Samsung Galaxy S22 Tips & Camera Tricks

The Galaxy S22 is the latest in the long line of incredible smartphones from Samsung, and we’ve gathered some of the most useful info we could find to help you get the most out of your new handset. 

General tips

Boost your battery performance

There are a ton of ways to get better performance out of your battery. One of the newer features is Wi-Fi power saving mode, which optimises the connection between your phone and your router to prevent energy overuse. To enable it:

- Go to Settings > Connections

- Go to Wi-Fi

- Tap the three dots on the top right and select Advanced

- Toggle Wi-Fi power saving mode to on 

Another way to preserve your battery is to reduce the notification vibration intensity. The amount of energy used when your phone is buzzing is surprising, so it’s better to keep this as low as possible to suit your needs:

- Go to Settings > Sounds and vibration

- Scroll down to, and tap on, vibration intensity

- Reduce the sliders to the point you feel comfortable 

Another thing you can change to reduce unnecessary energy wastage is the Video brightness setting. Your battery uses up a ton of juice when it’s displaying videos, and even more so when the brightness is increased. To reduce the intensity of the backlight during playback, simply:

- Go to Settings > Advanced features

- Scroll down to Video brightness

- Switch to Normal (or select which specific apps you want to have reduced brightness for from the list below)

A coloured bar doesn’t always give the clearest indication of how much battery you have left, so that can make it a bit harder to tell when you need a charge. To display battery charge as a percentage within the little battery icon at the top of your phone:

- Go to Settings > Notifications

- Go to Notifications and then tap Advanced settings

- Toggle on the Show battery percentage setting at the top

---

Remap your side key

Many people don’t like the default settings for the button on the right side of the phone, particularly because a long hold of it brings up the much-maligned Bixby assistant by default. With most other brands and handsets, this typically brings up a power on/power off menu. To switch this over:

- Go to Settings > Advanced features

- Scroll down to Side key and select it

- Under the Press and hold heading, toggle from Wake Bixby to Power off menu

You can also change the app that opens after a double press of the side key (by default, it quick-launches the camera, but you can set it to open the flashlight instead, for example). To select a different app:

- Go to Settings > Advanced features

- Scroll down to Side key and select it

- Toggle on the Double press setting and then select Open app

- Tap Open app and select whichever app suits you

Add app widgets to your home screen

Samsung Galaxy phones have some of the best-designed and most intuitive app widgets for your home screen. You can add a full-sized calendar, playback controls for Spotify, or one of a hundred other things. To add a widget from a specific app:

- On your home screen, press and hold the screen on an open space where there is no app

- Tap the Widgets button under the greyed-out background version of your home screen 

- Scroll through the available apps and select the one you want a widget for, and tap it

- Scroll through the widgets available then tap the one you want, and then tap ‘Add’

- Press and hold the widget to either change the size of the widget or to change its position on the screen

Update your phone software

Some handsets don’t update the phone software automatically when you first switch them on, or in other cases, you may have missed or accidentally closed a reminder notification for an update. Either way, it’s good to ensure you’re using the most up-to-date software as it can improve performance and phone security. To update your handset manually:

- Go to Settings > Software update

- Tap Download and install

Camera tips

Use full resolution image capture

At the expense of some low-light capture capability, you can increase the default megapixel resolution of your Galaxy S22’s rear camera pretty easily. If you’re trying to take photos in a well-lit area and want the sharpest possible image, try this:

- Open your camera

- Tap the icon at the top that says 3:4

- Swipe across to the 3:4 option with the white bar underneath it (which will show the maximum megapixel capacity for your device; S22/S22+ will be 50mp, S22+ will be 108mp) and tap it

Keep your last-used filters on

It can be a bit annoying having to repeatedly go in and change the filter to the one you like every time you take a photo. Fortunately, you can ensure your phone saves your favourite and uses it every time (until you manually change it). To do this:

- Open Camera settings

- Tap Settings to keep

- Toggle the Filters option to the on position 

Test taking photos with and without Scene optimizer

There’s an AI feature on some of the more recent Galaxy phones that uses AI to enhance photos automatically to make them social-media-ready. Some people prefer having it on (especially when they’re taking photos of still objects) but others prefer having it off (usually when they’re photographing landscapes or things that are moving at speed). To experiment with both options: 

- Open your camera

- Tap the settings cog in the top left of the screen

- Toggle Scene optimiser on or off depending on the situation 

You might also like:

- Gadget insurance with Protect Your Bubble: get your devices covered now*.

- Samsung Galaxy S23: Release date and feature rumours about the next Galaxy handset. 

- iPhone 13 vs iPhone 12: Which one should you go for?

* Underwriter Assurant General Insurance Limited. Gadget age restrictions, T&Cs & excesses apply. Customer UK 18+. Insurance with Protect Your Bubble for the Samsung Galaxy S23 will be available from the official release date onward.