13 Best Samsung Galaxy Note 9 Tips, Tricks and Hidden Features

Continuing with the tradition of annual launches, Samsung is back again with a brand new addition to its Note lineup. And boy, it is amazing! With a top-notch processor under its hood and a stylus which can also function as a remote, the $1,000 Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is a pretty solid package.

Apart from the dual aperture camera and the customizable S Pen, the Galaxy Note 9 has a plethora of useful settings and features.

So, in this post today, we have curated the best Samsung Galaxy Note 9 tips, tricks, and hidden features to help you get the most out of this flagship phone.

1. Turn Your Phone into a Wi-Fi Repeater

Your brand new Galaxy Note 9 can also double up as a Wi-Fi Repeater. Yes, you read that right, and its setting is right there under the Wi-Fi settings (well, where else).

All you have to do is tap on the Mobile Hotspot option inside Settings > Connections > Mobile Hotspot and Tethering. Once inside, toggle both the Wi-Fi sharing and Mobile Hotspot to switch them on. That’s it!

Now, the other devices will be able to connect to your phone just like any other Wi-Fi network. You can change the connection name and make the password a bit more complicated to prevent others from mooching off your personal Wi-Fi network.

2. Rock the One-Handed Mode

With a 6.4-inch display, the Galaxy Note 9 is huge, and it’s no joke to maneuver it with one hand. However, on some occasions when you do need to operate it single-handedly, the Note 9 has a nifty trick up its sleeves.

All you need to do is tap on the Home button thrice, and the screen will be resized in the blink of an eye. No more business of diving into the settings every time you want to do that.

To enable this setting, go to Advanced features > One-handed mode and toggle the switch for Button.

3. Fine-Tune the Edge Panel

With more than a dozen multipurpose panels, it’s without a doubt that the Edge Panels are productivity boosters. By default, the Note 9 has only two active panels — People and Apps. So, if you’re looking for more shortcuts, you can add them from Edge Settings (Display > Edge > Edge panels).

The Note 9 has only two active panels — People and Apps

All you have to do is select the panels that you need. What’s more, you can reorder them as per your requirements. From calculators to news headlines, you can experiment with a lot here.

Furthermore, if you are not satisfied with the built-in ones, you can look for third-party options. To do so, tap on the three-dot menu (in the Edge Panels settings) and select Download.

4. Hide the Navigation Bar

Want to ditch the navigation bar? Head over to Settings > Display > Navigation bar and toggle the switch for Show and hide button. That will add a tiny black button to the edge of the navigation bar, and when you double tap the tiny dot the bar will disappear. To retrieve the navigation bar, simply swipe up from the screen’s edge.

Also, you can dress up the navigation bar in pastel colors through the native settings. However, if you don’t like the built-in colors and would like to have something bold, you can use these cool apps to customize the navigation bar.

5. Make the Notifications Transparent

Don’t like the white block of text? Replace it with a transparent block. For that, head over to Display > Notifications and drag the slider for Transparency to High.

What’s great about this trick is that the text color is automatically reversed to increase the screen legibility.

6. Adjust the Display Color

The Note 9 lets you choose from three different screen modes — Basic, AMOLED Photo, AMOLED Cinema, and Adaptive display. While the first three are auto modes, the adaptive display is customizable. So if you are someone like me who prefers warm screen tones over cool ones, you can set your preferred screen tones here.

You’d find these settings under Display and Screen Mode. If you know your way around the RGB color spectrum, tap on Advanced options and tweak the individual hues.

7. Choose the Edge Lighting Color

Edge lighting is possibly one of the coolest effects in the Galaxy Note lineup. Earlier, the options to tweak the light were pretty limited. Now, thankfully, you can tweak the thickness, color, and effects as well. Just choose from one of the four different effects (Basic, Multicolor, Glow, and Glitter), and combine them with a thicker band and say hello to more drama!

You can tweak the thickness, color, and effects of the Edge lighting

To make the changes, you’d need to navigate to Display > Edge screen > Edge lighting > Edge lighting style. While you are at it, you can also change the apps for which you want to use the Edge lighting effects.

8. Tweak the Always On Display Screen

Samsung’s Always On Display (AOD) is one of my favorite features. The ease with which you can monitor notifications, time, battery levels and weather make it a ‘too good to be true’ feature.

Lately, Samsung has been including some brilliant add-ons to this feature, and one of the most recent ones is adding a GIF. To make your Lock Screen more interactive (and fun), you can have a pick from smiling rabbits to neon-colored parrots.

Head over to the lock screen settings and navigate your way to Always On Display > Settings > Image/GIF.

Tap on the Add GIF and choose from the available options. Alternatively, you can also download a third-party GIF and use it through the Add Image option.

But if you’d settle for something minimalistic, the Galaxy Note 9 has plenty of clock faces. Just select from the available range of clock faces (both analog and digital), pick your color and let the Always On Display screen shine.

9. Remember Frequently Accessed Wi-Fi networks

The Galaxy Note 9 is smarter than most of the devices, and its built-in settings don’t fail to prove the fact right. ‘Turn on Wi-Fi automatically’ is one such feature. As you may have deduced, this clever feature identifies your frequently accessed networks and based on the pattern, it’ll connect to them automatically.

You’ll find this option under Advanced Wi-Fi settings. All you need to do is enable it and let the Note 9 do the job of figuring out which one to connect.

Buy Galaxy Note 9 from Amazon

10. Add More Clock Styles

Back in June 2018, Samsung released an impressive collection of clock faces for the AOD screen. However, they never released it to the Galaxy App store, which means you’ll have to sideload the app.

So, if you are someone who loves tinkering with their phone, you can give this app a try. Once you’ve installed the app, the option to add the clock styles will appear at the end of the AOD Clock Style list.

Simply choose one and click on Apply, which will bring that specific style to the AOD page. Pick a color as per your wish and save. Thank me later.

Download Clock Faces

11. Pin Text to the AOD

Are you someone who often forgets tasks and assignments? If yes, the Pin to AOD is one of your best options. As suggestive of its name, this brilliant trick lets you pin notes to the Always On Display screen so that you are reminded of the task at hand every time you look at your phone (which is more often than in our case, we’d like to admit).

All you have to do is make a text-only note in Samsung Notes app (preferably within 40 characters) and save it. Once done, tap on the Share icon > Text only and select Always On Display.

This way, the text will be pinned to the AOD screen. The default timing to display the notification is thirty minutes. However, if you wish to extend the time, double tap on the notification icon.

12. Hide Albums like a Pro

Annoyed by the countless folders in your photo gallery? Worry not, now you can choose to hide them at your will. All you need to do is go to the Albums tab, tap on the three-dot menu and select Hide and unhide albums.

Just select the albums and tap on Apply. As simple as that.

13. Tag People in Gallery

Remember the People feature of Google Photos? The Samsung Experience UI also has a similar feature. The only catch is that instead of any name, the person’s contact needs to be present in the contacts.

Open a picture and tap on the person-shaped icon at the top. Tap on the face in a photo and enter a name from your Contacts. So, the next time you need the pictures of a specific person, tap on their name and voila!

Live on the Edge!

So, these were some of the tips and tricks along with some hidden settings of the Samsung Galaxy Note 9. Explore your new phone and do let us know if you discovered any new tricks.