3 Buttons:
At the very bottom of the screen, my phone has three symbols: a left-pointing triangle, a circle, and a square. (These may be different on your phone!). These are ‘virtual buttons’ and will appear on other screens besides the Home Screen. If you rotate your device, the buttons will rotate as well, appearing at the button of the now horizontal screen. (This is an advantage of virtual buttons – physical buttons stay in one place no matter how you hold your phone). Samsung devices use physical buttons – a large rounded rectangle Home button in the middle, with a smaller button on either side. They light up when the devices thinks you want them.
The triangle is the Back Button – a very useful feature that will take you back to what you were doing previously – whether within an app or even from one app to another. For instance, I may receive an email message that includes a link to a web page. Tapping the link opens my phone’s web browser, loading the page. When I’m done reading the page, if I tap the Back Button, it takes me back to the email message. A great feature – and one that’s not used on Apple’s iPhone or iPad. The back button is on the left on most devices, but on the right on Samsung phones and tablets.
The middle button – round on my phone – is the Home Button. Tapping it leaves whatever app is running on-screen and takes you make to your Home Screen. (Note that the app is still running, but this is not a big problem). Most Samsung phones and tablets – like Apple’s devices – use a physical button for the Home Button. A long press on the Home Button – on my phone! – opens up Google Now, which lets me ask my phone a question and have Google Now try to answer it. See what a long press on the Home Button does on your device.