Your TV has more tricks up its sleeve than you might realize. Many of Samsung’s smart TVs come with built-in features that can improve your streaming and gaming experience. Of the lot, these are my favorite features.

4Universal Guide

Samsung’s Universal Guide solves this issue by organizing all the content in one place. This makes it easy to know what’s streaming without manually checking each app.

You can typically access the Universal Guide by pressing theHomebutton on the remote. You must set up a Samsung account and have steady internet connectivity to access this feature.

Universal Guide view on a Samsung TV

3Samsung TV Plus

This service lets you watch over 100 live channels, including sports and news shows, without needing a separate subscription, additional device, or downloading. Best of all, you get all this at zero cost. Remember, though, that the library isn’t as extensive as Netflix and Prime, but there’s a variety of content that’s worth exploring.

Vinayak Guhanarayan / MakeUseOf

You’re not just limited to watching this content while at home on your Samsung TV. Downloading the Samsung TV Plus app will give you access to all the on-demand movies and shows, as well as live content, on your smartphone or tablet. You can download the Samsung TV Plus mobile app through thePlay StoreorGalaxy Store.

2Game Mode

A good number of people own gaming consoles. If you’re one of them, activate Game Mode on your Samsung smart TV. This setting typically improves your gaming experience by reducing latency and motion blur.

If you have a new Samsung Smart TV, you’ll find that this setting automatically activates the first time you connect a gaming console to it. If you have an older TV or it was disabled at some point, you will have to turn it on manually. Either way, once enabled, you’ll get a better gaming experience.

Samsung TV Plus catalog on a Samsung TV

1Mirroring via SmartThings App

If you want to share content directly from your Samsung phone to your Samsung smart TV, the SmartThings app can come in handy. This is especially useful if you don’t want to use external hardware like a Google Chromecast or HDMI cable to connect your devices.

As long as you have a Samsung smartphone with the SmartThings app, you may wirelessly broadcast the content from your phone to the television’s display by tapping the back of your phone against the TV. A gentle tap is all it takes to activate this feature. You can alsouse AirPlay to mirror content if you have an iPhone.

Activating Game Mode on a Samsung TV

These are just some of the many features that I’ve stumbled upon while using my Samsung TV. A few other Samsung smart TV features worth checking out are the multiview functionality, which lets you watch different content sources at the same time, an ambient mode setting that helps your TV blend in with the surroundings (a huge perk given that lifestyle TVs are becoming more popular), and Bixby (Samsung’s voice assistant) for hands-free control over your TV.

Mirroring content to your Samsung TV using the SmartThings app