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So you finally bought the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 after reading our glowing review. You’ve gloriously ripped it from the box like King Arthur and the Sword in the Stone, booted it up, and completed the installation steps. Now what? There’s a good chance you don’t know where to start… don’t worry, you’re in good hands. Here are the first 10 things you should do with your Galaxy Note 4.
Most people never take the time to prepare in advance. Then down the road, when disaster strikes, they furiously look for ways to find a lost or stolen android phone, praying some evil doer doesn’t capture their device, gain access, and use it for nefarious purposes. This terrible feeling of panic can be easily averted… it just takes a little planning.
We know you want to dive into your new device, but trust us, it’s worth spending a few minutes to protect this expensive little gadget that holds lots and lots of private and sensitive information. Here’s what you should do (right now):
Enable Android Device Manager
This is your #1 tool in moments of crisis, but you have to set it up in advance! Simply download Android Device Manager to your Note 4 and you’ll be able to locate your phone at all times, reset your lock screen PIN, and even remotely lock and erase all data on your account.
If you lose your phone, simply use your computer to login to the Android Device Manager website where you can force your phone to ring loudly for 5 minutes, lock it up, and/or erase everything!
Add Password Recovery Options
Your Android Phone is tied to a Gmail account. If you get locked out of your device (by incorrectly attempting screen unlock too many times) and/or happen to forget your Gmail password, you’re in trouble. This Google Account is the key to everything. Make sure you’re able to recover or reset your password in an emergency. To do that, visit Google’s Account Recovery Options and enter a phone number, alternate e-mail addresses for recovery, and security question.
Secure your lock screen
Trust us when we say you want to password protect your phone. Head on over to Settings > Lock Screen > Screen Lock and choose one of the options (Swipe, Pattern, PIN, Password, Fingerprint). Keep in mind that you’ll need 2 hands available to unlock with Fingerprint accurately on a consistent basis. I’m a big fan of Pattern Lock. But if you don’t want to lock your screen every. single. time. adjust the “Secured lock time” setting that will keep it unlocked for up to an hour before it locks again.
We’d also suggest you tap on “Show information”, enable it, and tap on “Owner information” at the bottom. Enter your name and e-mail address here; should a good samaritan find your device, they might just be your savior and shoot you an e-mail to return it. You could also list your phone number and check your voicemail remotely.
The new phone you just bought was built months and months ago. Since then it’s likely the apps that come pre-installed on your phone have had important updates. The Google Play Store lets you easily update these in addition to automatically updating your other apps in the future.
Visit the Google Play Store, press the menu at the top left (or swipe from the left), tap settings, Auto-update apps, and choose “Auto-update apps over Wi-Fi only”. Make sure you’re connected to Wi-Fi and watch your system apps, and any you have installed, update all at once!
Once all your apps are updated for the first time, you may wish to adjust this setting:
And don’t forget to download Phandroid News and Forums for Android!
If you’ve already been flipping through your Galaxy Note 4, you’ve likely noticed the news page on the far left home screen titled “Briefing”. It’s slow, it’s buggy, it’s not very customizable, and we think it’s an all around nightmare. We suggest you remove it, and thankfully that’s an easy thing to do.
Ah, much better.
It seems there are endless options on the Galaxy Note 4, so organizing is of supreme importance, and that all starts with the home screen. This consists of a few key elements that we should talk about separately.
Customize your Dock Apps – the bottom row of icons can hold up to four apps plus your “Apps” tray and these are visible from every home screen. You’ll want to put your most used apps here: for me that’s Phone, Gmail, Chrome, and Voice Search, but for you that may be different. To change these simply long press on any icon and drag it into the dock. If you’ve already got 4 it will swap with the app icon you drag onto.
Put a folder in your Dock – I no longer need Voice Search in my dock (you’ll see why soon) and lately I’ve been messaging like crazy, but with a wide variety of apps. To put a folder containing many apps into your dock, simply create the folder elsewhere on your home screen and drag it into your dock afterwards. You can create a folder by long pressing on an app icon and dragging it to the top left of your screen onto “Create Folder”. Add more apps to the folder by dragging apps on top of the folder or opening the folder and pressing the “+” sign to add them in bulk. Then drag the folder into the dock and you’re practically Otis Redding!
Make S Note and Action Memos easily accessible – the only way you’re going to learn the magic of the S Pen Stylus is if you put them within the flow of your daily routine. You don’t need to put them smack dab on your primary home screen to accomplish that- if you’re already going through the trouble of unsheathing the S Pen, what’s one little swipe to the left or swipe right ?
We recommend reserving the screen directly to the left and right of your primary home screen for S Note and Action Memos respectively. This doesn’t have to be permanent, but at least try it out for a solid 2 weeks- it’ll help you learn the Note 4 features like a boss.
You’ll now see all of your S Note notebooks in a beautiful bookshelf of sorts and have access to all the S Note features from one screen. But don’t forget those Action Memos! After clearing the other screen for action memos you can:
Congratulations, you’ve set yourself up for success. This will help you learn the S Pen and all it’s great features much more easily. Now… didn’t I tell you I’d explain taking “Voice Search” out of my dock?
If you haven’t been using Android’s voice commands, you’ve been missing one of it’s best features. Like many devices, you can setup your Galaxy Note 4 to respond to “Okay Google”, instantly launching a Google Search with Google Now… but that’s not all. First seen on the original Moto X, the Galaxy Note 4 is one of the only other devices you can set to hear “Okay Google” commands from any screen… even your lock screen!
You can set this up by going to:
As if Googling stuff by hand wasn’t easy enough!
If the Galaxy Note 4 didn’t have the S Pen it’d just be… well, a better version of the iPhone 6 Plus. But with the S Pen it’s so much more. The Note 4 has a a safe and snug little place to secure the S Pen, but every time you unsheath the stylus, you risk its demise. Whether misplacing it, leaving it behind at Starbucks, or just outright losing the darn thing, we want to avoid its absence at all costs.
Head on over to Settings > S Pen > S Pen alerts and make sure it’s selected. It’s truly a life saver. If your pen is detached and you walk away from it, you’ll be alerted with a loud noise, vibration, and pop up message reminding you that you’d better fetch the darn thing. We would also recommend checking off “Disable pen detection” because it saves battery and seems redundant.
Samsung makes changing settings on the fly a breeze with the Galaxy Note 4 but a few quick changes will make your life even more convenient. Start by going to Settings > Tap the 4 squares icon > Tap the pencil icon > drag and drop the quick toggles you want to appear in the notification try by default.
Note that the main quick toggles, where you see Wi-Fi/Location/Sound/Screen Rotation/Bluetooth above left- that list scrolls horizontally. It’s not obvious, but give it a try.
Two other improvements to settings you’ll want to initiate:
Now you’ll have quick and easy access to making on-the-fly adjustments to your device whenever the need arises.
Android devices have used NFC for mobile payments for years, but now that Apple has finally gotten on board with their own version – Apple Pay – we’re likely to see adoption rates by retailers skyrocket. You can already make tap and pay payments at places like Starbucks and 7-Eleven, but we’re guessing it’ll soon spread like wildfire- so get with the program. Start by enabling NFC in Settings > NFC.
You can set up Tap and Pay with ISIS, but we prefer Google Wallet, so first you’ll need to download Google Wallet from the Play Store. You may find it easier to update all your credit card and contact information with a laptop, so if that’s the case, follow the instructions on the Google Wallet website (click sign in at the top right).
Once you’ve successfully connected a credit card and are ready to rock, open the Google Wallet app back up and you’ll see one of the above 4 screens. Just tap “Set up tap and pay”, then press “Tap and pay unavailable”, select “Yes” to make it your default, and BOOM you’re ready to go on a Tap and Pay shopping spree!
If you’ve never used Tap and Pay before, you might be intimidated to try it for the first time in the store with a bunch of people surrounding you. Don’t be… people won’t bite and there is nothing wrong with asking for help and telling people you’ve never tried it before. But it’s really easy. You’ll do it once and be like “Wow… it’s that easy?” Here are the simple steps to actually use Tap and Pay:
Now you’re well on your way to blowing the huge fortune you’ve amassed, all from the convenience of your trusty Galaxy Note 4.
If you’re a stickler for speed, you might get irritated with TouchWiz at times. There just so happens to be a secret hidden option to give your device a little boost. You’ll need to become a developer for the day, but it’s much less scary than it sounds.
The default is usually 1X, so even lowering this to .5x should speed things up a bit.
The Note 4 has a pretty reliable battery, but we’re always looking for ways to extend our battery life. Of course you’ll want to know about the Power Saving Mode found under “Power Saving” and located just below “Battery” in your full settings list. Adjust what does and doesn’t turn off when you enter the mode and then add Power Saving Mode to your quick toggle settings. Now, whenever you’re not actively using your phone, toggle Power Saving Mode on and greatly extend the life of your battery.
This will help you manually trigger your phone to conserve power, but you should also sift through the rest of your phone’s settings to ensure that you don’t have battery intensive features turned on, especially ones you’re not even using… so let’s make sure you don’t.
It’ll take you a LONG time to go through all of the Galaxy Note 4 settings, but enabling and disabling certain features could make or break your personal experience with the device. Below we’ve listed a number of settings we feel are rather important, identified how to find them, and provided our suggestion/explanation.
These are a few of our top choices, but in reality, it would serve you well to take a gander through all of the Galaxy Note 4 settings to see what’s available. It will help you learn your device inside and out, making the next 1 or 2 years you spend with it much more blissful.
The Samsung Galaxy Note 4 is an incredibly unique device with its multi-tasking capabilities (Multi Window FTW!) and S Pen functionality. There are some apps and games out there that do an especially awesome job at integrating with Note 4’s experience. Here are just a few of the apps you may want to take for a spin:
Have more suggestions for apps and games that work especially great on the Note 4? Let us know in the comments and we’ll add them to the list!
What’s the best place to get help, tips, tricks, support, suggestions, and information about the phone you have? From other people that also have that phone! That’s why Android Forums has become such a great resource and our Galaxy Note 4 Forums are especially awesome. Feel free to browse as a guest or sign up for a free account to begin posting (and you’ll see less ads!).
For more tips and tricks for beginners, be sure to check out the following threads: