Intro
You’re talking on your Samsung Galaxy A51 when your screen goes dark and you want to hang up. What do you do?
My new A51 didn’t seem to respond to pressure applied to the bottom of the screen in order to wake it the way my old S9 did. I did a quick Internet search and just found all sorts of stuff, most of it oriented towards older models. And I am too lazy to read the user manual. So I experimented a little.
The answer
I watched someone just hold their thumb on the bottom of the screen (or whichever finger was used for unlocking the phone). The screen comes on and it unlocks it with some luck.
In my experience, tapping twice in rapid succession with the thumb on the lower part of the screen also wakes the screen from its blacked-out, energy-saving, OFF mode. I liked the wake-on-pressure method of my old phone better, but that simply doesn’t work.
If you want to get good at the double-tap method, try holding your thumb down on the second tap so it can also read your thumbprint and unlock the screen as well as wake it.
Answer 2
If the phone has been sitting stationary, such as on a table, it suffices to pick it up in order to wake it.
Answer 3 – preferred method
This is really a generalization of Answer 2. In a big, sweeping gesture, with phone in hand and arm holding phone by your knee, raise phone upwards from low to high, until it’s facing you, then keep it steady. It should light up on its own within half a second of being stationary in front of you.
And after you’ve trained yourself, skip the big sweeping gesture and just tilt the phone up and hold it vertically in front of you.
Answer 4 – most reliable
Click the power button. On my phone with its thick case I don’t enjoy this method. However, for whatever reason, this seems to be the only method that works after the screen goes stone cold black during a phone call, which is annoying.
Wireless charging
And wireless charging? No longer an option. Not that I bought a car (Toyota Prius Four, 2016) with a built-in wireless charger which I used every day with my previous phone.