Galaxy S10 Guides

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How to use Galaxy S10 virtual bezel to hide the front camera cutout without using any apps?

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You can hide the front camera cutout on Galaxy S10, S10+, S105G, and S10e with the Galaxy S10 virtual bezel without using any third-party apps.

Samsung pinched an elongated hole for the front cameras to avoid a notch on the screen. And they proudly announced this trick as infinity “O” display. But some owners do not like this design.

This Galaxy S10 how-to guide explains how to use Galaxy S10 virtual bezel to hide the front camera cutout on Galaxy S10, S10+, S105G, and S10e, and the implications of using Galaxy S10 virtual bezel.

Why some owners do not like the front camera cutout?

Nowadays, all smartphone manufacturers try hard to increase screen size without increasing the overall size of the phone.

So, the size of the bezels decreases over the years.  Samsung virtually eliminated the bezels on the sides with curved display since Galaxy S6.

On the bottom, Samsung removed the physical buttons and reduced the size of the bezel to the limit already.

So, on Galaxy S10, they tried to reduce the size of the bezel on the top further.

But there is a hard limit on the top: the front camera, notification LED, iris scanner, proximity, and light sensors all need spaces and cannot be hidden.

And Samsung made 2 stupid mistakes in reducing the size of the top bezel on Galaxy S10 (S10, S10+, S10 5G, and S10e):

  • The iris scanner was removed.
  • The notification LED was removed.

The hole punch for the front camera actually is not a bad idea, although some owners may prefer the notch design as in other Android phones or iPhones.

But what makes it wrong (or less ideal) is the location of the hole.  On all Galaxy S10 phones, the hole is punched on the right side.

First, the hole destroys the symmetry of the front side. The ugly asymmetric look will be magnified when you use an app with a white background.

Second, the curved screen is used on Galaxy S10, S10+, and S10 5G. The hole must keep a certain distance from the curved part. This results in a significantly-reduced area for the status bar.  So, Galaxy S10 has to offer the option for you to reduce the number of notification icons on the status bar or even hide/disable the notification icons on the status bar entirely.

Of course, some Galaxy S10 owners like the design.

Anyway, for those owners who cannot live with the look of the front camera cutout, it is easy to hide the front camera cutout without using any apps.

The truth is that Samsung already knew some owners would dislike the hole and therefore offered the Galaxy S10 virtual bezel to hide the front camera cutout.

The price you have to pay to hide the Galaxy S10 front camera cutout is slightly reduced screen size.

How to use Galaxy S10 virtual bezel to hide the front camera cutout?

If you want to hide the front cutout on Galaxy S10, you can … Read the rest

How to use Galaxy S10 screen zoom?

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use Galaxy S10 screen zoomGalaxy S10 screen zoom allows you to scale the text and icons globally including the fixed-size text (e.g., notification text) that is not affected by font size settings.

Although Galaxy S10 screen zoom corresponds to display size in the stock Android, Samsung customized this feature a lot and they work quite differently.

This Galaxy S10 how-to guide explains when you need to adjust the Galaxy S10 screen zoom, and how to adjust it on Galaxy S10, S10e, S10+, and S10 5G.

What is screen zoom?

Google introduced the display size in Android Nougat (Android 7) for users to scale all display elements on the phone.

If you are using Windows PC, the display size in Android is similar to the scale (under display settings) on Windows.

Galaxy S10 screen zoom is based on display size in Android. But Samsung made significant customizations.

Compared to the display size in the stock Android, Galaxy S10 screen zoom works differently in the following aspects:

  • The screen zoom does NOT scale the app icons on Galaxy S10 Home screen, Apps screen, and lock screen.
  • The screen zoom has 3 levels. While the display size in Pixel phones has 5 levels.
  • The zoom levels in Galaxy S10 is quite moderate.

For the text and icons,  the screen zoom works on all pages and apps, just like the display size in the stock Android.

Normally, the screen zoom is used together with the font size and style settings to get the desired look on the phone.

When do you need to change Galaxy S10 screen zoom? Why font size setting is not sufficient?

On Android, the size of some texts and display elements is hard-coded or fixed (based on DPI of the display).

For example, many Galaxy S10 owners complained about the small text size of the notifications. They tried to increase the font size. But the text size in the notification panel is not affected by font settings because it is fixed.

So, for such text (and icons), you will need to use the screen zoom to change the size.

In short, for most parts of Galaxy S10, the font settings are respected. But for the fixed-size text and icons, you have to use the screen zoom to adjust the display size.

How to adjust Galaxy S10 screen zoom?

You can change the screen zoom levels on Settings.

As shown in the screenshot below, on Galaxy S10 settings, tap Display to change the display settings for Galaxy S10.

Galaxy S10 settings Galaxy S10 display settings

In the Display settings page, as shown above, tap screen zoom.

Now in the screen zoom settings page, as shown below, you can find the 3-level slider.

You can drag it left or right to adjust the screen zoom level to small, medium, or large.

On the top part of the page, you can immediately preview the result of the setting. On Galaxy S10, Samsung only lets you preview the result in the Messages app.

adjust Galaxy S10 screen zoom adjust Galaxy S10 screen zoom

As mentioned, the Galaxy S10 offers 3 … Read the rest