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Galaxy S7 tricks that make the world’s best Android phone even better

Published Mar 11th, 2016 12:19PM EST
Samsung Galaxy S7 Tips And Tricks
Image: Zach Epstein, BGR

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The Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge are now available to buy and if you picked one up today, you’ll probably want to know about all the device’s cool new features. To give you a hand, we’ve rounded up some terrific tricks you’ll want to try on both the S7 and S7 edge to get the most out of both devices. Let’s check them out!

RELATED: The 5 best things (and 1 most useless thing) about the Galaxy S7 edge

Customize your Always On display. One of the best new features Samsung has added is the Always On display that will give you important information — such as the date, time and battery status — even when your device’s main display has been turned off. You can customize this screen by going into Settings -> Display -> Always-On Display and having it show different images including a clock and a calendar.

Easily record yourself playing games with the Game Launcher feature. If you like uploading videos of yourself playing games on your phone, you can do so easily with the Game Launcher feature. While you’re playing a game on your phone through Game Launcher, you can click on the small menu button that will be located in the lower left-hand corner of the display. This will then give you an option to start recording your gameplay as well as to take a screenshot. It also lets you temporarily block notifications from coming in so your game session isn’t interrupted.

Dump all of Samsung’s unwanted bloatware. As with all previous Samsung devices, the Galaxy S7 is larded up with unnecessary bloatware and it comes preloaded with two photos apps, two email apps and at least four different music apps. Thankfully, getting rid of this bloat is fairly simple: Open up your App Drawer and tap the Edit button. When you do that, little minus-sign icons will appear beside all apps that can be deleted. Just click on those icons to make the unwanted apps disappear.

Learn all the ways to save power on your device. You have several ways to save battery power on the S7 and S7 edge. First, you can obviously dim your display’s brightness via the display brightness bar found in your quick settings. You can also enable two different options called Power Saving Mode and Ultra Power Saving Mode. You can access both features by opening Settings -> Battery and toggling them on. Regular Power Saving Mode will turn off most of the background data on your device, while Ultra Power Saving Mode will kill all background data, turn your screen black and white, and will let you use only a limited number of applications such as email and telephone.

Snap great pictures more quickly than ever before. The Galaxy S7 has an absolutely killer camera and Samsung has designed it to make it incredibly easy to snap photos. First, you can open up the camera app instantly just by double tapping on the Home button, just as you could with last year’s Galaxy S6. Second, the Galaxy S7 has a lightning-fast autofocus feature that will significantly reduce the time you have to spend waiting for your subject to come into proper focus. All told, the Galaxy S7 won’t just enable you to take great pictures, but to take them faster than ever.

Brad Reed
Brad Reed Staff Writer

Brad Reed has written about technology for over eight years at BGR.com and Network World. Prior to that, he wrote freelance stories for political publications such as AlterNet and the American Prospect. He has a Master's Degree in Business and Economics Journalism from Boston University.