Some of 2016’s flagship devices have reinvented a feature that was made briefly popular by a number of AMOLED-equipped Nokia Windows Phone smartphones: the Always On Display. Both Samsung and LG enabled this feature on their 2016 Galaxy S7 family and G5 respectively, but using different technologies. The Samsung devices use an AMOLED panel whereas the LG G5 uses a second LCD screen embedded into the first, designed to reduce battery use. However, for those customers desperate to squeeze the most battery life from their Galaxy S7 device, but who also want to use the Always On Display, Samsung have released an update to the Galaxy S7 family giving customisable settings. After all, whilst the Always On Display has been designed to use little power, it will still use some.
The key enabled change is that now for the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge, customers can set the duration for how long the Always On Display remains enabled. This means that the Always On Display can be set to come on during certain hours – for example, one could set the device to only show the information during working hours and otherwise to remain off. Of course, depending on how you use your smartphone, customers may wish to reverse this and only show the Always On information outside of working hours. Unfortunately, Samsung have yet to provide a “only show when on charge” option for the Always On Display, but nevertheless this incremental update means that customers can deliberately disable the Always On screen for when they know they are not going to be able to use it.
Another feature that Samsung have modified with this update is how the Galaxy S7 edge’s Night Clock works. This can now be enabled for eighteen hours (down from twenty four) and has priority over the Always On Display: if both options are enabled, the Night Clock displays. There’s also been another change as the old Dual Clock option has been removed in favour of the World Clock, which may now show up to four different clocks at the same time. All of these setting changes are found in the Settings application, under Display, then Always On Display. You may need to update this part of your Galaxy S7 model and can do this by tapping the About section and then hitting “Update.”