Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus Tips and Tricks

Android 7 (Nougat)
Phone: Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus
Factory OS: Android 7 (Nougat)

Have you updated your Operating System?
Then view tips for the most recent OS version(s): Android 9 (Pie) & Android 8 (Oreo)
Or view tips for all Android versions

There are a number of ways to speed up your phone. The following list are tried and trusted techniques:

Firstly, uninstall apps that you don’t use. Over time your device can get cluttered as some Apps are designed to always run in the background. If you don’t use an App very often, then uninstall it to free up memory and CPU resource.

Use Static wallpapers instead of Live ones. Live wallpapers often consume processing power and memory. Unless you really need them, uninstall them.

Use home screen widgets sparingly. These often slow down the phone and use up memory and CPU resources. If you don’t really need the widget, then uninstall it.

Install a great App called DU Speed Booster and DU Battery Booster. These Apps are prefect to run when your phone starts to slow down, you’re running out of memory or you want your battery to last for a few more minutes or hours.

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.

If you don’t like the default A-Z way of viewing your contacts you can change this.

First, go to your Contacts App and press the Menu key or More at the top of the screen.

Then select Settings.

Then choose Sort by.

To add an email or phone number to your contacts from a text message, you can long-press on the email / phone number. Then select Copy text.

Once that has been copied to your clipboard, go to your Contacts App and select the Create New Icon.

Enter the contact details, then select either email or phone and long press on the field. Then select Paste to paste the info from the original text message.

To fix touchscreen sensitivity issues, follow these:

1. On your dialler, dial *#2663#. This will bring up a menu.

2. Bring up dialler and dial *#2663# to bring up a menu

3. On that menu, tap the button that says ?TSP FW update (general)?

4. Once you press that, a pop-up will appear saying ?Updating, do not turn off.? Just wait for it to finish updating.

5. A message saying ?update complete: pass? should appear once update is complete.

6. Exit the menu by pressing the back button and try out your device. It should be fixed now.

If you already have an Android phone, then simply ensure each of your old Contacts are stored on Google (rather than the Phone memory). This means your contacts are stored on Google’s servers under your Google/Gmail login. Then once you get the new phone, log in with your Gmail account and your Contacts will be automatically synced.

If you do not have an Android device, you need to find a way to Export your old contacts to a CSV (Comma Separated Values) file and save this to a PC. You may need to install the correct software for your phone first in order to do the export.

Then, if you don’t have a Gmail account, sign up for one.

Once that’s done, open Gmail. Go to Contacts, then press More – Settings – Import/Export Contacts. Then import the CSV to your Gmail contacts.

Then on your phone, go to Settings – Cloud and accounts – Accounts – Google and then select Sync to pull the contacts from Gmail to your phone.

When entering text into Apps such as your Messaging App, Facebook App and so on, you can tap on the words to start selecting text.

Normally, you would then drag the left and right sliders to select the word, or words you want to highlight.

If you double tap on a word however, it will quickly select that word.

Very handy for quickly copying and one words, name or place.

If you find yourself woken up by notifications, text messages or incoming calls, then there is a handy feature called Do not disturb.

To enable this go to Settings – Sound and vibration – Do not disturb.

Next, select Enable now or Enable as scheduled.

The latter option will give you options to set the time period for your Do not disturb.

You can also add exceptions to allow notifications from certain contacts that you don’t mind bothering you.

From the Contact list or the Messaging list, swipe from Left to Right to call a Contact.

This might not work on all models.

If you want to move a widget from one home screen to another, simply press and hold on the widget.

Then drag it to the edge of the screen.

The next home screen will appear.

Then, just drag the item to where you would like.

No one likes nuisance phone calls, so here’s how to deal with these on your phone.

The first option is to block all anonymous calls, although this may block some calls from people or companies that you do want to allow, so use this carefully.

To enable this, go to your Dial App press the settings icon in the top right. Then choose Settings.

Then choose Block numbers and then Block unknown callers.

Secondly, if you’d like to block calls on a case-by-case basis, then follow these instructions:

First, wait until you’ve been called by a nuisance number. You can either answer and verify who they are, or when the phone is ringing, do a quick Google search for the number (ideally on a PC, otherwise you may need to switch between apps on your phone).

Often the number will come up on Page 1 of Google and be reported as a nuisance call number. You can often tell pretty quickly because the number will have many negative review.

Then once the phone has stopped ringing, go to your Dial App and then select Log to find the number on your recent call list.

Find the number that called you and press on it. Then in the top right, select More and select Block/unblock number.

To manage this list, then go back to the first screen of your Dial App and press the settings icon in the top right. Then choose Settings.

Then select Block numbers. From here you can see which ones to block or unblock.

From now on you will see that you received a missed call, however the phone will not ring and you won’t be bothered by the caller.