Although Samsung Galaxy S4 is no more a new device, but it is still Samsung’s flagship device, and is still attracting new customers and so far it is the best Samsung Android Smartphone. If you’re the lucky new owner of Galaxy S4, you probably would have not much idea, about the settings, its features, how-to and so on. Today I found a thread on XDA forum, related tips and tricks for Galaxy S4, so I thought it would be great idea, to let my readers know about it.
Samsung Galaxy S4 – Tips and Tricks
1. Battery Life
I think it is essential, that we first start with Galaxy S4 Battery. No doubt, it has a great 2600mAh battery, which is I think is good enough to help you out in the severe conditions. But no matter how much high battery you’ve on your device, it is one of the most discussed issues with modern smartphones and tablet devices, they just consumes a lot of battery. As with Galaxy S4, Samsung tried to give the best user experience, as far as the Battery life as concerned. For this they also added a number of options, so that in times of needs you can turn them and increase your battery life time.
In order to maximize your battery life take the following actions:
- Enable Power Saving mode from your Settings, it does work a lot in increasing your battery usage time.
- Switch-Off extra features, which consumes extra battery, Like 3G Mobile internet, WiFi or GPS and so on. You easily manage by pulling down the notifications menu.
- Another good tip is reduce your screen timeout. Go to Settings->Display.
- Last but not the least, unlike iPhone 5 and HTC One, Galaxy S4 has a removable battery, so get a spare battery for your device, it will help you in times of emergency.
2. How to Enable Developers Options – Samsung Galaxy S4
Enabling Developers options on your device, is something many people search for, before it was really easy to find developers options on Android device, but now they have made it hidden and normal people like me and you are unable to find it and enable it. Developers options does help you a lot, like it lets you Enable/Disable USB Debugging, TouchWiz options and so on.
Just go to Settings->About Device->And Tap the Build Number almost for 7 times and you’ll be prompted with a message. that’s it, you’ve now enabled Developers Options, You can also Enable USB Debugging on your Galaxy S4 from developers options.
 3. TouchWiz: Make it more Faster!
To make the interface beautiful, elegant and attractive Samsung developed Touchwiz, to transit between screens, just like say animations, a full touch based interface. Probably these transitions takes sometime to load in the background, and thus can make sure phone a bit slow. So make it faster, you can disable this TouchWiz, feature by going to Settings->Developers Options-> and turn-off the following:
- Windows animation scale
- Transition animation scale
- Animator duration scale
And then just feel the difference.
4. How to take Screen Snapshots on Galaxy S4
Well another great options, now these days almost every smartphone have built-in options or buttons to take screen snapshots easily as we used to do it on desktops. Sharing your screen with other is fun and at the same time very useful, when informing someone of the features, errors or anything you want to share with someone in order to seek help. So let’s learn how to take screenshots on your Galaxy S4:
Actually there are 2 ways through which you can easily capture snapshots of your Galaxy S4 screen, I will here discuss both and how to use it.
- By holding the ‘Power+Home Button‘ at the same time, until you notice your screen flashes and you’ll hear the shutter sound. You can browse your captured snapshots from Gallery App.
- There is also another smarter way to take screenshots on your Galaxy S4, but for this, first you’ve setup this option from Settings->Motion-> and check ‘Palm Swipe Capture‘. Now once you’ve enabled it, just swipe your palm on the screen from right to left side. That’s it.
5. How to Reboot Galaxy S4 into Download Mode
If you’re an advance Android user, then you might consider to customize your device OS, Like Rooting, Installing Custom ROM’s and so on. When doing these sorts of things you may have come across these terminologies like ‘Download Mode‘ and ‘Recovery Mode‘.
Here’s how to Reboot into Download Mode:
- Turn-Off your device
- Now Press and Hold the ‘Volume Down+Home+Power Button‘ at the same time, until you see the warning message, and then just hit the volume up button to continue into download mode on your GS4.
6. How to Reboot into Stock or Custom Recovery on Galaxy S4
You may be sometime required to reboot into Stock/CWM/TWRP Recovery mode on your Galaxy S4. If you haven’t yet installed Custom Recovery on your device, then you’ll only be able to reboot into stock recovery. ClockworkMod and TWRP are two, well known custom recoveries for most android phones and tablets devices.
The method for Rebooting into Stock, CWM orTWRP, Recovery mode on your Galaxy, is same, but if you haven’t installed Custom Recovery then probably you can then reboot into stock recovery. Let’s learn how to do it:
- First of all Power-Off your device.
- Now Press and Hold the ‘Volume Up+Home+Power Buttons‘ at the same time.
- Now as you see the boot screen, then release the Power button but keep holding the volume up and home button until you see the recovery options.
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