Hauling groceries in one hand trying to quick-reply to a text that popped in your notification shade, or turn on your cellular data? Today's big screen smartphones present plenty of challenges towards one-handed operation, and while plenty of manufacturers offer interface features to facilitate it, a lot of the big names are missing out on one great option.
We are talking about the ability to just swipe down in the middle of any homescreen, and pull the notification shade without having to stretch your thumb all the way up, trying to grasp a few pixels from the edge to bring it down. It's not only TouchWiz that is the culprit here, as neither Sony nor LG offer this option, while most all of the Chinese overlays do. Save for Huawei's EMUI, that is, and, tangentially, for its Honor brand in the US.
The
honor 8 is a fine phone offering for the money, as it sports a thin compact body, dual camera, 4 GB of RAM, and long battery life for less than $400, but its interface leaves something to be desired when it comes to functionality. Granted, Huawei allows you to put a fourth shortcut in the navigation bar for pulling down on rolling back up the notification bar, but that's way down, too, so it still requires stretching.
Here's what you need to do if you want to pull and release the shade with ease on the honor 8:
1. Go to Settings > Fingerprint ID;
2. In the "Slide gesture" menu, switch on the "Show notification panel" option;
3. From now on, you can simply swipe down on the round finger scanner area on the back with your index or another finger, and the notification shade will fall down, irrespective of whether you have registered a print with them. Swipe up shortly for the panel to roll back, it's as simple as that, and very useful when you are holding the phone with one hand only.
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