7 little-known features you need to try on your Samsung Galaxy phone

Samsung phones are feature-rich in both software and hardware.Given that a typical Samsung phone has countless features, chances are you don't know all of them, or maybe just don't use them.

Whatever the case, if you own a Samsung phone, you must try the features mentioned below in order to get the most out of your device.They work with almost all major modern Samsung phones, including the Galaxy S21/S22 series, A52 and A53, A72, Note series, and more.

1. Take more natural selfies

Samsung phones tend to automatically apply beauty filter-like effects on all selfies.For this reason, your face will look brighter because photos are often over processed and over sharpened.All blemishes are also wiped away, making your face look smoother.

However, if you don't like that, you can set your Samsung phone to take more natural selfies.

1. Open the Camera app and tap the Settings icon in the upper left corner.

2. Scroll down to Selfie Tint and select Natural Color.

A preview will be displayed where you can decide whether you prefer a natural finish or one with a beauty filter applied.

2. Set up Bixby routines

Bixby Routines is one of Bixby's best time-saving features and one of the most underrated features on Samsung phones.You can use it to automate everyday tasks like automatically mute your phone when you enter the workplace, resume music playback when you enter the car, and more.

Bixby Routines are hidden under Settings > Advanced Features > Bixby Routines.Samsung provides some pre-made routines, but you can also create one based on your requirements.

Routine programs allow you to trigger a specific action when a specific event occurs, like play music, put the phone in low power mode, and many other things.These events can range from time of day to battery level to when you receive a new message.

3. Adjust the intensity of the flashlight

You can use the LED light on the back of your Samsung Galaxy phone as a flashlight whenever you need it.To do this, you just have to use the flashlight toggle on the quick settings panel.What you might not know is that you can also adjust the intensity of the flashlight.Here's how:

1. Swipe down twice from the notification shade to open the quick settings panel.

2. Click the "Torch" text below the "Torch" tile in the panel.

3. Now you can choose between five different levels of flashlight intensity and turn it on if you wish.

You can adjust the intensity even with the flashlight enabled.

Be careful, however, not to use the LED as a flashlight at maximum intensity for extended periods of time, as this may drastically shorten its lifespan.

4. Reduce the space your photos and videos take up

If you take a lot of photos and videos with your Samsung phone, you can save them in HEIF and HEVC formats to reduce the space they take up.

The change is unlikely to have any impact on regular use, but the space savings would be huge.You can only run into some compatibility issues when trying to open media files on some older PCs or phones, but that's about it.

Follow the steps below to save photos in HEIF format on your Samsung phone:

1. Open the Camera app and tap the Settings icon in the upper left corner.

2. Under Picture, select a picture format.

3. In the menu that opens, toggle the Efficient Picture option.

You can continue to record video using the H.264 codec if you prefer.Otherwise, follow these steps:

1. Open the Camera app and tap the Settings icon in the upper left corner.

2. Scroll down to Video and select Advanced Recording Options.

3. Enable the Reduce file size option to record video with HEVC codec.

To be clear: the reduced file size of photos and videos does not affect their quality in any way.It's just that newer file formats have better compression techniques.

5. Quick access to notification panel

Accessing the notification panel on your Samsung Galaxy phone can involve quite a bit of finger-finger movement, especially if it has a large display.Thankfully, in Samsung's One UI launcher, there's an option that lets you quickly access the notification panel by simply swiping down anywhere on the home screen.

To do this, head to Settings > Home Screen, scroll to the very bottom, and enable the option to Swipe Down on Notification Panel.

6. Change the system palette

If your Samsung Galaxy phone is running One UI 4 orOne UI 4.1, you can adjust the system's color palette.By default, the system pulls color accents from the wallpaper you're using, but you can choose a different color palette if you want.

1. On your Samsung phone, navigate to Settings > Wallpaper & Style > Color Palette.

2. Various palettes extracted from the hues of the wallpaper will be listed with a preview on them.

3. Choose your favorite color palette.If you want to apply tint to shortcut keys as well, enable Apply palette to app icon.

7. Customize side button functions

You can use the side button on your Samsung phone, the power button, to quickly launch apps of your choice.By default, long-pressing the button is set to trigger Bixby, which many users find annoying.Thankfully, you can set it to wake up from the power menu.Here's how:

1. On your Samsung phone, navigate to Settings > Advanced Features > Side Button.

2. You can find options here to customize the double-press and long-press functions of the side buttons.

3. To open the app of your choice when you double-tap the side button, tap the gear icon and make your selection.You can also choose to quickly launch the camera app here.

Get the most out of your Samsung Galaxy phone

With so many features on Samsung phones, you must feel overwhelmed at times.However, the features we've outlined above will help increase your productivity levels, address some of the UI pain points, and also improve your overall experience with the device.