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Is there a way to change your phone's aspect ratio?

A

Alexzendra

Lurker
I recently bought Samsung's A8+ and it have a 18:5:9 aspect ratio which is shit because I can't watch any video without getting the annoying black side bars, It's really bothering me because most streaming apps I use don't offer a stretch to fit screen option so I have to put up with those side bars, is there a way I can change the aspect ratio of my phone and fix the letterboxing? I've checked all my settings I didn't find any option that could help me. :/
 
The aspect ratio refers to the shape of the screen, it's a hardware thing, not something you can change via software. You can't change the shape of the screen. It just refers to the relative lengths of one side of the screen compared to another. So it's either stretch to fit or put up with the side bars.
 
I think you've phrased the question wrong: I think you are asking for something that will globally force stretch to fit rather than changing the aspect ratio of the display (physically impossible, and a software fix that enforced a 16:9 image aspect ratio would be forcing letterboxing, which you don't want).

Anyway I don't think that's possible either, certainly not without root, but it would also need to be a mod of the graphics tailored for the particular display.

Personally I've never understood why anyone would prefer a distorted image (stretched to fit) to black bars at the sides. Or why black bars when showing video are worse than the permanent black bars of previous phones' bezels. But different people have different preferences I guess. There are still phones with 16:9 displays if this is a sufficiently big thing for you, which is the only real way of forcing this.
 
chanchan05 said:
The aspect ratio refers to the shape of the screen, it's a hardware thing, not something you can change via software. You can't change the shape of the screen. It just refers to the relative lengths of one side of the screen compared to another. So it's either stretch to fit or put up with the side bars.
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I was thinking of rooting my phone and tweaking with the resolution a bit but I'm not sure if it'll work. 🤷‍♀️

I'm trying to ignore it but it's super disappointing not being able to enjoy my 6' screen and being stuck with a screen equivalent to 5.5' while watching videos. 😔
 
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As others have said, not really a great deal you can do about this in general. However regarding video playback, MxPlayer is awesome at expanding to fit the display. Amazon video will also allow you to fit to screen on playback.
 
Alexzendra said:
I recently bought Samsung's A8+ and it have a 18:5:9 aspect ratio which is shit because I can't watch any video without getting the annoying black side bars, It's really bothering me because most streaming apps I use don't offer a stretch to fit screen option so I have to put up with those side bars, is there a way I can change the aspect ratio of my phone and fix the letterboxing? I've checked all my settings I didn't find any option that could help me. :/
Click to expand...

FWIW there's many movies that are made in or near that aspect ratio. I guess there's sometimes going to be some compromise between the aspect ratio of the particular screen and whatever it is you want to watch, e.g. 16:9 screens and 4:3 ratio videos, so you either have to have black bars or distort/stretch/squash or crop the video to fit, I much prefer the first option.
 
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