Gadgetory

hello I'm Christopher whoa now here at Android authority a lot of us are really big fans of the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 I've had the chance to use it for a few weeks now and it is hands-down one of the coolest devices I've ever used looking at your comments on YouTube and on Android authority comm we've noticed a lot of you seem to be big fans of the note 2 as well so we figured we'd make a video for you our wonderful wonderful viewers and readers to show you 10 tips on how to get the most out of your Samsung Galaxy Note 2 let's get started with number one our first tip is a quick one but it's a lifesaver if you're left-handed to change your s-pen for left-handed you simply go to settings then S Pen select dominant hand and switch it to left now any lefties will have a much easier time using the S Pen tip number two is one-handed operation now what are the greatest things about the note 2 is that it's big one of the not-so-great things about the note 2 is that it's big this can make certain things difficult at least until you enable one-handed operation to do this simply go to one-handed operation under settings and you can make the keyboard dial pad and calculator stick a little closer to either the right or the left side of the screen even better you can change these options individually so you don't have to change everything at once number three is handwriting recognition with the s-pen sure it's fun to take notes and write on your screen but what about when you need to get down to some real communication to use the s-pen to turn your handwriting into standard text input just go to settings then language and input then Samsung keyboard settings and select pen detection now whatever you may be doing whether it's an email or a text you'll be able to scribble away with the S Pen and it'll turn into standard text as easy as that tip number four replace the stock keyboard the keyboard on the note 2 is fine but it's autocorrect can leave something to be desired if you're like me you may want to choose a replacement keyboard my favorite by far is Swift key but there are other options like swipe that may suit you better the only problem is that if you use a third party keyboard you won't be able to use the handwriting recognition from the previous tip number five on our list of tips and tricks is screen capture if you want to show other people what's on your screen the note 2 makes it very easy and gives you two different ways to do it to take a snapshot of the whole screen just hold down the button on the S Pen and press on the screen in a second the screen will be captured and you can even edit it or draw on if you just want to capture a portion of the screen hold down the S Pen button and draw an area on the screen and anything within that area will be captured passing the halfway point our next tip is to hook your note 2 up to an external display the mini USB port on the bottom of the note 2 has a secret it can also work as an HDMI out to hook up to your TV you just need an adapter first if you want to watch videos or play a game on a large screen just plug in an MHL HDMI adapter which will cost you about 20 bucks plug it into your TV and that's pretty much it enjoy number 7 enable NFC and s beam while Samsung hypes s beam quite a bit it's not turned on by default neither is NFC meaning until you turn it on you're stuck paying for your coffee the old-fashioned way to turn on S beam and NFC you can find the options under the wireless and networks option under settings you don't need to turn on s beam to use NFC but you do have to turn on NFC to use s beam now you're set to beam away to your heart's content tip number 8 on our list turn off auto brightness the auto-brightness feature helps visibility and can conserve battery life but sometimes you just want a little more control over your brightness this option is easy to find in the settings menu under display just turn off the auto brightness option and set the brightness to whatever you'd like number nine use the camera's HDR mode while the note twos camera takes a pretty-looking picture HDR or high dynamic range mode can make them look even nicer the bonus is the camera still takes a normal picture as well once you've got the camera app open select the shooting mode option which is on the top or the side of the screen depending on how you're holding your note to scroll through until you find the HDR option if you want to increase the effect toggle it from normal to strong as the camera app warms make sure to hold very still while taking your picture and you should end up with great results our final tip save battery life well I've found that the note 2 has excellent battery life already sometimes you're going to need to squeeze a little more out of it under settings scroll to find the power saving mode open the menu and turn the option on now you can choose CPU power saving screen power saving turn off haptic feedback and even change the background color of web pages to help save battery life want to save even more battery life open the s-pen menu under settings and select battery saving now the note 2 won't automatically notice when you remove the s-pen but your battery will last a little while longer so that wraps up our list now obviously there are a ton of tips and tricks for the note 2 and there's no way we could possibly get to all of them I just went for a few that I thought were the most interesting or the most useful if you have a favorite tip or trick that we haven't mentioned let everybody know in the comments I'm Christopher wolf or Android authority and as always we love to hear what you think of our videos so if you have any comments or suggestions let us know thanks and enjoy your note too