[Samsung Galaxy Note 9 Guides, News, & Discussion] Paras Lehana:
Device Settings Menu Guide, Tips & Discussions

Part 3 - Display, Lock screen, Biometrics and security​

If you're new to this series or want to see the index, please read the Introductory Post first.​

Display

Auto brightness: When you change brightness in Auto mode, your device is smart enough to learn your usage patterns to determine the best level according to the environment as per your preferences. 'Reset usage patterns' in case you think your phone is drunk when in Auto mode.

Blue light filter: Learn why you should use it here. I've set it to 'Turn on as scheduled' > 'Sunset to sunrise'. You can toggle it from the notification panel as well.

Night Mode: (Pie update) Enable it to make use of true blacks on your AMOLED screen, save battery and put less strain on eyes. I know you want it to only enable at night, so hop up to developer mode and set 'Night mode' to Automatic. I don't know why Samsung has put up such a useful mode here.

Screen mode: I've set it to 'Adaptive Display'. Do play with other modes and toggle them when needed. Customize 'Full screen colour balance' (and Advanced) when 'Adaptive Display' is enabled in case you don't like the default setup.

Font size and style; Screen zoom: I've set 'Screen Zoom' to 'Small' and 'Font Size' to Level 2 in order to get more content in a screen view. Please tell if there's any better font on Galaxy Apps.

Screen resolution: By default, you don't get the resolution enabled what your Note9 is capable of. I've changed it WQHD+ for getting the most out of the best display in the market. I've the resolution set to HD+ in Medium Battery Saver mode in case I'm on Survival mode.

Full screen apps: I customize it when needed for an app.

Screen timeout: Mine is set to 10 minutes. You know, pro users!

Home screen: Self-explanatory and I use Nova Launcher. Do enable 'Quick-open' notification panel.

Edge screen: Do you need a seperate guide for this? Or can anyone provide a link to one. If you use it right, this can make your life much simpler.

Edge panels: You can set a maximum of 9 panels. Explore options of each panel and try more of them from the Store. I've enabled Apps edge (also make app pair and folders), People edge (upto 10), Smart select (take portion screenshots, make screen GIFs, pin a screen's content), Clipboard edge (auto-categorizes items), Reminder, Device maintenance (useful to review device performance OTG), Tasks edge (explore all available tasks), Quick tools (must have), Calendar. Tap Menu and 'Reorder' the panels as per your needs. In 'Edge panel handle', I've set the Transparency to highest and Size to smallest. I've dragged the handle to Right near power button so that I can always guess where the handle is.

Edge lighting: For me, it feels great to have it for some very important notifications that too 'when screen is off'. Do note that if you enable it for screen on as well, it will disable heads-up notifications. Play with 'Edge lighting style' as it shows the effect generated as you customize one. For me, {effect=basic, color=app_color, transparency=low, width=narrow} works. You can customize the lighting color for each app separately as well. In 'Manage notifications', you can define those apps for which you want this effect enabled.

Menu > Quick reply: Do define a reply because it can be useful in cases where you can't or don't prefer to type or check messages.

Navigation bar: I've enabled 'Hard press Home button' (great alternative to physical home button) and set the pressure to lightest (since I don't want to hurt my screen). With Pie, you can enjoy the immersive display by setting 'Navigation type' to 'Full screen gestures' and disabling 'Gesture hints'. I eventually got used to this. You can use Nav bar button on Quick Settings by dragging down the notification panel to toggle showing navbar then.

Accidental touch protection: Really useful because I keep my phone screen faced to my leg side when inside pocket so that it's protected from the outside cruel world.

Screensaver: In case phone is your life even when it wants to get charged peacefully.

Lock screen

Screen lock type: I use Pattern with Biometrics (Intelligent Scan and Fingerprints or sometimes Fingerprints only). Fingerprints remain the best security and battery-efficient method till date atleast for me. Use Iris for more security than regular face recognition. Also, with Iris, your device won't get unlocked while you're sleeping or with your photo. Use 'Intelligent Scan' for bit more ease (read about it here).

Smart Lock: It's a Google feature that can unlock your phone via On-body detection, Trusted places/devices and Voice Match. I used it once with On-body detection but couldn't impress me. Read about it here.

Secure lock settings: Disabled 'Make pattern visible'. Set 'Lock automatically' to 15 seconds in case I want to turn on the screen immediately without unlocking it. Anyways, 'Lock instantly with power key ' is enabled when I explicitly want it to get locked. Use 'Auto factory reset' carefully as someone could initiate this by simply making incorrect attempts. I've enabled 'Lock network and security' especially for theft use-case.

Always On Display: For customizing it, go to 'Clock style' below. Guide on AOD here and video here. With Pie, you now have new display mode as 'Tap to show' AOD for 30 seconds. I've set it to 'show as scheduled' such it doesn't glow when I sleep. Also, I get an idea that it's time to get to bed when AOD stops showing up (same for wakeup).

Content to show: 'Home button and clock' feel elegant for me.

Double tap Home button: Changed to 'Quick launch Camera' since I want it more often and I can turn on the screen by hard pressing anyways.

Auto brightness: Enabled. If you are okay with manually controlling this brightness less often by double tapping the AOD clock, disabling can save you some battery.

Show always; Set schedule: If you often check clock at night, you can enable the former. I've disabled AOD during my night sleep schedule so that I additionally get a hint when it's already time to go to bed and whether it's time to get up or not.

Turn off to save battery: Enabled. Do you need AOD in survival mode too?

Clock style: You can customize AOD with different clock styles, pictures, GIFs, Calendar and roaming clocks. Blue 'colour' gives a soothing effect every time I look at the clock for me. Similarly, you can customize your Lock Screen clock style here.

Roaming clock: I had to disable it as every operator in India puts SIM to Roaming mode when you're out of your circle (mostly defined to a state) and I get two identical clocks whenever I travel out of state.

FaceWidgets: Enabled all available choices and will decide about the reordering or need of each of them after I arrive at the use-cases. Same goes for you maybe.

Contact information: Do fill it. I've include my name and number on it. Can be useful when stolen, lost or misplaced. You can include email or alternative mobile number as well since the primary number would probably be in the device itself.

Notifications: I've kept the defaults. 'Hide content' if you don't want people to read your notifications. I rather do this on per-app basis (like messages for OTPs, sensitive apps). 'Notifications icons only' makes it similar to AOD style notifications and I want description of notifications once I go over my AOD screen. Toggle 'Transparency' if you find it difficult to read notification over the wallpaper or want your wallpaper to expose. 'Auto-reverse text colour' makes it easier to adapt with the wallpaper. You can define 'Where to show' your notifications here (AOD or Lock screen or both).

App shortcuts: Define the two shortcuts you see on the bottom screen corners while on lock screen. You can choose any app though default (phone and camera) works for me.

Biometrics and security

Biometrics: You can remove biometrics data and configure 'Samsung Pass' to use these here. You can enable 'Screen-on' scan for making the device scan for your face/iris as soon as screen turns on. This increases brightness immediately while it's scanning (can be annoying) and will drain some battery. 'Samsung Pay' works only with 'Fingerprint' and 'Iris Scanner'. Try different ' preview screen mask' for 'Iris Scanner'. In 'Fingerprint Scanner', you can add as many as 4 fingerprints (reserve one for Secure Folder). Put your finger on the reader and you can see the detected one highlited.

Screen transition effect: Disabled as I want things at fastest.

Google Play Protect: Enabled. Read more here.

Find My Mobile: 'Remote controls', 'Google location service' and 'Send last location' enabled. This should be the first things to review once you buy the device. Prepare yourself with a demo on findmymobile.samsung.com.

Security update: Shows the patch level and gets updated with 'Software Update'.

Samsung Pass: Similar to 'Google Smart Lock' for passwords but with biometrics and less support as of now.

Install Unknown Apps: Allow/Disallow existing apps to install apps from APK.

Secure Folder: The replacement for Samsunh My Knox. Must use feature to serparate your very private and confidential part of the phone. Guide here and video here.

Secure startup: Disabled for me. Should be enabled if you want your SIM, notifications, alarms and anything related to device startup not to start without passing the lock screen after the device boots up. For the kind of short-term memory loss I have, I want to call my phone or want it recieve inputs if in any case it gets misplaced with maybe low battery.

Encrypt SD card: Okay, so your phone is secured by Knox or 'Device encryption'. What about your SD card? Anyone can take it out and access your data, right? Encrypt it here and it won't be accessible to any device beside yours. Be careful to decrypt it in case you want to use it somewhere else or even when you are going to format your device.

Other security settings: 'Set up SIM card lock' disabled (same reason as in 'Secure startup'), 'Make passwords visible' disabled, 'Security policy updates' auto update enabled (Here is what are these), 'Send security reports' enabled. Set 'Device admin apps' with care (Learn about them here in case you haven't). You need to remove an app from here before uninstalling it. 'Creditial Storage' for CAs and user certificates (Learn more about CAs here). 'Pin windows' is a very useful feature for me. In cases where you need to give your device to someone (for like watching a movie or seeing the gallery), if this is enabled with 'ask for pattern before unpinning', when you 'pin' that app (video player or gallery), people will have to pass the lock method to get out of that app. Configure which apps can have 'Usage data access', 'Notification access' and 'Do not disturb permission'.

Location:

Allow apps and sites to detect your device's location. I've enabled it since I use too much location-specific content. You can turn it off if you suspect your dad working in NSA (approx locality can still be tracked through IP, use VPN).

Locating method: Change the method as per your requirements. I use 'High accuracy' while you can use 'Battery saving' to save a significant amount of battery that GPS uses. I simply turn off 'Location' from the notification bar when not needed or during survival mode.

Improve Accuracy: You can turn this off for WiFi and BT in case you don't want apps to override your decision of not making them search for WiFi or BT when you have explicitly turned them off!

Recent Location Requests; Location Services: Do review the apps that your girlfriend may have installed in your phone; Do review Google Location History and Sharing settings.

App permissions; Permission usage monitor: You can review the 'Permission History' here and enable/disable notifications for permission access on per-app per-permission basis. You suspect an app tracking your location occasionally and want to prove this instead of not granting it the permission? You can do it here.