How to get the Galaxy Nte 2's Screen to stay on.

January 20, 2013 1:08 PM

Samsung Galaxy Note II - How can I get the screen to always stay on while charging?

In the settings under "Screen Timeout" I have only these choices:

15 seconds
30 seconds
1 minute
2 minutes
5 minutes
10 minutes

I dont have a choice for "Never" or "Screen On while Charging" or anything else like that.

I NEED to be able to glance at my phone 20-30 times per minute (not kidding) for information for work. I realize I may have to go to an app to make this happen, but at the moment I just spent $700 on a phone that is useless to me on my desk.

I have had multiple Android phones in the past, this has never been an issue.

P.S. I bought the Media dock. Doesn't do what I need it to do. I just need my phone, lying there, with the screen on.

HALP!!

TIA!

posted by sandra_s to Technology (15 answers total)

Do you have SmartStay (keeps the screen on while it can sense you're looking at it, using the camera) on the Note? (I have a Galaxy S3 that has it). If you're looking at the screen every 2-3 seconds then SmartStay might work.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 1:20 PM on January 20, 2013

Best answer: Ah, here you go:
Settings > Developer Options > Stay Awake.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 1:21 PM on January 20, 2013

And if you don't have the Developer Options menu, you can enable it by doing this:

Settings > About phone > tap on build number 7 times
posted by zippy at 1:27 PM on January 20, 2013 [1 favorite]

My Galaxy S Relay 4 G is the same way, might be a Samsung thing, but I'm not sure (it's my first Android device). And unlike EndsOfInvention, I don't have a Stay Awake setting under Developer Options.

A cursory search of Google Play turned up some apps that may help with this; here are two:

Smart Timeout Keep Screen On ($0.99)
Keep Screen On (free/ad-supported)
posted by radwolf76 at 1:29 PM on January 20, 2013

Response by poster: @EndsOfIntervention Almost Done in one! The screen doesn't go out now, but it dims. Can I stop that as well?

Thanks!
posted by sandra_s at 2:01 PM on January 20, 2013

This app works great for me...

Screen Timeout Toggle (free)

One click to disable screen timeout, one click in your notification bar to disable.
posted by Mr Ed at 2:03 PM on January 20, 2013

You can easily configure this using Tasker. The app is worth every penny.
posted by helloworlditsme at 2:14 PM on January 20, 2013 [1 favorite]

Does turning off Auto-Brightness work?
posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:17 PM on January 20, 2013

Other than that I can't find any settings about dimming.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:17 PM on January 20, 2013

Response by poster: @EndsOfInvention the auto-brightness setting didnt do it, neither did the Auto Adjust Screen Tone, But at least it's not going out altogether, thanks for that!

And thank you everyone for the help! XO
posted by sandra_s at 2:49 PM on January 20, 2013

As a little aside, this is indeed a Samsung thing. Those AMOLED screens they use suffer from burn in, as I found out after I set my Galaxy Nexus to not timeout the screen while charging and it stayed on overnight a few too many times! Treat it like an oldschool monochrome monitor and make sure it gets enough downtime, yo.
posted by TheTorns at 3:19 PM on January 20, 2013 [2 favorites]

I have a Note 2, and I use the StayAwake app. It's free and it lets you decide whether you want the screen to always time out, always stay awake, or stay awake only when the phone is plugged in. This is handy because sometimes I do want the screen to say on even when the phone isn't plugged in -- like if I'm using it as a grocery list or a recipe card, for instance.

However, yes, the AMOLED screens are known to suffer from burn-in which is why there isn't a built-in feature for this (or why it's at least buried in Developer Options). Use the stay awake feature sparingly, and make sure to manually turn the screen off if you don't actually need it to stay on.
posted by Scientist at 4:04 PM on January 20, 2013

Oh, I should mention that another app which makes it easier to just set the phone down and use it is Ultimate Rotation Control. That one costs a little money (two bucks I think) but it's nice because it lets you decide whether the app controls rotation, whether it is locked in a particular format (great for reading books in bed, because it'll stop it from rotating when you lean over) or whether the phone will FORCE the app to rotate. I found it frustrating that my phone wouldn't rotate the screen in places like the app menu and the home screen. This app fixed that. It also makes it so that you can lock the screen in whatever aspect you need it and then when you set it down you don't have to worry about it flipping around some other way.
posted by Scientist at 4:07 PM on January 20, 2013

sandra_s: "The screen doesn't go out now, but it dims. Can I stop that as well?"

Looks like this app may take care of that:

SmartLight: Keep Screen On ($1.99 w/crippled free trial available.)

But with the burn in issues mentioned up thread, sounds like you should be careful with using this sort of thing.
posted by radwolf76 at 5:16 PM on January 20, 2013

Do you have a power save setting somewhere? My S3 is currently doing the dimming thing because I have that activated, even though all the screen settings say always on etc.
posted by shelleycat at 4:29 AM on January 21, 2013