Samsung Galaxy S8 For Dummies

Bill Hughes is a veteran marketing strategy executive who has worked for Xerox, Microsoft, IBM, General Electric, Motorola, and US West Cellular. He has led initiatives to develop new products and solutions, and has written articles for several wireless industry trade magazines, as well as for USA Today and Forbes.

Introduction 1


About This Book 2


Foolish Assumptions 3


Icons Used in This Book 3


Beyond the Book 4


Where to Go from Here 4


Part 1: Getting Started with the Samsung Galaxy S8 5


Chapter 1: Exploring What You Can Do with Your Phone 7


Discovering the Basics of Your Phone 7


Taking Your Phone to the Next Level: The Smartphone Features 8


Internet access 9


Photos 9


Wireless email 10


Multimedia 11


An intelligent agent 11


Customizing Your Phone with Games and Applications 11


Downloading games 11


Downloading applications 11


What’s cool about the Android platform 12


Surviving Unboxing Day 13


Chapter 2: Beginning at the Beginning 17


First Things First: Turning On Your Phone 17


Charging Your Phone and Managing Battery Life 20


Navigating the Galaxy S8 25


The phone’s hardware buttons 25


The touchscreen 28


The extended Home screen 32


The notification area and screen 38


The Device Function keys 39


The keyboard 41


The orientation of the phone 42


Going to Sleep Mode/Turning Off the Phone 43


Part 2: Communicating with Other People 45


Chapter 3: Calling People 47


Making Calls 47


Answering Calls 52


Keeping Track of Your Calls: The Call List 54


Making an Emergency Call: The 411 on 911 56


Syncing a Bluetooth Headset 57


Options Other than Headsets 59


Chapter 4: Discovering the Joy of Text 61


Sending the First Text Message 61


Carrying on a Conversation via Texting 66


Sending an Attachment with a Text 68


Receiving Text Messages 69


Managing Your Text History 69


Chapter 5: Sending and Receiving Email 71


Setting Up Your Email 71


Getting ready 72


Setting up your existing Gmail account 73


Setting up a new Gmail account 75


Working with non-Gmail email accounts 77


Setting up a corporate email account 82


Reading Email on Your Phone 85


Writing and Sending Email 86


Replying To and Forwarding Email 88


Chapter 6: Managing Your Contacts 91


Using the Galaxy S8 Contacts App 92


Learning the Contacts App on your phone 92


Deciding where to store your contacts 95


Linking Contacts on your phone 98


Creating Contacts within Your Database 101


Adding contacts as you dial 102


Adding contacts manually 103


How Contacts Make Life Easy 105


Playing Favorites 106


Part 3: Living on the Internet 107


Chapter 7: You’ve Got the Whole (Web) World in Your Hands 109


Starting the Browser 110


Accessing Mobile (or Not) Websites 111


Choosing Your Search Engine 114


Using Bookmarks 116


Adding bookmarks 116


Bookmark housekeeping 118


Deciding Between Mobile Browsing and Mobile Apps 118


Chapter 8: Playing in Google’s Play Store 121


Exploring the Play Store: The Mall for Your Phone 122


Getting to the Store 122


Seeing What’s Available: Shopping for Android Apps 124


Subcategories for Apps and Games 125


Subcategories for Entertainment 125


Curated categories 126


The timeless categories for apps and games 126


Installing and Managing an Android App 129


Downloading the Facebook app 129


Creating a Facebook account 135


Rating or Uninstalling Your Apps 136


Part 4: Having Fun with Your Phone 141


Chapter 9: Sharing Pictures 143


Say Cheese! Taking a Picture with Your Phone 144


Getting a Little Fancier with Your Camera 152


The Camera Effects settings 153


Settings options on the viewfinder 154


Photo Effects options 157


The Digital Camcorder in Your Pocket 157


Starting the camcorder 157


Taking and sharing videos with your camcorder 158


Managing Your Photo Images 159


Using Images on Your Phone 160


Deleting Images on Your Phone 161


Chapter 10: Playing Games 163


The Play Store Games Category 163


The Games Home screen 166


The Games Categories tab 167


Leaving Feedback on Games 169


Chapter 11: Mapping Out Where You Want to Be 175


GPS 101: First Things First 176


Practically Speaking: Using Maps 177


Changing map scale 178


Finding nearby services 180


Getting and Using Directions 183


Upgrading Your Navigation 185


Chapter 12: Playing Music and Videos 189


Being Mindful of Carrier Quirks 190


Getting Ready to Be Entertained 190


Choosing your headset 191


Choosing your Bluetooth speaker 193


Connecting to your stereo 194


Licensing Your Multimedia Files 195


Listening up on licensing 195


Licensing for videos 196


Using the Full Capacity of Your SD Card 196


Enjoying Basic Multimedia Capabilities 198


Grooving with the Play Music app 198


Playing downloaded music 202


Jamming to Internet Radio 206


Looking at your video options 209


Part 5: Getting Down to Business 217


Chapter 13: Using the Calendar 219


Syncing Calendars 219


Setting Calendar Display Preferences 221


Setting Other Display Options 224


Creating an Event on the Right Calendar 226


Creating, editing, and deleting an event 226


Keeping events separate and private 228


Chapter 14: Talking with Bixby 231


Bringing Up Bixby 231


Visualizing What You Can Do with Bixby Vision 236


Blabbing with Bixby 239


Look Ma! No Hands! 239


Dictating a Text 240


Preparing to Work with Bixby 240


Chapter 15: Paying with Samsung Pay 245


How Mobile Payment Works 245


Getting Started with Samsung Pay 247


Setting Up Samsung Pay 250


Using Samsung Pay 255


Managing Samsung Pay 257


Part 6: The Part of Tens 259


Chapter 16: Ten Ways to Make Your Phone Totally Yours 261


Using a Bluetooth Speaker 262


Cruising in the Car 263


Considering Wireless Charging Mats 265


Using a Keyboard Cover 266


Making a Statement with Wraps 267


You Look Wonderful: Custom Screen Images 268


Empowering Power Savings 270


Controlling Your Home Electronics 270


Wearing Wearables 271


Using Your Phone as a PC 271


Chapter 17: Ten (Or So) Ways to Make Your Phone Secure 273


Using a Good Case and Screen Cover 274


Putting It on Lockdown 276


Preparing for your Screen Lock option 278


Selecting among the Screen Lock options 279


Entering your fingerprints 280


Entering your face and/or iris 282


Encrypting Your SD Card 284


Using Knox to Make Your Phone as Secure as Fort Knox 285


Being Careful with Bluetooth 286


Protecting Against Malware 288


Downloading Apps Only from Reputable Sources 289


Rescuing Your Phone When It Gets Lost 289


Wiping Your Device Clean 291


Index 293