Nokia Lumia 521 Tips and Tricks

Windows Phone 8
Phone: Nokia Lumia 521
Factory OS: Windows Phone 8

Have you updated your Operating System?
Then view tips for the most recent OS version(s): Windows Phone 8.1
Or view tips for all Windows Phone versions

Press and hold on various keyboard keys and you will find hidden options. A couple of examples are the Period (full stop) key which will present you with other punctuation marks. Or the open bracket ( which will also give you the <, { and [ symbols.

A handy feature with Mango is the ability to update your Facebook status with your voice.

If you haven’t already done so, you will need to Register a Phone and Activate Text Messaging. To set this up, log in to your Facebook account and go to Account Settings. Then on the left side, click Mobile, then click Add a Phone. You will be asked to enter your password and your phone settings. You will then be asked to send a text to Facebook to confirm your phone. Facebook will then send you a confirmation code to your phone, which you will then need to type into Facebook to complete the setup.

Next you will need to set Facebook up as a Contact on your phone. Go to the People Hub, press the Plus (+) icon, then press New Contact, then enter Facebook for the Contact’s name. Then enter the phone number as 32665. (you may need to check this here http://www.facebook.com/help/?page=217343558285214 if you don’t live in the UK, US or other common countries)

Once that is setup, you just say Text Facebook on your phone. Then speak your message and say Send. This will then send the message to Facebook which will update your status.

To PIN a website to your start menu, then browse to a site. Then Press and Hold and select Pin to start, to add a shortcut to the website to your start menu.

You can go one step further and zoom into a part of the web page. Then when you Press and Hold to add to your start menu, the Title on your Start Menu will display the area you zoomed to.

While playing a song, press the Album cover. This will then give you the option to rate the song. Press the heart to Love It. Press it again to Hate It. Then when you sync your phone, it won’t sync the music you don’t like

Go to the People section and find a coloured Title (the colour will depend on your Theme). Press the tile and an alphabet should appear. Start typing the name of the contact you want to dial and it will appear

If you are looking at your photos you need to be zoomed out before you can swipe left or right to go to the next photo. If you are zoomed in, swiping left or right will simply pan around the photo

To fast forward or rewind a song while playing, you need to look for two circle buttons with arrows in them.

These are used to play the previous / next tracks.

If you Press and Hold them however, you can fast forward or rewind the track.

To import your contacts from your SIM card, then insert the SIM and turn the phone on.

Then go to People. Hold near the top of the screen and select Import SIM contacts.

If you would like your phone to announce who is calling you, then from the homescreen, scroll to the right and choose Settings. Then Easy of access. Then press Speech for phone accessibility.

To get accents while typing in non-English languages, just Press and Hold the appropriate character. For example if you want the French a with an accent, press and hold the a button.