The LG G8 ThinQ is finally available. Like most LG smartphones, there are a lot of settings turned off by default that may be useful in improving the experience of using the phone. From turning on the App Drawer to changing the keyboard, we’ve rounded up 11 settings for you to change on the LG G8 ThinQ.
Got an LG G8 ThinQ in your hands? There are plenty of settings you can tweak to personalize the phone a little more, but it can be tricky to wade through the cluttered user interface. We’ve done the job so you don’t have to, and picked 11 key settings you will want to tweak as soon as you set the phone up.
As a note, there are two ways to access the settings app, which is what you’ll be using for most of this guide. Either find the app on your home screen (or app drawer) — the icon looks like a gear — or swipe the notification drawer down and tap the gear icon at the very top right of the phone.
If you’re coming from another Android phone, you may have noticed the App Drawer is missing, and all the apps you have installed are cluttering around multiple home screens. If you want the more traditional Android look and hide your apps into the App Drawer, you will have to change your home screen layout in the settings app.
Open the Settings app and head to Display > Home screen > Select Home > Home & app drawer. This lets you convert the home screen layout to one with an app drawer, which slides up from the dock at the bottom. If you want a physical app drawer icon to show up on the dock as well, there is a toggle for that here just below Home & app drawer.
We like having the Google feed on the left side of the main home screen, but you may not find much use for it. To turn it off or change it, you’re going to go to the same place you changed the home screen layout — Settings > Display > Home screen and now tap Left Home screen. You can either use the Google feed, Smart Bulletin, or have nothing on the left side of the home screen.
Smart Bulletin puts a lot of LG-specific features on the left side of the home screen, such as a quick glance at LG Health, Pocket Briefing for the latest news updates, Parking Assistant to help find your car, and Pocket Advisor, which offers tips about your phone’s features.
The LG G8 ThinQ has a notch at the top of the phone, which is the little cutout that dips into the display, housing the 8-megapixel selfie camera and other sensors. If you don’t like the look of the notch, there is a way to hide it in the system settings.
Head to Settings > Display > New Second Screen, which is LG’s confusing way of calling the screen space around the notch. Here, you can choose between Standard and Custom. By choosing Custom, the entire top of the screen (surrounding the notch) will turn black, so the notch is effectively hidden. You can go further and add rounded corners, or change the color of the New Second Screen to any of the options provided.
If you frequently look at your phone for the time, or want to see notifications quickly, the Always-on Display is a crucial feature.
