Samsung Galaxy Note 10 and 10 Plus Best Android Tips and Tricks (2019)

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If you lucky to have gotten the new Samsung Galaxy Note 10 and 10 Plus smart phones early enough, and you’re looking for some new cool “Android Tips and Tricks” that you can try on these things. Well, say no more..

Alright so the most anticipated Samsung phones for the year have been launched quite alright, and we’re talking of the new Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10 Plus smart phones yea.

And because these things are new phones, more like a type of “never seen before” kind of Samsung phones yeah, so they come with quite a lot of pretty new features, including some new tricks, which are hidden up in their sleeves.

And because it is our job here to reveal these things to you, today we’ll be showing you 22 of the best new features, tips and tricks of the Samsung Galaxy Note 10, and the Note 10 Plus smart phones.. #Enjoy

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And by the way, if you haven’t read our exclusive review of the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Plus, you can do so right here.

22 Best New Android Tips and Tricks For The Samsung Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10 Plus

You can click on, or tap on any of the listed items, to jump straight to its tutorial.

How to remap the side key, to power off and power on the Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10 Plus.
How to increase the phone’s overall speed, by reducing animations.
How to increase the ultra sonic in-display fingerprint reader speed and accuracy.
How to login and make use of dual social media accounts on one smart phone (The Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10 Plus).
How to setup and make use of One-handed mode for easy navigation and flexibility.
How to setup “Pull down notifications drawer” from home screen.
How to setup and make use of “Smart pop-up view” on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10 Plus.
How to mirror your phone’s screen to a standalone monitor, by making use of “Smart View”.
How to make use of the new “Link to Windows” feature, by setting up “My Phone” app.
How to explore and make use of the full potentials of Samsung’s new Screen Recorder feature.
How to activate “Video Enhancer” feature.
How to activate the “Dolby Atmos Sound for gaming” feature.
How to hide apps on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10 Plus
Samsung Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10 Plus SPen Tips and Tricks.

Pheew, such a long list, but not withstanding, we’ll be taking them one after the other, to see how you can get these things done on your smart phone. And without further ado, let’s begin with the first one.

1. How to remap the Side Key

Now one the most significant design changes that you’re gonna see on the Note 10 and Note 10 Plus smart phones immediately you hold them in your hands, is the absence of the traditional power button that usually sits on the right side of every Samsung phones.

Because that is where your thumb goes to almost 90% of the time when you want to power on the phone, turn off the display to put the phone to sleep, or even turn it off entirely.

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So Samsung took that away from the Note 10 phones, and replaced it with a new button on the left, code named the “Side Key“.

So what this key does is; it acts as a power button when the phone is turned off, and acts as a Bixby key when you long press on it. And to turn off the phone, you will have to pull down the notifications drawer to locate the power off icon.

But even at that, Samsung was wise enough to make this key remappable. That is, instead of it to traditionally wake Bixby whenever you long press on it, it can be set to open up your power options instead. So how do you get to do this, simple.

Find your way to the phone’s main settings page.
Go to “Advanced features“, and locate the option that says “Side Key“.
While in there, you can select what actions the side key performs, both for long press, and double press

2. How to increase the phone’s speed by reducing animations.

Now there’s no arguing that the new Samsung Galaxy Note flagships are lightening fast, with buttery smooth animations and transitions between pages.

But if for any reason at all, you feel that these animations take too much of your time, for example, the transition from the phone’s app drawer to the phone’s dialer app when you try to open it and every other app.

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So if all those smooth fading in and fading out transitions seems to be a problem to you, here’s how you can reduce them, which in turn makes the phone feel like it is a little bit faster.

Once again, find your way down to the phone’s main settings page and head to “Advanced Features“.
Locate the option that says “Reduce animations“, and simply turn on the toggle.

Now you’ll notice a slight change in the speed of animations, but if you want to take things up a notch, and make the phone to feel even more faster, then here’s what you should do.

Go to the phone’s “Developer options” by going into the phone’s main settings page.
If you couldn’t find developer options on your phone, go to “About Phone“, go to “Software Information“.
While in there, locate the option that says “Build Number“. Tap on it repeatedly for about 7 to 8 times. Doing this will turn on developer options for you, then you can go back to the phone’s main settings page, scroll all the way down until you see “Developer options”, tap on it to open it.
While in the developer options, first locate the option that says “Window animation scale”, tap on it and change the value from “Animation scale 1x“, to “Animation scale 5x“.
Locate the other two options that says “Transition animation scale” and “Animator duration scale“, and do same for the both of them, by changing their values to “5x”.
After doing all that, you should notice that your Galaxy Note 10 feels more snappier.. #Cheers

3. How to increase the fingerprint’s reader speed and accuracy.

Under display fingerprint readers are still in their early stages, and because of this, they are sure bond to have hiccups every now and down, hiccups such as the speed at which it recognizes your finger and unlocks the said phone, and how frequent it recognizes your finger, whenever you place it on the phone.

So even with Samsung’s new class leading ultra sonic fingerprint readers, they’re not still exempted from these little issues, in fact, theirs is even one the slowest you can find anywhere right now. But to fix these issues, here’s what you should do.

Register your fingers multiple times, by allowing the sensor to capture many different and difficult angles and ridges of your finger. Since the ultra sonic fingerprint reader works even when your hands are wet, you can register your fingers first when they are dry, and second when they are wet.

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So taking these extra steps, well might not really give you a boost in the phone’s unlocking speed, but will surely solve the problem of hit and miss whenever you place your fingers on the screen to unlock your phone.

4. How to use two accounts for the same social media platform, separately on the Galaxy Note 10 and 10 Plus.

Now this one shouldn’t sound or feel like anything new or out from space for anyone, especially if you’re used to tweaking around on your android phones before now.

So what is it? simple. The Galaxy Note 10s, gives you an option to use, let’s say two separate WhatsApp accounts on a single phone. This is good, especially for those who owns multiple accounts for the same social media platform, especially social media influencers, or maybe you just want to hand your phone over to someone, to quickly go through their timeline on facebook and Twitter, without having to log you out from your own account.

So how do we get this done? Simple..

Go to settings and advanced settings.
Locate and enter the option that says “Dual messenger“
Now depending on what social media apps you have installed on your phone, you can have two instances of each of them. For example, you can have two separate Facebook messenger accounts, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter, etc.

5. How to make use of “One Handed Mode” on the Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10 Plus

One-handed mode operation on smart phones is not a new thing. Like literally every android smart phones out there, both big and small, all have this nifty usability feature in them, and so does the new Galaxy Note phones.

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So what it does is; it automatically shrinks your phone’s view-able area, and shifts it to a corner of your display, preferably your chosen corner, whether the right or left sides, so you can easily operate your phone using just one hand. So how do you do this? simple..

Go to your phone’s main settings page, and once again head straight to “Advanced features”.
From there, go to the option that says “Motion and gesture“, and go to “One-handed mode“
Turn on the One-handed mode toggle, and you can select between switching to One-handed mode, by either swiping, or by making use of buttons.

6. How to pull down your notifications tray and quick settings toggle from your home screen instead

Now still on the topic of easy flexibility and usability of your device especially for those with pretty little tiny hands. Reaching all the way to the top of a 6.8 Inches display for the Galaxy Note 10 Plus, just to bring down the notifications drawer, might be a daunting task for many.

And one of the easiest way to do this, is by setting it up in a way that, with just a downward swipe from any area of your home screen, will bring the said notifications drawer and quick setting toggles, crashing to the bottom of your display. And here’s how to do that..

Hold down a finger on any empty space on the home screen, and go to the option that says “Home screen settings“.
While in there, scroll a bit downwards, and you should see an option that says “Swipe down for notification panel“, tap on the toggle to turn it on, and that’s it.
When next you swipe a finger downward on your phone’s home screen, it should pull down the notifications tray, instead of the app drawer.. #Cheers

Now we all know about Facebook Messenger chat heads right? those circle shaped photos of the last person you last chat with, or a new message.

Now the thing is, you can also customize all your apps to have these cute looking chat heads on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 and 10 Plus. And here’s how.

Go to your phone’s main settings page, and locate “Advanced features“.
Go to the option that says “Smart pop-up view“, and in there, you’ll be asked to select which apps that will work with it. So just do that quickly and let’s move on to the next step.
Now to open an app in pop-up view, tap the recent apps button to see a list of all your minimized apps, tap on the app icon above the app window, and you should see the option that says “Open in pop-up view“
The app should then be minimized into a smaller window that can be moved about. And then pressing the “X” button at the far right hand side of the window, reduces the app to Facebook messenger bubbles, or chat heads.

8. How to mirror your phone’s screen to a standalone monitor, using Samsung’s “Smart View”.

Okay, so there’s no arguing whatever that the new Samsung Galaxy Note phones, are one among the few smart phones with the largest display that you can get right now, anywhere on a smart phone.

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But if for any reason, you still want to stretch that a mile further, probably maybe you want to show some persons what is being displayed on your smart phone, then Samsung’s got you covered, with the new Samsung’s Smart View.

It simply lets you mirror everything that is being displayed on your phone’s screen, to an external monitor, such as a TV. And here’s how to set it up real quick.

Go to your quick setting toggles by pulling down your notifications tray.
Locate the icon that says “Smart view” and turn on the toggle.
Just the same Bluetooth does, it will automatically begin searching for nearby devices to connect to.
When a device is found, you can tap on it, and the phone will automatically get connected to it, and that’s all. Your phone’s display will be mirrored to the external monitor.

9. How to make use of “Link to Windows” feature.

Now one thing a lot of persons out there don’t know about the Galaxy Note series, is that these phones are focused and aimed towards productivity. Especially for those who work with a lot of files, both on their smart phones and on their PC.

And Samsung is trying to bridge this gap between smart phones and PC, by collaborating with Microsoft, and bringing in the new “Link To Windows” feature.

And what this does, is that it seamlessly lets you to synchronize your phone to your PC, so that while working on your PC, you can still see and read notifications from your phone, transfer files, and do other things you do on your phone, on your PC, without having to go and forth from phone to PC, and vice versa.

So how do we get this to work? Simple.

Go to your phone’s main settings page and head over to “Advanced features”.
Locate the option that says “Link to Windows” and tap on the toggle to turn it on.
You will be required to login suing your Microsoft account and your phone will be connected to your PC.

10. How to make use of Samsung’s new Screen Recorder.

Screen recording on android phones is not a new thing, but Samsung is taking its recording game a notch higher, by introducing some new cool features and functionalities to the screen recorder that came with the Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10 smart phones.

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For example, you can change the resolution of the video being recorded, you can change how the phone captures sound, you can decide to capture only sound coming from the phone itself, or capture both sounds from the background, and etc.

And because this screen recorder is pre-installed on the said Samsung phones, it shouldn’t be had getting used to, and playing around with it. So here’s how..

To start recording, simply open the quick setting toggles by pulling down your notifications tray, and select the icon that says “Screen recorder“. And your phone should start recording at the countdown of 3 secs.
But to further go into the screen recorder settings, long press on the screen recorder icon and you should be automatically teleported into the settings page.
From the settings page, you can change the sound source, as well as the screen recorder resolution.

11. How to activate Video Enhancer

The Galaxy Note 10 series came with a new Video Enhancer feature, and as you’d already guessed, it makes everything more exciting exciting to watch with deeper contrast, sharpness and all. So there’s really nothing much to talk about here, and it takes only but a toggle to activate it. And here’s how.

Go to settings, and head over to “Display” settings.
Locate the option that says “Video Enhancer“, and turn on the toggle.

12. How to activate “Dolby Atmos Sound for Gaming”

With the Galaxy S9 series from 2018, Samsung introduced Dolby Atmos sound enhancer into it’s flagship smart phones. And this year, with the Note 10 and Note 10 Plus, they’re even taking it a notch higher.

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And what i mean is; there is now a dedicated Dolby Atmos Sound mode for gaming, which should be a neccessity feature to have in a smart phone such as the Note 10 series, especially for Pro gamers.

And just as the Video Enhancer feature that we just spoke about a few moments ago, this is also takes only but the toggle of a button to get it activated, and here’s how to..

Go to settings, and head over to “Sounds and vibration“.
Go to “Advanced sound settings“, and then finally head over to “Sound quality and effects“.
Now finally turn on the toggle that says “Dolby Atmos for gaming“, and that’s it.

13. How to hide apps on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10 Plus

Once again, hiding apps and even files on our smart phones, is not a new thing, especially for the android folks out there.

Many people hide apps on their smart phones for many different reasons, leading from apps over-clustering the app drawer, to apps that contains really sensitive information that they don’t really want people to see and so much more.

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So if you’re one of those persons that enjoy hiding apps on their smart phones. well it’s a good thing Samsung already has this feature built into their smart phones already, and here’s how to hide apps on your new Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10 Plus smart phones.

Hold a finger down on any empty space on the phone’s home screen, and head over to the “Home screen settings“
While in there, scroll all the way down, until you see the option that says “Hide apps“.
You’ll be asked to select the apps you wish to hide, so just do that real quickly, and after that, hit the “Apply” button, and you’re good to go.. #Cheers..

Samsung Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10 Plus SPen Tips and Tricks

How to unlock your Note 10 using its SPen

Now aside the normal method of unlocking your smart phone, by making use of its under-display fingerprint reader, there is as well a fun way of getting the same results, but this time, with the SPen.

But first of all, it will do you good that this method may be less secure, but personally I’ll say it’s just for the fun of it, especially if you just want to show off your Note 10 and its SPen to your friends. So how do you get it done? Simple..

Go to your phone’s main settings page and head over to “Advanced features”.
Locate the option that says “S Pen unlock“.
Tab the radio button that says “Unlock with S Pen remote” to enable it, and that’s it.

BUT PLEASE TAKE NOTE: That the SPen can only be used to unlock the phone if it was already taken out of the phone before it got locked. If it was in the phone when it got locked, pressing the SPen button will require you to input your PIN or Password first of all.

How to covert hand written notes to text.

Over the years, Samsung has kept improving its SPen, one feature after the other, with every new Galaxy Note device.

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And this year’s Note 10s are no different, because with the SPen, you can now convert notes written with your hands or fingers rather, to actual computer text. And here’s how to do so.

Open up the Samsung Notes app, and try writing on it with the S Pen.
You can double tap on the word or sentence, or tap on the convert icon at the bottom of your display, and the phone will automatically convert everything that you’ve written, to actual text.

How to setup and make use of SPen’s new Air Actions or Gestures.

You must have probably heard about this one a multiple times, that the Spen that came with the Note 10 smart phones, is more or less a magic wand that can be used to command the phone on what to do, by just a wave or flickering of your arm.

For example, while holding the SPen, pressing down on its button and waving your arm upwards can be used to perform an action or open an app.

While in the camera app, a downward movement changes the camera lens from front to back and vice versa. Moving your left or right changes the camera modes, drawing a circle in the air zooms in or out, and so much more.

Personally i still feel like this is more or less one of those many Samsung features that a lot of persons will end up not making use of them in a few weeks to come, but for the fun of it, here’s how to setup air action commands for any app you wish to.

Go to settings, then to “Advanced features”, then to “S Pen”, and finally “Air actions“.
Make sure it is enabled, and from there, you can choose what happens to different apps when you move your arm from left, to right, up, or down.
You can choose what app opens up when you press the button on the S Pen, and so much more.

Samsung Galaxy Note 10 Best Android Tips and Tricks – Other Common Features Of SPen

Glance

Just as its name is pronounced, it simply lets you open two apps simultaneously, with one reduced to a smaller window and sitting at the bottom of your phone’s display.

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In the sense that, when making use of the first app, and you maybe just quickly want to check what’s going on the other one, all you have do is just hover your SPen over the smaller app window and you could see everything that’s been going on lately in it.

Personally, I’ll say it’s just a pretty quick way to use two apps side by side, without having to minimize one, or going back to your app drawer, and all of those shit. And for those who care, here’s how to setup and make use of the Glance feature.

Pull out the S Pen from its housing, and go to the S Pen drop-down menu.
Locate “Glance“, tap on it with the tip of the S Pen, and your Window will be automatically shrink. You can go ahead and launch a second app, while the first one sits still in its minimized window, until you hover the S Pen over it.
If for any reason you couldn’t find the “Glance” icon from the S Pen’s menu, scroll all the way down until you see the option that says “Add shortcuts“.
Tap on it, and from the list of shortcuts, select the “Glance” option, and it should immediately be added to your S Pen’s menu.

Air View

First of all, I’ll like us to know that aside from jotting down notes, the SPen works more or less like a mouse for the Galaxy Note series.

And with this “Air View” feature, you can hover the S Pen over an item on your phone’s screen to see its properties, or a preview of it. For example, when activated, hovering the S Pen over a photo will give you a quick preview of the photo in a small mini window.

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Aside from images, it also works for links in your web browsers, folders, files, apps, etc. And for those who care, here’s how to turn on Air View on your Samsung Galaxy Note 10 and Note 10 Plus smart phones.

Pull out the S Pen from its housing, and go to the S Pen’s menu.
From there, locate the option that says “Air view“.
If you couldn’t find it, go to the S Pen menu settings and select “Air view”.
Make sure it is turned on and that’s all.

Text Translate

To cut the long story short, with this feature activated, you can simply hover your SPen over any text written in strange languages, whether in your browser app or messaging app, or any app that has to do with texts, and it will automatically translate them to your preferred language. And here’s how to get it to start working on your Samsung Galaxy Note 10 or Note 10 Plus smart phone.

Pull out the S Pen, and head over to it’s menu.
If the “Translate” option isn’t there already, select the “+” icon below to add a new shortcut, and then from the list of shortcuts, tap on “Translate”, and the shortcut will be added to the S Pen’s menu options.
After that, go back to S Pen’s menu, tap on “Translate”, and when you hover your pen on any text written in foreign languages, it automatically translates it to your own preferred one. #Cheers..

Magnify

For those who love to see things on their screen in their extra ordinary sizes, the “Magnify” feature simply lets you to hover the S Pen over an item on your display, and it will zoom in that portion of the item where the tip of the S Pen is currently pointing to.

And here’s how to get it activated in less than 10 secs.

Pull out the S Pen from its housing, and from the S Pen’s drop down menu, locate the option that says “Magnify“
If you couldn’t find it from your S Pen menu, follow the same old steps to add a new shortcut.
Now when you open up say something like a picture, and then you pull up the S Pen menu and select “Magnify”.
Anywhere you hover the tip of the S Pen on that photo, will be automatically zoomed in. #Boom..

Coloring Book

I’m pretty sure a lot of people do not know about this one, but the Note 10 smart phones, actually have a coloring book in them, especially useful if you want to keep the kids busy with something.

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So to get it started and working, here’s all you need to do..

Same old steps of pulling out the S Pen from the Galaxy Note 10s, and heading over to it’s menu.
Locate the option that says “Coloring book“, and if you couldn’t find it in yours, follow the same steps we used in adding shortcuts to the S Pen menu.
After that, open up the coloring book, select a suitable drawing, choose your tools, and start coloring.

Alright people, so we’ll be ending here for today. Do let us know if there’s anything we missed out by leaving a comment in the comments box below.

Don’t forget to share this good stuff, subscribe to our newsletter, and as always, I’ll see you all tomorrow.. #Peace Out

#Cheers…emmanuelGodwin

Image Credits – Guilding Tech, Tech Chap

Top 20+ Best Features, Tips and Tricks For The Samsung Galaxy Note 10 & 10 Plus.