- [Narrator] Iconic smartphone features
are few and far between,
yet, with the original Galaxy Note back in 2011,
Samsung defined an entire category of phones.
You can dismiss it as gimmickry,
but the S Pen is unique.
No one has managed to do pen input on a phone
as well as Samsung,
and the new Galaxy Note Eight takes the S Pen's capabilities
to new levels,
further refining features that Note owners
have appreciated for more than half a decade.
I'm Alex with Android Central,
and these are our top eight S Pen features
from the Galaxy Note Eight.
(upbeat music)
Smart Select is an easy way to grab screenshots
as specific areas of the display.
It'll let you draw a lasso-shape,
or grab a square or oval section,
and then save or share it.
You can also capture and copy text
from anywhere on the screen
or pin captured sections to the screen for quick reference.
The most fun option of all is the gif recorder,
which we've seen before on Samsung phones,
but it's even quicker to access with the S Pen.
Use the pen to cover the section of video
you want to capture, select your recording quality,
and you're good to go.
Smart Select can capture up to 15 seconds
of giffy-goodness at a time,
and you can even draw on top of your animation
after you're done.
(upbeat music)
Screen Write quickly captures a screenshot
that you can then doodle over the top of.
There are various kinds of virtual pens and ink
that you can choose from,
and you can also use scrollshots to capture longer images
of webpages and apps
or crop in to highlight specific areas.
After you're done, you can save your doodles
to the Note Eight's gallery or share it with other apps
through the sharing menu.
(upbeat music)
Translation was first introduced in the Galaxy Note Seven,
and it's better than ever in the Note Eight.
With this option,
you can hover the S Pen over a section of text
in a foreign language
and, through the magic of Google Translate,
change it into your chosen language.
This isn't hugely useful on the web where Google Chrome
has auto-translate built in,
but it can be a massive convenience in other apps
where translating might involve
a lot of tedious copying and pasting.
What's pretty neat, too,
is that Translation can also convert currency amounts
alongside any accompanying text.
(upbeat music)
Screen Off Memo, first introduced on the Note Five,
gets even better in the Note Eight
with the ability to store up to a hundred pages
of quick notes.
It's activated, as always, by undocking the S Pen
while the screen is off, and from there,
simply scroll whatever inspiration has come to mind
or whatever groceries you need to buy.
Tap the arrows to jump between pages,
and you'll see your notes appear
in the Samsung Notes app for later access.
Finally, one more neat trick, tap the pen icon at the top
to pin your current note to the always on display
for quick reference.
(upbeat music)
Magnify is pretty self-explanatory.
It turns the S Pen's pointer
into a miniature magnifying glass.
You can control the zoom level
through the menu that appears on-screen,
and well, that's about it.
What's also kind of useful
is that you can still use the screen capture
and screen writing tools while magnification is enabled,
making it easier to capture and write
on top of this magnified view.
(upbeat music)
Glance is a useful way to speed up multi-tasking
on the Note Eight.
When you activate it,
it'll shrink down the current app
into a little moveable button,
which you can then hover over to see a full-screen preview
of that app.
Android has plenty of multi-tasking features built into it,
but Glance can be a really useful way
to just quickly refer back to a specific app
while you're doing other stuff elsewhere on the screen.
(upbeat music)
So, Live Messages.
There's no great utility to this feature,
but it is cool all the same.
Select it from the menu,
and you can draw or write an animated message
in this little, square area that appears.
You can then share your creation to any contacts or app
through Android's share menu.
You get the usual drawing options here.
You can control the size and colour of your ink
and exactly how sparkly it is, as well,
and once you're done, you can preview your creation
before sharing it.
(upbeat music)
Direct Input has been in the Note series for years,
and although it is useful,
it's not something that gets a whole lot of coverage.
To use it, simply hover over a text field with the S pen
and hit the little circular icon that appears.
You'll then get a big text window to write in,
and when you're done,
the Note Eight will turn your scribblings
into actual text,
which you can then edit like any other.
When this feature first appeared years ago,
around the time of the Note Three,
it was kind of hopeless,
but the latest version of Direct Input
actually works really well,
even with terrible handwriting like mine.
Most of this stuff can be accessed
through the Air Command menu,
which pops up by default when you undock the S Pen
or when you press the button while hovering over the screen.
On a related note, it's also worth poking around
in the Air Command and S Pen menus
to see other handy features you might want to turn on,
like the ability to sound an alarm
if you leave your S Pen behind.
If you've got a Note Eight, or any earlier Note,
hit the comments
and let us know how you're using your S Pen,
and be sure to subscribe
so you don't miss the rest of our Note coverage.
Thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time.
(upbeat music)