Gadgetory

so the Galaxy Note 3 is a big phone while plenty of people might love a big phone there's one undeniable fact about its usage using it with one hand is just not that easy Samsung wanted to try making life easier for us and I'm going to show you what that is all about it's Josh of agar from Android auto what's going on everybody and this is your future focus on the note 3's one-handed operation nestled somewhat deep in the settings is a new selection under controls called one-handed operation no it doesn't magically shrink your large Galaxy Note 3 to a more manageable size but it gets kind of close I'll get to that in a bit though you get a slew of options for a number of applications and for specific tasks that you have to get done a few are actually really handy essentially a number of controls are shrunken down and moved over to the side and arrow allows you to move it over depending on which hand you're using this is true for the unlock pattern so you can unlock your phone easier when you need it and your otherwise preoccupied and then you have the calculator perhaps for when you're trying to figure out the tip at a restaurant the keyboard which is pretty practical and can be further taken advantage of if you use the built-in swiping and finally the phone keypad and the buttons that come up when you're in the middle of a call for the most part these are the functions that end up being hardest to do when using one hand on the Galaxy Note 3 it's a feature that we've seen done in the lg optimus G pro admittedly though Samsung took it a bit further by adding more scalable apps and elements but you know what they didn't stop there no Samsung went even further by adding this top option yes you read that right all screens basically what happens is the entire working area of your TouchWiz screen get shrunken down to a more manageable size leaving the rest of the space blue and blank the way you do this is by using a new swipe command swipe from one side to the screen and then right back if it's in your right hand swipe left then right and of course vice versa right here you can see a working for yourself literally the entire screen is shrunken down and you are able to move around if you press and hold the top bar which is where the buttons are for resizing the screen and for exiting the mode there are even buttons at the bottom for all of the main functions and volume I do have to say however that the all screens assertion isn't completely true two main instances where the one-handed operation didn't work for me at least are in the camera and in the games and this is most likely because of the graphics processing required on either tasks honestly while its usefulness is hard to deny for people who really can't spare that extra hand I don't find myself using this all that often not only does the note 3 really kind of require two-handed usage just in its nature I personally just don't like the blank space that is created by it for a screen as awesome as the one found on the note 3 you just want to use it completely the keyboard option is definitely the most practical of the options perhaps next to the phone keypad and maybe the unlock pattern but otherwise I'd like to keep everything the way it was meant to be viewed on this 5.7 inch screen I do have to give props to Samsung however they added yet another tool in their large bag of Galaxy navigation tricks we have a slew of other features to focus on so stay tuned we'll be talking about the s-pen and the camera just to name a couple if you haven't seen my note 3 full review or the drop test make sure that you do and stay tuned to android authority because we're your source for all things Android