Samsung How-Tos
How To: Enable One-Tap App Installation for APKs on Android
I'm always looking for the best apps and services for my Android, and that means sticking strictly to the Google Play Store is a no-go. If you're like me and tend to install a lot of APKs (application files), you're probably tired of seeing the "Install" confirmation that always pops up.
How To: Turn Apps into Home Screen Pages on Android
There's a never-ending selection of app launchers that want a permanent spot on your Android device. While some keep the stock-Android look with beefed-up versions of Google's launcher, Blur is relatively new on the scene, with a unique approach to app management that sets it apart.
How To: Mod Stops Rapid-Fire Texts from Blowing Up Your Phone
Everyone has that one friend who just can't help but send multiple texts in rapid-fire succession, when they just as easily could have been consolidated into one easy-to-read message. Alert after alert, this becomes extremely annoying as your phone shoots notification sounds and vibrations at you like it was possessed.
How To: The Definitive Guide to Ad Blocking on Android
The Play Store is loaded with just about any app you can imagine. While many are free or have a "lite" version of a paid app for download, often enough, these freebies have intrusive ads cluttering up your screen.
How To: Get the Strongest Wi-Fi Connection on Your Android Every Time
If you work at a large office or have a multi-story home, you're probably familiar with Wi-Fi range extenders. Since one hotspot isn't always enough to cover an entire area, Wi-Fi repeaters are generally set up in larger areas to capture and rebroadcast the original signal.
How To: Finally, an Easy Way to Share Large Video Files from Android
Sharing files has always been one of Android's greatest strengths. A system of "share intents" allow apps to freely exchange data with each other, making it possible to take a picture with your favorite camera app, then send it over to your choice of photo-sharing apps, for instance.
How To: Get Text Messages in Facebook-Style "Chathead" Bubbles
When Android 4.4 was released, the massive changelog led to some awesome new features getting lost in the virtually endless list of new tweaks. One such change was the ability to set a default text messaging app, which streamlined the existing process of installing a third-party SMS client.
How To: School Report? Let Android Handle Your Bibliographies for You
Yellow buses are beginning to trickle into traffic. Retailers are pushing pens, pencils, and notebooks. Grumbling Facebook statuses run rampant through your feed. Surely you recognize the signs—school is starting. For some, it already has.
How To: Theme the Fingerprint Scanner on Your Galaxy S5
The Galaxy S5's fingerprint scanner feels like something straight out of a sci-fi movie. Giving you the ability to lock your device without having to fuss with a PIN or password every time you go to use it, the feature is definitely one of the device's main selling points, especially now that you can use it to unlock individual apps.
How To: Get the Galaxy S5's Ultra Power Saving Mode on Your Note 3
My phablet has incredible battery life, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't like it to last even longer. Unlike the Samsung Galaxy S5, the Note 3 does not come equipped with Ultra Power Saving Mode, which can keep the phone running for another 24 hours with only 10% power remaining.
How To: Save Snapchats on Android Without Being Detected (No Root Required)
While screenshotting a received Snapchat has never been a hard thing to do, saving one without being noticed is a completely different story. Previously, you would have to have either a rooted Android or jailbroken iOS device to save one of those self-destructing messages undetected, but one particular app has opened this trick up to the masses.
How To: Boost Battery Life by Taming Android's Background Location Checks
An app can request a wakelock to prevent your Android device from entering sleep mode so that it can sync data in the background. This obviously drains your battery, because instead of running in low-power sleep mode, your processor is fully activated while it performs its tasks.
Samsung Galaxy S5: How to Set Power Saving Mode
This video will show you how to set power saving mode in Samsung Galaxy S5 phone. Power saving mode will save or extend your battery life. So power saving mode will prevent unnecessary data usage. This mode will reduce screen brightness or turning off vibration and that will save your battery. This mode will control the display color which also saves battery. So this mode will save your internet connection usage and battery life. Follow the video.
How To: Trick Spotify into Playing Any Song in Its Free Android App
With over 20 million songs, Spotify has become my go-to source for music. I can stream tunes to my desktop or phone, without ever having to worry about storage space being eaten up.
How To: Mod Removes Note 3's Camera Quality Restrictions
With a 13 megapixel camera that can record in full 4K, there's a lot to love about the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 from a photographer's perspective. The image quality in my photos and videos are top-notch and nothing to complain about, but as with all things tech, things could always get better.
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: Set Up Multiple User Profiles on Your Galaxy S5—Or Any Other Android Phone
When Google released Android 4.2, a new feature was introduced for tablets that allowed for multiple accounts to be used on a single device. In order to create a unique experience for each user, apps and personal data were kept separate, and switching between users became as simple as tapping your profile photo from the lock screen.
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: 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: Downgrade Apps on Your Galaxy Note 3 or Other Android Device
Normally, it's good to automatically update your apps to the latest version, but sometimes those updates take away features that you've grown to love.
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: 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.
Important: Back Up Your Galaxy Note 3's EFS & IMEI Data for Emergency Restores
The options for customization are virtually endless when you're rooted and have an unlocked bootloader and custom recovery. However, there is always risk involved when flashing new mods or installing new ROMs. I always make backups in case something happens, but when I'm testing certain mods out, I sometimes get a damaged EFS partition.
How To: Boost Performance & Battery Life on Your Galaxy S5 with These "Build.prop" Hacks
The build.prop file in an Android device is home to many system-level values and settings. Everything from screen density to video recording quality is covered in this file, and people have been editing these entries to get new functionality and better performance since Android has existed.
How To: Speed Up the TouchWiz Launcher on Your Samsung Galaxy S5
The Galaxy S5 is definitely not lacking when it comes to computing power. With a Snapdragon 801 processor, an Adreno 330 GPU, and 2 gigabytes of RAM, it can take almost anything you throw at it.
How To: Get the Android L Lock Screen on Your Galaxy S4 or Other Android Device
This year's Google I/O brought the announcement of Android L, as well as the Preview builds of L for the Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 (2013), installed using either ADB on Windows or fastboot on any computer. Unfortunately, those of us without a Nexus device are out of luck—but not entirely.
How To: Increase Headphones & Speaker Volumes on Your Samsung Galaxy S5
These days, most of the hardware components in smartphones evolve at a breakneck pace. Batteries gain capacity while decreasing in size, displays continue to get sharper as graphics rendering steadily improves, and processors clock higher speeds at every generation.
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: Keep Your Inbox Tidy with Quick-Action Popups for Emails on Your Galaxy S4
Believe it or not, but people are actually texting less than they did before, and that's all thanks to Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, WhatsApp, and other split-second communication services. However, one communication method that is still going strong—and dominating—is email.
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: Find Your Missing Android Phone, Wipe It Clean, Disable USB, Capture Thief Selfies, & More
When you misplace your Android device, finding it with the Android Device Manager, or even better, Whistle Me, can help you find it no problem. But what about when your phone is not just hiding under the couch cushions? Your worst nightmare just came true. It's officially gone.
How To: Force an LTE-Only Connection on Your Samsung Galaxy S5
Even with the highest-tiered data plan available, there are times that your phone or your carrier might downgrade your connection to 3G or even lower. This usually occurs when you've made a phone call, or you've switched cell towers while traveling.
How To: Truth or Dare + Spin the Bottle: Play These Classic Party Games Right on Your Android Phone
Classic party games like Spin the Bottle and Truth or Dare, immensely popular in the '80s and '90s, seem to have been long forgotten and abandoned by today's youth. Today, new forms of party games are all the rage, a prime example being Cards Against Humanity. Yes, CAH is hilarious and fun, but the classics can still be appreciated, as long as we catch them up to the times.
How To: Install a Custom Recovery on the Galaxy S5 (International, Sprint, & T-Mobile)
With Safestrap bringing custom recovery functionality to the AT&T and Verizon Wireless variants of the Samsung Galaxy S5, it's high time we covered this process for all other versions of the GS5.
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: 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: Theme the Google Keyboard on Your Galaxy S4 to Look Like an iPhone
In previous guides, we showed you how to easily tweak your Google Keyboard by using various colors and shapes, installing an Android L theme, or adding a convenient number row to its main display. And now, you can add another Google Keyboard theme to your arsenal by making it look like your iOS friend's iPad or iPhone keyboard.
How To: Enable the Hidden Call Recording Feature on Your Samsung Galaxy S5
Before your carrier got its grubby little hands on your Galaxy S5, there was less bloatware installed and more functionality offered by the Samsung flagship device. Case in point: the GS5 that Samsung designed was capable of recording phone calls, yet the one that you own probably isn't.
One-Tap, Hassle-Free Logins: Automate the Sign-In Process for Your Favorite Websites on Android
Apps that save your passwords have been around for quite a long while. But apps that complete the entire login process automatically? Now that's a different story.
How To: Install a Custom Recovery on Your Bootloader-Locked Galaxy Note 3 (AT&T or Verizon)
The bootloaders on the AT&T and Verizon Wireless variants of the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 still cannot be unlocked, despite the $1,400+ bounty that arose late last year. Nine months later and still nothing. But just because we can't "unlock" the bootloader doesn't mean we can't get around it.