Samsung Galaxy S6 for Dummies. Bill Hughes

Hughes

      Samsung Galaxy S6 For Dummies

      Samsung® Galaxy S®6 For Dummies®

      Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774, www.wiley.com

      Copyright © 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

      Published simultaneously in Canada

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      Library of Congress Control Number: 2015941962

      ISBN 978-1-119-12060-5 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-12064-3 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-12062-9 (ebk)

      Introduction

      The Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge are powerful smartphones, perhaps the most powerful mobile phones ever sold. As of the publication of this book, the Galaxy S6s are the standard against which all other Android-based phones are measured.

      Each cellular carrier offers a slightly customized version of the Galaxy S6 line-up. Some phones from cellular carriers come out of the box with pre-loaded applications, games, or files. Some come with accessories, such as a corded headset; others don’t. This book doesn’t dwell on these kinds of differences.

      Although the name for each network is different, these phones are largely the same (at least one marketing person at each cellular carrier is cringing as you read this). This similarity allows me to write this book in a way that covers the common capabilities. I will simply refer to the phone as the Galaxy S6 unless there is a relevant difference worth mentioning from this point on.

      At a more core level, these phones are built for high-speed wireless communications. The cellular carriers have spent kajillions upgrading their networks to offer more coverage and better data speeds than their competition. Again, this book doesn’t dwell on these differences in network technology because they don’t really make much difference (again, at least one engineering person at each cellular carrier is cringing as you read this).

      I assume that you already have a Galaxy S6, and I just hope that you have good coverage where you spend more of your time with your phone. If so, you’ll be fine. If not, you need to switch to another network; otherwise the experience with your phone will be frustrating. I would advise you to return your phone to that carrier and buy your Galaxy S6 at another cellular carrier. As long as you have good cellular data coverage, owning a Samsung Galaxy S6 will be an exciting experience!

      First, in much the same way that different brands of PCs are all based on the Microsoft Windows operating system, all Galaxy S phones use the Google Android platform. The good news is that the Android platform has proven to be widely popular, even more successful than Google originally expected when it first announced Android in November 2007. More people are using Android-based phones and more third parties are writing applications. This is good news because it offers you more options for applications (more on this in Chapter 8 on the Play Store, where you buy applications).

      In addition, all Galaxy S6 phones use a powerful graphics processor, employ Samsung’s Super AMOLED touchscreen, and are covered in Corning’s Gorilla Glass. The superior screen experience differentiates this product line from other Android phones. Because of these enhanced capabilities, you can navigate around the screen with multi-touch screen gestures instead of the hierarchical menus found on lesser Android phones. Plus, the videos look stunning from many angles.

      Smartphones are getting smarter all the time, and the Galaxy S6 is one of the smartest. However, just because you’ve used a smartphone in the past doesn’t mean you should expect to use your new Galaxy S6 without a bit of guidance.

      You may not be familiar with using a multi-touch screen, and your new phone offers a lot of capabilities that you may or may not be familiar with. It would be unfortunate to find out from a kid in the neighborhood that the phone you’ve been carrying around for several months could solve a problem you’ve been having because you were never told that the solution was in your pocket the whole time.

      In fact, Samsung is proud of the usability of its entire Galaxy lineup – and proud that the user’s manual is really just a “quickstart” guide. You can find lots of instructions on the web. However, you have to know what you don’t know to get what you want unless you plan to view every tutorial.

      That’s where this book comes in. This book is a hands-on guide to getting the most out of your Galaxy S6.

      About This Book

      This book is a reference – you don’t have to read it from beginning to end to get all you need out of it. The information is clearly organized and easy to access. You don’t need thick glasses to understand this book. This book helps you figure out what you want to do – and then tells you how to do it in plain English.

      I don’t use many conventions in this book, but here are a few you should know about:

      ✔ Whenever I introduce a new term, I put it in italics and define it shortly thereafter.

      ✔ I use bold for the action parts of numbered steps, so you can easily see what you’re supposed to do.

      ✔ I use monofont for web addresses and e-mail addresses, so they stand out from the surrounding text. If you’re reading this as an e-book,