Samsung’s One UI 7 is my favorite Android skin right now. It is fast, responsive, and intuitive. But nothing comes fine-tuned to your experience straight out of the box. You need to personalize your smartphone to make it more appealing. I change almost a dozen settings on every Samsung Galaxy phone to best suit my needs, and I believe these will elevate your user experience, too.
From setting the highest available screen resolution to more privacy-focused features, here are 10 Galaxy phone settings (plus a bonus) that I recommend changing to enhance your Galaxy phone experience. Please note that some settings might be phone-specific.
1. Turn off pop-up notifications
I do not like it when a message from a contact or an intrusive app notification pops up while I am in the middle of reading online or texting my favorite people. I get distracted easily. If a notification pops up, I tap on it and forget what I was doing.
If you are anything like me, you should change this setting even before switching to gesture navigation. Go to Notifications > Notification pop-up style > Apps to show as brief > Toggle off All apps.
2. Switch to gesture navigation
Unless you are setting up your new Samsung Galaxy phone from an older model, it defaults to the older three-button navigation system. If you like it, that is fine. But I find Android’s gesture navigation more intuitive — everything is a swipe away instead of an on-screen button.
If you want that, you can change the system navigation to gestures by going to Settings > Display > Navigation bar > Swipe gestures.
3. Set to the highest screen resolution
Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Ultra has the best display on a smartphone right now. Thanks to second-generation Gorilla Armor, it is less reflective and displays colors better than its predecessor. You get a sharp QHD+ screen, but it is not set to that resolution by default.
You need to go to Settings > Display > Screen resolution to get the best available display experience. It will use more battery, but the Ultra is an efficient smartphone. Even after maxing out the screen resolution, I still get an all-day battery life.
4. Change the side key’s function
Smartphones no longer have a “power button.” It is called a side key or side button now, and it is one of my most disliked changes in recent times. Phone companies have renamed the power button to accommodate their smart assistants on long press.
Google’s Gemini is available by other methods, and Bixby is not as useful anyway, so I suggest changing the side key’s function to offer a power menu. You can do so by going to Settings > Advanced features > Side button > Long Press > Power off menu.
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