Samsung Galaxy S20: 10 tips and tricks that will make your new phone even better

Get the most out of your new phone.

- MICHAEL SIMON

If you’ve already gotten your Galaxy S20 (go.pcworld.com/gs20), you’ve surely transferred over your apps, set up the home screen, and picked just the right wallpaper to show off your big beautiful screen. But there are a few settings you might have missed that will make your S20 experience that much better.

Here are 10 toggles, tweaks, and settings you need to learn:

1. USE EVERY MEGAPIXEL IN YOUR PHOTOS

The S20 Ultra has the largest sensor ever crammed into a Galaxy phone: a whopping 108MP. But you won’t take 108MP pictures by default. Instead, Samsung uses pixel binning to bring the resolution down to 12MP and cram more detail into a smaller shot.

If you want to use all 108 megapixels (or the full 64MP in the S20+), you’ll need to change the ratio in the camera app. Tap the 3:4 button and switch it to the 3:4 108MP or the 3:4 64MP option. Just keep an eye on your storage, because every photo takes up a lot more space (about 30MB per photo using 108MP).

2. MAKE THE DISPLAY BUTTERY-SMOOTH

The S20’s display is awesome out of the box, but it’s not all it could be. Samsung has motion smoothing turned off in an effort to preserve battery life, but with a minimum of 4,000mAh at your disposal, your S20 actually has more than enough to handle it. And what a difference it makes when you switch in on.

To find it, head over to the Display tab in Settings, select Motion smoothness, and switch to 120Hz. Note that if you’ve already upped the resolution to WQHD, you’ll need to go back down to Full HD, because Samsung doesn’t allow both WQHD and motion smoothing.