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Samsung Galaxy S21 series: tips and tricks

By Viktor Yankov

Published: Feb 17, 2021, 10:07 AM

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Are you a recent Samsung Galaxy S21 series phone owner or are you planning on buying any of Samsung's new flagship devices? Well then, we here at PhoneArena have you covered with our latest tips and tricks in regards to the Samsung Galaxy S21 lineup.

And if you are like us, then most of these might be useful to you so let’s have a look at them.

Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra

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Tip #1: How to easily turn off your phone

Starting off with tip number one. In case you’re new to the Samsung lineup, as of recent times the new S series do not power off by holding down the power button but instead from a button from the notification tray. Some of us are actually not a fan of that so you can fix it real quick if you just navigate to Settings > Advanced features > Side key and you can switch to using the side key for powering off the device.

Samsung Galaxy S21 series: tips and tricks

Tip #2: Charging other devices wirelessly from your phone

Also, if you are planning on getting the new Galaxy Buds, we’d recommend you enable the option to charge them wirelessly on the back of your phone with wireless power sharing. The option is available in the battery care page in settings, over to wireless power sharing. Just press to enable and you're golden.

Tip #3: Getting a bit more privacy

Moving on to tip number three. This is something I had no idea about but if you ever want just a bit more privacy while typing your passwords on your phone, you can make all characters completely hidden and disable the peek option for the characters you input. This feature is available in Settings > Biometrics and security > Other security settings > Make passwords visible and you can enable or disable the option from there.

This of course is not everything the S21 has to offer. Since we can also disable any sort of diagnostic info gathering and the like from Settings > Privacy > Send diagnostic data & Receive marketing information & Android personalization service. Also we can go ahead and make ads less personal from Ads > Opt out of Ads Personalization.

All of these options should help you get just a bit more privacy.

Tip #4: Android auto is back with a hook line and sinker

Tip number 4 was rather surprising for me. Since Android 11, Android Auto is now available in wireless mode if your car supports it. To enable the feature simply go to Settings > Advanced features > Android Auto > Wireless Android Auto. Press to enable and enjoy a cable free experience in your car.

Tip #5: Improving your music experience

If that’s not enough for you, then in the spirit of car stereo, you may also personalize your sound experience to adapt to your hearing ability through Samsung’s “Adapt Sound” located in Settings > Hearing enhancements > Adapt sound.

This is where you can continue on by enabling the option and answering a “yes or no” question in regards to whether you can hear a beeping sound. Afterwards, you should be good to go.

Tip #6: Improving your visual experience

If you’ve followed more recent tech news, then you probably know that the S21 Plus has an ultra smooth 120Hz refresh rate so I suggest you enable that unless you want to save some battery and disable it instead. You can do either of those things in Settings > Display > Motion smoothness. Go ahead and set your option to Standard for 60Hz or Adaptive for 120Hz.

And, while there, I would also enable gesture navigation if I were you because I do like seeing all of my 120Hz display’s glory, but that’s just me. You can do that from the “navigation bar” option in display settings. Simply enable "swipe gestures" and suffer for the first 5 minutes before getting used to going back and opening the "recents" menu.

And if you don’t want your eyes to suffer at night, I suggest you also enable "dark mode" in the display settings.

This might also save you just a bit more battery.

Tip #7: Make YouTube a hassle free experience

Another ergonomic boost for you would be to use “Bixby Routines” in order to set which applications can rotate your screen automatically which is pretty handy. I mean, at least we found it to be really hassle free.

Simply navigate to Settings > Advanced features > Bixby Routines > Get the best media experience > Auto rotate and you can then set to have "auto rotate" switch on whenever you open YouTube.

Tip #8: Mysteriously clean screenshots

Now I’ll let you in on our secret of how we manage to take screenshots without the status bar. It’s rather simple. If you just navigate to Settings > Advanced features > Screenshots and screen recorder > Hide status and navigation bars and disable both the navigation bar and status bar from your screenshots.

Tip #9: Making movies look ever so slightly better

While inside the advanced features menu from before, you may want to enable “video enhancer” since it does help when you do decide to watch a bit of Netflix on your phone to pass those dreadful hours at work.

Tip #10: Using two accounts at the same time

And speaking of work, if you don’t have a second device from work then dual messenger might be your best friend. You know, just in case you need to use a personal and business account on your S21. Simply navigate to Settings > Advanced features > Dual messenger. Enable the option and you should be good to go.

P.S. This works for almost every social application you'd need to use.

Tip #11: Mobile gaming for endurance

Now we still have a bit more extra tricks to cover this time around. If you’re a mobile gamer then you’d be delighted to know that the “Game Launcher” application on the S21 is packed full of features. The ones I specifically recommend you use are the "notification block" which is self explanatory and if you do really need to save some battery, the “low refresh rate” option which should lower the phone’s refresh rate down to around 48Hz in order to save power.

Both can be found here:

Tip #12: Camera tricks up our sleeves

For all you social media addicts, we have a few tricks for the camera. Starting off, you can enable a “shot suggestion” option which tries to align your camera to the horizon and if you use the same settings on your camera over and over again, then you can save your previously used settings as shown below.

Additionally, if you have followed recent news, the S21 lineup is also capable of a new “Director’s view” mode for video which lets you preview all camera lenses in real time and switch between them while recording.

But if that’s not your thing, then perhaps you’re more of the person who would like to take a stress free video of tourist spots or videos of friends and family. Which is why I’d recommend you also enable video stabilization if you haven’t already. You can do so from settings in the camera with a simple button as shown below.

You know, just to make sure your videos are as stable as possible. But if you still end up making shaky footage, then you may also try the “Super Stable” video mode which should help additionally. Simply enable the option from the "hand palm" icon on top of the display.

And even if you’re more forgetful and often make a video when you meant to also take a photo, “single take” has you covered.

With this simple yet effective option, you can take a short video and a couple of photos at the same time, which should help you in capturing the moment.

Tip #13: Edge panels

And just in case you haven't enabled edge panels, they are available in Settings > Display > Edge panels. Enable them if you want a bit more quick access to your apps. Or disable them if they annoy you.

Tip #14: Password security

Now moving on, if you’re someone who often has to make different passwords for everything and you do end up forgetting them, then rest assured because Samsung Pass has you covered. You can input your password which will be safeguarded by your fingerprint or password for quick access whenever you need to input them. Simply go to Settings > Biometrics and security > Samsung Pass and enable the option or continue by adding your account credentials.

Do bear in mind that Samsung Pass takes security very seriously so we couldn't take example screenshots while inside Samsung Pass but you should be able to handle it from there on.

Also if you by any chance need to do something else while logging in then split screen save will be of great assistance to you since it allows you to save frequently used split screen configurations for quick access on the edge panels so you never have to adjust split screen ever again.