What features are you using?

[VidJunky]

I've been an HTC fan since my first smartphone and this will be my first brand switch, ever. I know a few phones ago Samsung had this eye tracking setting that would scroll as you got to the bottom of the page and a handful of other kinda gimmicky features that were cool to show off to your friends but probably not something many truly used. So I was wondering what features really stand out to you and which you think you'll really use?

I don't have my device yet but here's what I'm looking forward to;

Edge light. Everyone is talking about the lack of an LED but I feel like edge light will be so much better.

Dark theme. I've turned it on for every app that has it and just recommended an app adopt it in a review so why not do it to the whole phone.

Face unlock. I wish it was a little more secure and better quality but I've been using it on my HTC and now almost can't imagine not having that convenance.

Wide angle lens. My HTC has a wider view than many it was compared to in reviews but I'm curious what the difference will be with this sensor.

Landscape home screen. Not sure how useful it will be but it's intriguing, especially if you're already holding the device in landscape, no turning.

Wireless charging. Never had it before and I'm really looking forward to not buying cords every few months. I'm even looking at getting one for the car.

The things I probably will never use;

Always on. Why, just why? Drain on battery, it's always in my pocket and am I really that lazy that I can't wake the screen for the time?

Bixby. HTC has their own worthless assistant called Blinkfeed, all the same stuff as Bixby and it just wasn't worth the battery or the small amount of anything you got from it.

Edge panel. Not on what all you can do with it but I haven't seen or heard of anything useful yet. Maybe if I can put all my games in it.

Gestures. Now I'm not saying I won't try them, not having buttons on the screen seems pretty nice but I hear they're finicky so for now it's something I'll probably just try once to see.

Well just a few things I am and am not looking forward to, what about you?

 

[Johnston212]

They actually never had that scrolling feature. That was speculated, but they did buy the company that made it. It might have been a possibility in the future, but they removed the iris scanner from the S10.

 

[Johnston212]

Edge lighting has been available since the S7 Edge. It's not a viable alternative to the led notification light. It is brief and easy to miss. There is no ability to make it persistent.

Since the iris scanner has been removed, face recognition is now one of the least secure methods of unlocking your phone.

 

[bad1550]

Just transferred my iPhone X to S10 plus using smart switch
How do I change my main screen from all apps to regular screen showing some apps on bottom and Google bar near top?

 

[VidJunky]

They actually never had that scrolling feature. That was speculated, but they did buy the company that made it. It might have been a possibility in the future, but they removed the iris scanner from the S10.

Well for a feature they never had my friend sure was able to show me the phone scrolling while he read. We were in a heated debate over who had the better phone that year, his Galaxy 5 or my HTC Rezound.

 

[anon(19759)]

I still can't get edge lighting to do anything at all. Anything!

 

[DSMpowerhousegroup]

They actually never had that scrolling feature. That was speculated, but they did buy the company that made it. It might have been a possibility in the future, but they removed the iris scanner from the S10.

My Galaxy S4 actually did have the eye scrolling feature.

 

[tcdude]

My Galaxy S4 actually did have the eye scrolling feature.

Yes I remember that well lol

 

[VidJunky]

I still can't get edge lighting to do anything at all. Anything!

Here's a whole article about edge lighting including how-to directions.

https://www.bestusefultips.com/how-to-customize-edge-lighting-on-galaxy-s10-plus/

 

[omnia1]

The Always-On-Display (AOD) feature has become a must-have. Apart from giving you the time which I agree is not that important, you can view your upcoming appointments which is useful (if you choose the calendar clock style). More crucially however, AOD shows pending notifications. I don't want to have to constantly switch on my phone to check whether I have missed any notifications. The additional battery power used by AOD is well worth it.

Edge Panel is also an extremely useful feature that I use all the time. You don't have to keep going back to the home screen to launch apps. From any app, swipe in from the edge and go directly to another app. It takes a bit of a mindset change but nowadays, I instinctively swipe in from the edge whenever I want to launch an app regardless of where I am. Extremely quick and fuss-free.

I tried Gestures for the navigation bar but moved back to icons. Mainly because with Samsung's Good Lock-NavStar add-on, you can add up to 2 additional icons to the navigation bar which is extremely convenient. I added power (turn off your device from *any* app) and notification pull-down.

 

[VidJunky]

Well I finally got mine and I'm a bit frustrated. I can't find anything in the settings menu, nothing. The switch was pretty quick and seemed rather painless but beyond that finding any of the things I would normally want to look at, change, or anything else has been a real pain. That has been my biggest complaint but second to that is the app drawer, now once I get some icons out on the screen it might not be such an issue but for now, holy crap man, that sliding side to side through pages of apps is a royal pain. Now I knew Android is not like iPhone, all exact clones of the same thing, but I always pictured it a bit more uniform than I'm finding it to be. The settings, the app drawer, the everything really with Samsung is night and day from where I came from. I knew it would be different but I never imagined what that difference would be.

I've managed a few settings changes;
Displaying the battery percentage

Setting up edge lighting

Modifying the theme somewhat

Change to gestures, over icons. It hasn't been too bad so far.

Changing the grid size on both the home screen and the app drawer

Pull down for notifications, seriously who would want to get into the app drawer two different ways like that?

Maybe one more that's not occurring to me at the moment, but earlier I just wanted to check my battery usage and I totally can't find that, even when I use the search function. All of these years I've been here giving advice about stuff never knowing that I had it so nice with Sense. I mean when you open a settings tab and it asks you if you're looking for something else at the bottom that should be a pretty good sign that your system is not intuitive. If I open this tab wanting to change the haptic feedback and its not here but you're asking me if that's what I'm looking for it should be there. Further annoyances have been the constant reminder that I've encrypted the SD card. Really, didn't I do that? Isn't that something that you have to agree to and verify, I think I know. I only have one file on there and I'm probably going to format the SD just so I don't have to deal with that Bologna Stuff anymore. I mean you do this for protection and it like the phone telling you that you have a case on the phone every time you restart it, Hey don't forget there's a case on this device. Gee thanks. No problem I'm always here to remind you.

 

[anon(1733)]

Well I finally got mine and I'm a bit frustrated. I can't find anything in the settings menu, nothing. The switch was pretty quick and seemed rather painless but beyond that finding any of the things I would normally want to look at, change, or anything else has been a real pain. That has been my biggest complaint but second to that is the app drawer, now once I get some icons out on the screen it might not be such an issue but for now, holy crap man, that sliding side to side through pages of apps is a royal pain. Now I knew Android is not like iPhone, all exact clones of the same thing, but I always pictured it a bit more uniform than I'm finding it to be. The settings, the app drawer, the everything really with Samsung is night and day from where I came from. I knew it would be different but I never imagined what that difference would be.

I've managed a few settings changes;
Displaying the battery percentage

Setting up edge lighting

Modifying the theme somewhat

Change to gestures, over icons. It hasn't been too bad so far.

Changing the grid size on both the home screen and the app drawer

Pull down for notifications, seriously who would want to get into the app drawer two different ways like that?

Maybe one more that's not occurring to me at the moment, but earlier I just wanted to check my battery usage and I totally can't find that, even when I use the search function. All of these years I've been here giving advice about stuff never knowing that I had it so nice with Sense. I mean when you open a settings tab and it asks you if you're looking for something else at the bottom that should be a pretty good sign that your system is not intuitive. If I open this tab wanting to change the haptic feedback and its not here but you're asking me if that's what I'm looking for it should be there. Further annoyances have been the constant reminder that I've encrypted the SD card. Really, didn't I do that? Isn't that something that you have to agree to and verify, I think I know. I only have one file on there and I'm probably going to format the SD just so I don't have to deal with that Bologna Stuff anymore. I mean you do this for protection and it like the phone telling you that you have a case on the phone every time you restart it, Hey don't forget there's a case on this device. Gee thanks. No problem I'm always here to remind you.

Battery usage is under the device care option in settings. You could also as Bixby to show you battery usage. She will pull it up for you.

 

[williams448]

If you don't use Edge Panel for anything else, use it for Smart Select. One my most used features. Whether it's creating a Gif, or using the rectangle to select a section of your screen when you don't need the whole screenshot. Very underrated feature IMO.

 

[VidJunky]

I've put stuff in Edge Panel and I always forget it's there. Just like the Bixby button. I changed it to Gas Buddy because that's one I do use and rather frequently but I never push the button to open it. When I do press the button it's usually by accident. Same with Edge Panel, I'm swiping over and suddenly there's this big thing blurring up my screen. Oh and my son, the little geek, now that I have Samsung was all about me doing Samsung Pay instead of Google Pay. He opens up the app and then I started getting reminders to set it up, set it up. So finally I relent thinking if I do at least it will leave me alone about the set up but it's added this little tab to the bottom of my screen so half the time when I swipe up for the home gesture Samsung Pay opens up. I've got to figure out how to turn that off along with the little reminders that Speedway takes Samsung Pay. Just using them as an example, it tells me everywhere uses it, half the time as I'm leaving. LOL.