Modern phones come with a myriad of options, and that’s not even including those you’re forced to read through during initial setup.
The Samsung Galaxy A70 is the firm’s most expensive mid-range device, coming in a smidgen under R10 000. And no, it’s not exactly devoid of settings, things to tweak, and hidden options either.
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We take a look at some of the key options, settings and tricks we used during our initial pre-review setup of the Samsung Galaxy A70.
Adjust those animation speeds to ‘speed up’ your phone
We really don’t want to wait ages for a device to complete an animation, so we adjust animation speeds in Android’s Developer settings from 1.0x to 0.5x. This will speed up transition animations and make your phone feel a lot quicker.
To access developer settings, you’ll have to head to “About Phone”, select “Software information”, find “Build number” and tap on it at least seven times or more. Type in your pin, and then exit the screen. Head back to the main settings menu, select “Developer options” at the bottom of the screen, and scroll downn to “Drawing”. Drop “transition”, “window” and “animator duration” scales to 0.5x.
Set up your fingerprint(s) or face for authentication
As much as facial recognition is cool, fingerprint tech is just so much more secure. Take two minutes of your time to set up your thumbprint on the A70. Protip: if it’s not entirely reliable, you can enroll the same finger twice. This is especially useful for the A70’s underscreen fingerprint reader, which isn’t the most reliable I’ve ever used.
If it still falters, Samsung also allows you to unlock the Galaxy A70 with your face. Yeah, literally just look at the phone to unlock it. It can also be found in the “Biometrics and Security” section in settings.
Switch on Navigation Gestures to replace taps with swipes
This will not only give you more screen real estate, but it will allow you to swipe up from the bottom of the screen to go back, go home, or open your recent apps drawer.
Find this option in “Display” and “Navigation Type” in settings. Select “Full screen gestures” to activate the feature.
Reduce the “Font Size” and “Screen Zoom” to their lowest settings.
The A70 is a big phone. To take advantage of that screen real estate, reduce the size of the displayed fonts on your phone in settings. I’ve decided on the smallest option, which is still visible to those wth adequate eyesight. The phone comes set to its lowest screen zoom setting out of the box, but be sure to increase this if you can’t quite see UI elements.
These options are available in the “Display” option in Settings.
Switch on “Volume Keys control Media” to control music not call volume
Far too often I’ve mashed the volume key while playing a video only to have it adjust my ring tone volume. Switch this on to ensure your media is made louder instead.
You’ll find this option under “Sounds and vibration”.
Activate OneUI’s night mode for dark backgrounds behind white text
This is truly a battery and eye saver. Samsung’s OneUI has a native dark mode that you can enable to run constantly, or set to activate when the sun sets. I prefer to run it constantly, but your mileage may vary.
You can access this setting in “Display” under “Night mode”.
Remove unnecessary notification icons from the home screen’s status bar
This gives your Samsung Galaxy A70 a much cleaner look, especially useful if you run a lot of background apps on your device. Find these settings in your “Status bar” setting section.
Uninstall Samsung’s and other company’s bundled bloatware
Head on over to Apps in your settings menu, and uninstall the services you’re not going to use. For me, this included Facebook, Facebook Services, LinkedIn, and a few other Samsung products, like Samsung Pay. You won’t be able to uninstall system apps though, but you might be able to disable them. Don’t worry. Your phone won’t freak out if you disable Facebook. And if you feel lost without it, you can always enable it again.
Head on over to the “Apps” section of your settings menu to uninstall and disable apps.
Stop Samsung Pay activating when you swipe up on your home screen
Speaking of Samsung Pay, probably the most irritating new default feature on OneUI, the payments app now activates when you swipe up from your home screen. It’s useful if you use the payments system regularly, but not useful at all if you have swipe gestures enabled. You can disable this entirely from within the app’s settings menu, or do what I did: uninstall it. I still use my cards to pay for things.
Set Always On Display to appear only when the screen is touched
The A70 features Samsung’s Always On Screen, but while it does display some useful information when the screen’s unused, it’s also a battery drain. To ensure it’s not used when you don’t need it, ensure that this feature only switches on when you touch your smartphones’ screen.
Feature image: Andy Walker/Memeburn
