to others. You may not have a ton of secret or nefarious information on your device, but that doesn't mean you want your mom or snoopy coworker having easy access to your messages or Facebook app.

How To: Clone Any Android App on Your Samsung Galaxy Phone Without Using Any Third-Party Tools

Samsung has a cool security feature built into One UI that has an interesting side effect, one that lets you have two separate copies of any Android app on your Galaxy phone. And that's not the only integrated Samsung tool for cloning apps.

How To: Test Your Samsung Phone by Using Secret Code *#0*#

Besides obvious features like a touchscreen and biometric sensors, the modern smartphone comes with an array of state-of-the-art hardware in the form of various sensors that help your device sense the environment around it. And if you have a Samsung handset, chances are, you have a handy feature built in that enables you to check if these sensors are functioning 100 percent.

How To: Get "Metro-Inspired" App Icons on Your Samsung Galaxy S4 for a Sleek-Looking Home Screen

The stock Android app icons that come with your Samsung Galaxy S4 can vary wildly in shape and size, as they will with any out-of-the-box Android device.

How To: Turn Your Samsung or Other Android Phone into a Personal “Black Box” Audio Recorder

Whenever you need to record a quick message to yourself or someone else, the stock Voice Recorder app on the Galaxy Note 2 does a fine job. However, the situations when you need it the most are when you forget or don't care to actually use it, like during a heated argument or a random police stop where your words can be misconstrued or altogether unheard.

How To: Activate Your Samsung Galaxy's Vault to Keep Your Apps, Files, and History Safe from Prying Eyes and Hackers

One UI has an exciting privacy feature that lets you lock apps, photos, videos, and files on your Galaxy device behind Samsung's defense-grade Knox security platform. Only you can unlock it using a pattern, PIN, or passcode, or with biometrics like fingerprint and iris locks. It's like having a safe built right into your smartphone, and it couldn't be easier to set up.

How To: Use Samsung's Hidden Hearing Test to Get Drastically Better Sound Quality from Your Galaxy

A lot of folks complain about the extra features Samsung adds to Android, but while there are some benefits to the slimmer stock Android, the TouchWiz firmware on Galaxy devices definitely has its own advantages.

How To: Trick Out Your Galaxy S3's Status Bar with New Icons, Clocks, Colors, & More

The status bar is where we get all of the important need-to-know information for our phones. At a quick glance, you can see what time it is on your Samsung Galaxy S3, how much battery power you have remaining, your current signal strength, and more. But after a while, things can feel a little stale up there.

How To: Use the Volume Keys for Page Scrolling on Android

Android's beauty is in its customization; you can have widgets for anything, launchers that look and feel completely different from one another, and fonts you can change at any time. And it doesn't stop at aesthetics—you can go much deeper than looks.

How To: Root Your Samsung Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge (US Models)

The international, Exynos-powered Galaxy S7 and S7 edge have had a working root method ever since a few days after release. But the North American variants—those using Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 processor—have locked bootloaders, and have proven to be almost unrootable up until now.

How To: Root the Samsung Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge

Samsung's 2016 flagship devices are some of the most beautiful, powerful smartphones ever made. And amazingly enough, thanks to legendary root developer Chainfire, the Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge are about to get even more powerful.

How To: Carrier Unlock Your Samsung Galaxy S4 So You Can Use Another SIM Card

Unlocking your Samsung Galaxy S4 so you can use a different SIM card isn't the easiest thing in the world. In the states, unlocking cell phones was actually illegal, despite the White House's disapproval, though, a recent bill has making its way to the House floor and has made it legal again.

How To: Set Rotating Lock Screen Wallpapers on Samsung Galaxy Devices

Say what you want about Samsung's TouchWiz UI being cluttered or overbearing, but one thing you can never complain about is a lack of features. In fact, it's been almost 8 months since I first took my Galaxy S6 Edge out of its box, but I'm still discovering features to this day.

How To: Schedule Bluetooth, Data, Wi-Fi & Other System Settings on Android

Before you head to class, work, or sleep, you're probably doing the same thing over and over again—toggling off system settings like Wi-Fi, sound, data, or brightness, depending on the circumstances. Schedules and routines can help increase efficiency, so while you abide to a particular schedule, so should your Android.

How To: Connect to Protected Wi-Fi Hotspots for Free Without Any Passwords

Depending on who you ask, internet connectivity should be a basic human right. With Google recently embarking on a project to provide internet capabilities to remote corners of the world using balloons and satellites while Facebook attempts to do the same with unmanned drones, the concept of free web access is steadily gaining steam.

How To: Use the Earpiece & Speaker Together for Surround Sound on Your Galaxy Note 3

Located at the bottom of the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 lies the speaker from which music, notifications, and most other audio comes from, which provides warm and clear sound when needed.

How To: Fit More Content on Your Screen by Changing the Pixel Density on Your Android Device

Because of Android's massive array of supported smartphones that carry vastly different display sizes and resolutions, the operating system uses a value known as DPI to determine the size of icons and visual assets that will best suit a given screen.

How To: Secretly Record Videos Using the Volume Keys on Your Galaxy S4 or Other Android Phone

Unlike the suave 007 that Daniel Craig portrayed, I am not a spy, nor am I that charming, but I do occasionally enjoy taking a stealthy video. Maybe I'm a jerk, but I often catch people doing ridiculous things and just think, "Aren't you embarrassed?"

How To: Bypass Filters, Firewalls, & Open Hotspot Restrictions on Your Galaxy Note 3

Ever use an open hotspot on your Note 3, only to find out that it's severely restricted to what sites you can access? While getting online with free Wi-Fi is great for those who have a limited data plan, when that one site you absolutely need to visit is blocked, you're left frustrated and sent back into the Wi-Fi menu for another access point.

How To: Install a Custom Recovery & New ROM on Your Bootloader-Locked Samsung Galaxy S4

Third-party ROMs like CyanogenMod are the ultimate form of customization for softModders. Hard-working developers offer us alternate Android experiences to replace our often bloatware-riddled stock ROMs.

How To: Network Unlock Your Samsung Galaxy S3 to Use with Another GSM Carrier

Why unlock your Samsung Galaxy S3 to use with a different SIM card? One possible reason is that you love your phone, but not your cellular provider because of the poor service or an unreliable connection. If you purchased a Samsung GS3 with AT&T, T-Mobile, etc. on a contract, it might be locked for a specific amount of time called the contract period.

How To: Monitor CPU Temperature from Android's Status Bar

At the core of your Galaxy S5's hardware lies the central processing unit, or CPU for short. Practically every piece of data, every binary bit, has to pass through your CPU before it can be used to display a video or execute a game command.

How To: Install a Custom Recovery on Your Bootloader-Locked Galaxy S5 (AT&T or Verizon)

As the largest wireless service providers in the United States, AT&T and Verizon Wireless carry some serious clout. Sadly, they use some of this power to heavily modify the Android phones that they offer.

How To: Set Your Favorite Video as Your Alarm or Ringtone on a Samsung Galaxy S3

Your smartphone has a ton of ringtone options built in, but ringtones haven't really changed much in the past decade, and it's definitely not cool to hear someone in the supermarket with the same lame ringer. While replacing the stock sounds with a song of your choosing is the best way to keep your phone personalized, why not go a step further using a video?

How To: Prevent Bricks by Backing Up the EFS Partition on Your Samsung Galaxy S6

The EFS partition on modern Android phones houses the unique IMEI for your device, which is essentially an identification number that lets you connect to mobile networks. But sometimes, when you're flashing ROMs or restoring backups in custom recovery, the EFS partition can become corrupted, which will prevent your phone from connecting to any type of mobile network.

How To: Unroot & Restore a Samsung Galaxy S6 Back to Stock

There are several reasons that you might want to restore the factory firmware on your device—maybe you need to send your phone back for warranty purposes, or perhaps you're getting ready to accept an over-the-air update and need to unroot first. In some cases, reverting to the stock firmware can even resurrect a soft-bricked phone.

How To: Track Data Usage in Real Time with This Status Bar Meter for Android

When you're on a limited data plan, bumping up against your monthly cap is a major concern. Overage fees are incredibly high these days, and being throttled down to 2G coverage almost renders a smartphone completely useless.

How To: Final Burn Alpha Emulator Revived on Android for Old-School Gaming Fun

Arcades have long faded away from popularity, but their legacy is being kept alive thanks to emulators and the avid fans who grew up loading quarters into all of those coin-op games. Although nothing beats an actual arcade environment, my favorite emulator from the early 2000s has found a new home on Android, and with it a second life.

How To: Add Any Apps to Ultra Power-Saving Mode on the Galaxy S5

The Galaxy S5 comes with an awesome feature for those times when you're running low on battery life with no charger in sight. Ultra Power-Saving Mode allows you to cut back on non-vital services and convert your phone's display into a juice-saving grayscale mode to greatly extend that last bit of charge.

How To: Hide Your Call & Message History for Specific Phone Numbers Using Reflection for Android

Only scumbags hide their call and message history, right? Wrong. While it may seem like a tactic for the unfaithful, it's still a good thing to do for certain contacts on your phone that you don't want to block outright.

How To: Install TWRP Recovery on Your Samsung Galaxy Note 3 (Sprint or T-Mobile)

As we near the one-year anniversary of its release (and the inevitable unveiling of its successor), the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 remains a device that packs quite a punch when it comes to hardware. It boasts a 2.3Ghz CPU and was the first mobile phone ever to house 3GBs of RAM. Suffice it to say, it can handle any software you throw at it with no discernible lag. Even Samsung's notoriously bloated TouchWiz ROM seems lightning fast.

How To: The Easiest "One-Click" Root Method for Your Samsung Galaxy S3

Rooting an Android device used to be a nightmarish labyrinth of .zip files and command prompts, confusing seasoned modding veterans and newbies alike. Thankfully, the process has gotten simpler over the years, with various "one-click" rooting tool kits surfacing and working for nearly every major Android flagship on the market.

How To: A softModder's Review of the Samsung Galaxy Note 3: "Way Better Than the Note 2"

My first encounter with a phablet was late last year with the AT&T version of the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, having never touched or even seen its highly-acclaimed and pioneering predecessor. Initially, I was a bit overwhelmed by the enormous screen and taken aback by the dated stylus, which brought up ugly memories of my dad using his ten pound PalmPilot.