How to take Screen Captures with the Samsung Galaxy S2

Although it's not a necessity for most, some phone users do ask “is it possible to take a screen shot of my phone?”

The answer is simple. Most of the time it is indeed possible to take print screens or screen captures of mobile phones. Depending on the actual phone however you may need to find yourself doing very different things. Most phones require you to download a computer program and have the phone and computer connected by a USB cable to use your computer to take the screen capture. This is how many websites take the screen captures for things like phone reviews and showing off features.

Rather than looking at the overly complex system involved in what the programs do we will look at how Samsung phones take screen captures. This feature has been in the most recent Samsung's including the Samsung Wave and now the highly acclaimed Samsung Galaxy S2. The way the Samsung phones take screen shots, or as they are known by some as "screen captures" or even "print screens",  is incredibly simple and is actually an in-built feature that seems to be lacking in almost all the other phones.

By holding the “Home” button and pressing the “lock” button at the same time you will manage to use the secret “Screen capture” function of the phone which will take a print screen of the phone exactly how it is. The quality of this is far superior to using another phone (or camera) to take a picture and for people who want to use a picture of the screen this is an almost valuable tool.

If you are successful when you try the phone will vibrate and a message will appear on the phone saying “Screen captured. Saved as image file”. These image files can be found very easily on the phone by looking in the Screen Capture folder of the phone for use later on.

Quick tips:
If at first you find your phone locking or going to the menu just try again.
Hold the "home" button for a slight moment before pressing the lock button (to stop the phone from locking)

Hopefully this guide will help you take screen captures with your Samsung Galaxy S2 smartphone.

Edit:
I've noticed a few people finding this place through google (hi folks) with one person googling "Screen capture directory"

The directory will be something along the lines of Computer\GT-I9100\Phone\ScreenCapture when connected to a Windows 7 computer. On the phone by it's self they can be found in Gallery\ScreenCapture. Hope that helps you with making the screen capture function of the Samsung Galaxy S2 as useful as it is for me.

For those wanting to know about the quality of image from a screen capture all the pictures of the Samsung Galaxy S2 screens have been done via this method of screen capturing.

Samsung Galaxy S2 secrets

Whilst using the Samsung Galaxy S2 you may want to know what secrets the phone has and what little tricks we have to play with. Whilst the Samsung Galaxy S2 has a number of widely known features which are covered in the manual it also has a lot of hidden secrets that we can take advantage of.

Firstly the “Zoom” feature for the browser and gallery.
This is a trick that is featured in the manual and often comes up on the screen when we open a number of programs. To use it you need to place a finger on either side of the screen then tilt the phone up and down. This is a new function and one that is useful for some though using the “pinch” method is generally just as easy and a little bit more 

 “natural” to users.

Secondly is the “Print Screen” feature
This is a feature that has been carried over from some earlier Samsung's including the Samsung Wave. This is the method I get pictures for the site through and what you need to do is press the “menu” and the “lock” button at the same time. If you press them right the phone will vibrate then give a small message saying “Screen captured. Saved as image file.” These files will be stored in a folder called “ScreenCapture”.

The phone also had a shortcut to the "Task manager". The typical way of getting to the Task manager is through the application screen however if you hold down the "Home" button you get a list of the last few apps you've had open and an option to open the task manager. This saves a lot of time if you are wanting to find the task manager.

The phone also has a secret search function that appears if you hold the menu button on the homescreen and acts much like the "search button" on other android phones. This is something that very cleverly allows Samsung to take off the much maligned "Search" button and yet also have a search function. Clever lot these Samsung folk.


So some new things well...did you know that by using a tethered connection (guide here) you can actually use the phone as a Wi-Fi card allowing a computer without a Wi-Fi adapter to connect to a wireless hub inside your home!

If you slide your finger along the notification bar (the bar that has the clock and the signal bars on) you can change the brightness of the phone. If you slide your finger to the right you will make the screen brighter if you scroll it to the left you will darken the screen.

We've also found that the Samsung Galaxy S2 has a secret test menu that allows you to check if you're phone is in perfect working order with tests ranging from the Proximity sensor to checking the vibration and accelerometer.

And course we've also learned how to access that tricky to access 5.1. dolby surround sound now we've had a longer play with the phone.

Samsung Wave

It's been ages since I last posted on to this blog and I've since had a pretty fun play with a Samsung Wave GT-S723e. The things I've learnt from this phone have been put into a number of hubs for Hubpages which I'll link you to through out this piece.

The Samsung Wave I have is currently with Vodafone in the UK on some special 24 months offer with unlimited texts and 300 minutes for a nice price though the phone it's self isn't anything brilliant it's ok for what it is. The phone runs the "BADA" software which when compared to things like Android, Windows and iOS seems relatively limited. Despite this the handset is easy to use and the touchscreen is pretty accurate and works well. The battery can last a while and you can of course use a bunch of tricks to stretch out the phones battery life which aew pewtty simple and painless.

The phone has a solid 5MP camera which although not brilliant does take some pretty decent photos and are incredibly easy to transfer to a computer with out too much effort. Though admittedly I've not really played with the camera enough to work out how good it actually is. In all honesty it does seem slightly better than the HTC Wildfire's camera though not as good as the Sony Ericcson C902 one (the three phones I have for comparison at the moment).

As with all modern phones you can easily put your music on to the phone and of course select your own tracks as a ringtone. With out a memory card you are pretty limited to a handful of songs or photographs. The memory card you will be needing if you purchase the phone is a Micro SD card which can come in some hefty sizes and are afforable (though not "cheap" per se).

As with all modern phones there is a real depth to how far you can explore the phone but you will still be surprised by the depth of the handset and the fact there is a real wealth of secrets. I sadly didn't find some of them out until it was too late, though here is a heads up on some of them to allow you to do things like "Screenshots" and factory resetting the handset.

On the whole the phone is a "decent" handset but not a particularly great one. If you want to be up to date this isn't the phone for you though it's a steady handset for those who aren't too big on multi-tasking. It does all the basic things well such as making calls, playing music, allowing you to use the net (via either 3G or Wi-fi), texting, photography, being an alarm but it doesn't do the advance things. Don't look to this phone to be a mobile office or to be a replacement to your Nintendo DS as it's not that kind of device, it's a phone first and foremost with some bonus'.