The S20 isn’t officially out in the wild yet, but Samsung devotees have managed to get their paws on early demo sets. They’ve already stumbled across a few interesting UI tweaks – but the one that’s got them most excited is an additional zoom setting.
Thanks to the One UI 2.1 update, S20 owners will have five different levels of screen zoom to play around with instead of three. This might sound like the world’s dullest phone-related news, but as Samsung nerds have often moaned about their limited zoom options it’s actually a very welcome upgrade.
Related: Hands-on with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip.
And – here’s where it gets exciting – because this is a UI-based upgrade, there’s a chance that Samsung will roll out the changes across older handsets too.
The zoom feature on Samsung phones doesn’t just control the text or image size. Instead, it controls the size of everything on the screen, effectively allowing you to zoom out and fit more text and elements on the screen. Some people (presumably with very, very good eyesight) enjoy this zoomed-out perspective because it allows them to see more stuff in a smaller space.
Related: The Galaxy S20 Ultra vs iPhone 11 Pro
Frustrated brainy types have previously resorted to altering the DPI on their phones in order to create this perspective. But that’s a messy and fiddly workaround, which often causes apps like Instagram to misbehave. An in-built solution from Samsung would work better and be more straightforward for the average phone owner to switch on.
So far, the update has only been found on the S20, but we’d expect it to be on Samsung’s other recently released phones too – the S20 Ultra, the S20 Plus and the Z-Flip.
We’ve contacted the company to ask if this update will also roll out to older phones.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.