PSA: Galaxy S8’s pressure sensitive home button is always active
Even though most Android smartphone makers moved on to on-screen navigation buttons, Samsung was reluctant in doing so because a physical home button was a part of its smartphone design philosophy for years. Now that the company has finally moved to on-screen buttons with the Galaxy S8 and S8+, it did so better than its competitors.
The on-screen home button on the Galaxy S8 and S8+ is pressure sensitive, and it’s always active. No matter what you’re doing on these smartphones, the home button is always active (unless the phones are switched off, of course). You can hard press the home button from any screen to go back to the home screen (or to wake up the phone if it’s locked).
Samsung certainly didn’t want to put off its long-time loyal users by switching to a run-of-the-mill on-screen button, and making it pressure sensitive that’s always active was a great way to make sure that Galaxy S8 users don’t miss the good old physical home button. Would other brands switch to pressure sensitive on-screen buttons as well?
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The feature is driving me nuts. With the phone in your pocket the pressure sensitive button activates many times all day, turning on the screen on and draining the battery. I’ve got it on the lowest sensitivity setting but you can’t turn it off completely. I wish it wasn’t there at all.
Samsung’s done a wonderful job with this one, finding a middle ground pleasing both parties. And I hope they would be able to add the finger print sensor where the home button is with the Note 8.
Other brands too will most certainly do the same thing if they’re smart enough.
He should be reporting the fact that Samsung refuses to update the unlocked S7 phones… But he is too scared….
Idk if the ZTE is pressure sensitive, but didn’t zte already do this on there phones? I had a zte pro max that had navigation soft buttons, you just couldn’t switch them from left to right or the opposite.
“the home button is always active (unless the phones are switched off, of course)”
And there’s the problem. I use the home button to switch the phone on.
He means unless the phone is totally turned off. Then you have to use the power button to power it back on, as always.
But if the phone is on and the SCREEN is just off, the pressure sensitive home button is still active, you can wake the device up using it.
nope your wrong..read the article again, you can’t switch the phone back on via the home button when it is completely off, that’s not what he meant
You can’t switch the phone on with the physical homebutton either, you can only turn on the display and that you can do with the S8 home button aswell.
Both buttons can do the same things, except fingerscanning and that was not ready in time.