My Samsung Galaxy S7 1st Edition

My dad is 70 and recently got his first smartphone ever. It is a very confusing little computer to navigate if you have little or no experience with Samsung’s, or any smartphones in general. This book has been such a great help! He can look up specific actions he is trying to do, like, check email, or add a new contact, or make a phone call, and this book will explain step-by-step how to complete each task on his phone. Since we don’t live in the same place, this is much more efficient than me sending him instructions whenever he has a question, or trying to talk him through things over the phone. I would highly recommend this as a manual for any parent or friend who has little experience with a new Samsung phone.

I learned many tricks and conveniences for my phone that I would never have known about without this book. I downloaded an electronic version onto my Kindle so that I can have the book open, learn a trick/feature and then try it out on my phone with the book still open.

I'm giving this book four stars because it answers 85% of my questions. More important, its index needs expanding (don't try to find any REAL info about how to use the SD card - I just use mine for my music, and I still have a myriad of questions about photos). Other than that, I can't fault Johnston for not answering all my questions. This is my first smartphone, so I have nothing to compare the learning experience except for my old (10 years) LG clamshell, and the four cell phones before that. You used to get a cell phone, put in names and numbers, and you were set. Now, I don't know which is worse: learning the phone or the dashboard on my car. Sometimes I really miss the 50s!That said, after taking a month to learn, I've finally reached the point where I don't know what I'm missing. I know that I've learned more that the basics, have found some stuff on my own (like holding down certain keys in messaging), and still get flustered when I get an actual phone call. (Everyone seems to be into messaging.) But the phone is great! I could rule my little rule if I knew it all. I do know that the Galaxy S7 is more powerful than my PC and laptop combined. It's even smarter than my two tablets which are fairly new.But this review is about the book. Expensive, but if you need answers, this will do it 85% + times. Which would you rather have? A good book with easy instructions and good screen shots, or staying on hold with Sprint, Verizon, Best Buy, and AT&T.P.S. I'm sure that those of you who have been around a while or don't have an 8 year old grandson to help (really!), YouTube and other videos are flawed. For one thing the videos' spokesman talks are 50 miles per hour with bursts to 120! I can't even take notes without pausing ten times in a 7 minute video.

Just got a Galaxy S7 Edge and this book was most helpful in setting it up. Great info and easy to understand.

Very good, informative book, includes info at an "Advanced User Level" and is far better than than a similar book with a similar cover that is at a total novice level and does not even have an index, which THIS book has. This book DOES contain novice level info too, but it also contains more advanced information.

Not as helpful as I had hoped it would be

At the time I purchased my S7, several years ago, I purchased this book. For the longest time I couldn't figure out why the examples, documentation and reference material in the book looked completely different than what I was viewing on my screen - it wasn't even close. I then discovered that this book was written as a reference guide to Samsung's Android 6.01 (Marshmallow) OS. I'm guessing the answer has to do with the fact that at the time I purchased my phone the installed OS was Android OS 8.0. Given the fact that this book was written for users still using "Marshmallow" Android 6.01, it was worthless. I would hope that the current version aligns with the current OS. If it doesn't, your throwing your money away...

While I have not gotten through the entire book yet, what I have read is easy to read and understand. I am learning about feature of the S7 that I didn't know existed. I know I will get more out of my phone.