Samsung Galaxy Note9 Tips and Tricks

Android 8 (Oreo)
Phone: Samsung Galaxy Note9
Factory OS: Android 8 (Oreo)

Have you updated your Operating System?
Then view tips for the most recent OS version(s): Android 9 (Pie)
Or view tips for all Android versions

Here are the top 5 tips to make your phone run faster:

1) Use only essential widgets on your homescreen – each widget consumes memory and processing power which can slow your down your phone.

2) Uninstall apps that you don’t use – after awhile your phone can get cluttered as some Apps are designed to always run in the background. If you rarely use an App, then uninstall it to free up memory and CPU resource.

3) Install Apps to your phone memory – if you have an SDCard, always install Apps to the phone memory, which can be accessed faster. If you have Apps on the SDCard, then move them back to the phone memory with an App called Move2SD available from the Play Market.

4) Use Static rather than Live wallpapers – Live wallpapers consume processing power and memory. Unless you really must have them, uninstall them.

5) Kill tasks occasionally – Some Apps will run in the background indefinitely unless you kill them. Most of them won’t cause a problem, but it pays to check your running tasks from time to time. Hold down your Home key and check the Task Manager.

One last thing: Don’t use Task Killers. Android manages tasks very well and Task Killers just make your phone unstable and can slow it down further.

A great new feature is dual shot which lets you take a picture of someone else with the rear camera, while simultaneously taking a picture of yourself with the front facing camera. The problem is this feature isn’t obvious to find as it isn’t included in the list of camera Modes.

To find it open your Camera App and you will see three icons in the top right corner. Dual shot is the middle icon of these. Press that and you both cameras will activate allowing you to shoot away.

This may not me available on all Models

The Play store contains thousands of great Apps, but there are time that you want to restrict access to these Apps for whatever reasons. This can easily be done.

First, open the Play Store App and swipe from left to right to see the settings. Then press Settings and Content Filtering.

From here you can chose settings for Low/Medium/High maturity levels. Great for preventing access for young people.

If you tend to run out of battery power quickly, then you can turn on Power saving mode.

Pull down the notification screen by swiping your finger from the top of the phone. Then select Power Saving. You may need to scroll along the available icons.

You can also select to turn on Battery saver automatically, once battery reaches at certain level. To enable this, go to Settings – Battery – Battery saver, and then turn Automatic Battery Saver on.

If you are not happy with your notification light, then you can change and tweak it. Go to the Play Store and download an App called Light Flow.

You might need to enable the notification light before the App works. Go to Settings – Device – Sounds and notifications – LED Indicator.

Alternatively, for some devices, you can turn?your Notification Light ‘ON or OFF’ and you can also change the color of Notification Light. For that go to Settings – Display and then toggle pulse notification icon. You can change the color of LED light from same menu.

If you have forgotten your custom unlock pattern, then don’t panic.

After 5 unsuccessful tries a button should appear saying ‘Forgot pattern’. Press this and you will be asked to enter your Gmail username/password.

The phone will then ask for a new unlock pattern. If you don’t have a Gmail account, then you might have to either call your carrier or factory reset your phone.

To enable / disable your notification light, go to Settings – Device – Sounds and notifications – LED indicator.

From here you can choose various options.

This may not be available on all models. An alternative however is to download NoLED from the Play Store, which has many options for incoming notifications.

If you want to setup new email accounts, like Yahoo or Hotmail, go to your list of Apps.

Find the Email icon and press on it. A setup wizard will then be launched.

Enter you email address and password into the fields. You can also change the settings after this step.

Once you’re happy with the settings, give your account a Name and you’re done.

If you are running low on phone memory, you can look for your largest applications to uninstall.

Go to Settings – Applications – Application manager. Then swipe from right to left and select Running.

From here you can see which applications are taking up the most memory and close them.

Warning: This will remove ALL data on the phone (but not the MicroSD card).

To perform a hard reset, or factory reset, then there are a number of methods to try:

1) Go to Settings – Personal – Backup and reset – Factory data reset – Reset device. It may ask for a password. Then select Erase everything.

If the phone is totally unresponsive, even after a reboot, then try the following methods.

2) While the phone is turned off, press and hold the Volume Up and Volume Down buttons together. Then, while holding these, press and release the Power button (keep holding the volume buttons). The phone should turn on and a menu will appear. Press the Volume down button to navigate to the Recovery option. Press the Volume Up to select (if that doesn’t work, use the Power button to select). A yellow triangle and an Android logo will appear. Press the Volume Down and Volume Up button together and a recovery menu should appear. Use the Volume buttons to move to the Wipe data/Factory reset option and then press Power to select. Again, use the Volume Down key to choose Yes and press the Power button again to select.

3) While the phone is turned off, press and hold the Volume Down button. Then, while holding, press and release the Power button. A menu should appear. Use the Volume down key to go to Clear Storage. Use the Power button to select the option. Then when asked to confirm, press Volume Up for Yes.

4) While the phone is off, press and hold down Volume Up + Home + Power buttons at the same time. Then release the buttons when you see the Logo. Use the Volume Down button to go down and the Home or Power key to select. Choose the Wipe data/Factory reset option. Then Select Yes to delete all user data. Then choose to reboot the phone.

5) A final method is to enter the code into your phone’s dialler: *2767*3855# This method will not give you an option to reverse the process, so be careful! This method will only work if you can boot into your phone.