Quick Answer
The Samsung Gallery app is your one-stop shop for managing photos and videos on your Samsung phone. It allows you to view, edit, organize and even create content such as slideshows and collages. It also offers some handy privacy features to protect your photos.
In the recent past, Samsung has been pushing its apps on the Play Store (Samsung Health, Samsung Internet, etc.), and the latest one to arrive is the Samsung Gallery. The company’s standard photo gallery app comes preinstalled on all of its devices, and now the same can be installed on non-Samsung phones as well. However, the listing fails to mention the list of compatible devices, and perhaps this is something it will update later.
The Gallery app segregates your photos based on Pictures, Albums, and Stories. Apart from that, the gallery app also offers basic editing and media-sharing options. The Stories section is pretty much similar to the “Assistant” feature in the Google Photo App, the one that automatically curates the pictures from your last trip and brings it to the forefront. Moving on, the Play Store description doesn’t seem to be convincing since it is laced with bad English and equally awful grammar errors. Probably, the guys at Samsung forgot to give a finishing touch to the description section.
Interestingly, the app also doesn’t seem to support Samsung devices but yet it has 481 reviews. Maybe it’s available for certain devices. Personally, I feel Google Photo is the best bet when it comes to Photo apps, thanks to its cloud storage and family-sharing features. However, the Google Photo usually won’t support some of the native features, for instance on the Honor 8 Pro the Google Photo app doesn’t support using the fingerprint sensor to swipe through the photos.
Samsung Gallery App features
Samsung Gallery offers a range of features that go beyond just viewing your photos and videos. Here are some of the best:
- Organization: the Samsung Gallery helps you keep your photos organized by automatically grouping similar photos and letting you create albums. You can also pinch the screen to change the layout from a grid to a list or a view with thumbnails and details.
- Editing: With the built-in editing tools, you can crop your photos, adjust the lighting and colors, and apply filters to them. There is also an area for basic video editing.
- Content creation: The app lets you create slideshows, collages, and even short video clips (reels) with music and effects – all directly in the Gallery app.
- Privacy: For photos you want to keep extra safe, Samsung Gallery is integrated with Samsung Secure Folder, which encrypts your files and keeps them hidden from prying eyes.
- Gallery Labs: If you’re feeling adventurous, you can try out experimental functions in the Samsung Gallery Labs that aren’t yet fully developed.
It’s good to see that smartphone brands are offering their apps on the Google Play Store. I just hope for an uninstall option on the phones so that the user can delete proprietary apps while sticking to the Photo App of his choice. Want to check out the Samsung Gallery?
