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Navigation Gestures

ironass

Extreme Android User
Aug 17, 2010
12,771
6,356
Cotswolds, England
One of the features of the OnePlus 6T that I thought I would give a try is the Navigation Gestures that can replace the traditional on screen Nav Bar.

Initially, I was prepared not to like this newfangled way of navigating on the phone. After all, I had gone from the physical home button and 2 soft keys for the Samsung Galaxy range and the OnePlus 3, to the 3 on screen Nav Keys and now... no keys.

However, a week later and the Navigation Gestures are already second nature and a great way, IMHO, of navigating around the phone for me and I doubt I shall ever return to the 3 soft keys again.

For those wishing to try the Navigation Gestures go to....

Settings > Buttons & gestures > Navigation bar & gestures > Navigation gestures

Take the time to scroll through the brief instructions. (see screenshot)



One of the advantages is that it does offer a cleaner look and a bit more on screen real estate. (see screenshot below)



What do you think?


(Nova Launcher Prime, Transparent Clock & Weather, Black Shark Helo wallpaper)
 
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I've not used OnePlus's gestures, but just using the more limited ones on the Pixel (android 9) makes me not miss the fixed buttons at all, and actually I wish they'd ditched the back button while they were at it (a swipe left on the pill would have done that job for me, and more easily than reaching across to the back button). So I can quite believe these work fine.

One thing I might miss from having no nav bar is the android 9 "rotate" button that pops up when you rotate the phone. I hated auto rotation (constantly triggering when I didn't want it to) so would always turn it off, but then rotating when you wanted to was clunky instead. The button that appears when you rotate but can be easily ignored if you didn't want to is a huge improvement. Of course if OnePlus have a "rotate" gesture that solves that problem. If not it's the one thing I would miss.
 
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