Google Nexus 10 (tablet) Tips and Tricks

Android 4.2 (Jellybean)
Phone: Google Nexus 10 (tablet)
Factory OS: Android 4.2 (Jellybean)

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While in the Camera App, there are two ways to zoom in or out.

First, you can use Volume Up and Down keys.

Secondly, you can pinch your fingers on the screen to zoom in and out.

There is a hidden easter egg on the tablet. If you go to your Homescreen, then press Menu – Settings – About tablet, then tap on the Android version option 5 times you will be surprised.

Sometimes it doesn’t work, so try a couple of times. By the way don’t expect to see an actual Easter Egg. That is just the name given to things hidden inside software or operating systems.

You can speed up the page load speed on your browser by disabling JavaScript.

To do this, open your Browser, then Menu – More – Settings. Scroll down and untick JavaScript

Please note that this may affect the functionality of some sites.

If you are viewing a website and you see a URL, you can long press on it and then choose to open the site in a new tab

If you have been browsing websites that you would prefer other people to not know about, then it’s relatively simply to clear your browsing history.

Open the default browser and press the Menu icon on the top-right corner. Then Settings – Privacy and security. Then select Clear history. You can also clear the Cache, but that will mean previously visited websites will have to load again, making your browsing slightly slower.

WARNING: Some of the following MAY delete your music library. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

There are a number of solutions to this error. Go through the following steps:

Go to Settings – Applications. Then swipe right to left to go to All (along the top). Then find the App called Media Storage. Click on that and select Force Close. Then select Clear Data. (WARNING: this may delete your music).

Next, go back to list of Apps and find Music Player. Again, press Force Close and then Clear Data.

Once that’s done, go to the Play Store and download an App called Re Scan Media and run it. Wait 5 minutes for the device to re-scan your media.

If you still cannot play your music, then try turning your phone off and removing your SDCard / memory card (if you have one). Then turn the phone on without the card. Then turn it off again and reinsert the card. Finally turn it on again with the card back in.

If you still can’t play music, then some users have said that there may be a conflict with the Twitter App. Try uninstalling this and see if the error persists.

If you don’t want to hear the shutter sound when you take photos, then there are a few things you can try.

Firstly, some countries have laws to force the phone to play these sounds. Assuming you’re not in one of these countries, then the first thing you can try is to go to the Camera App – Settings – Shutter Sound – Off.

If that doesn’t work, then you can try turning the volume of the phone down or put it in silent mode when taking photos.

The last option is to Root your phone. If you don’t know what that means, then it’s best not to attempt it unless you have thoroughly read about the process. Once Rooted, go to this folder on your phone: /system/media/audio/ui and rename the camerashutter and/or cameraclick OGG files to something else.

Alternatively, on a rooted phone you can use a Root Browser, to edit /system/csc/feature.xml and set the option to TRUE. Then you should be able to go to Camera App – Settings – Shutter Sound – Off.

Depending on how your phone is set up, sometimes you will see lag when swiping between homescreens. There are a number of things you can try to fix this, as follows:

First, try restarting your phone. This will fix many problems.

If that doesn’t work, then remove any Widgets that pull data to the phone, such as Twitter, Weather widgets etc

If you have Live wallpapers turned on, then try turning them off by going to Settings – Wallpapers, then changing to a different Wallpaper.

Go to Settings – Developer Options – Window Animation Scale and Transition Animation Scale. Try changing these to 0.5x (or even 0).

Sometimes the problem can be with the phone or operators skin or launcher, so try going to the Play Store and downloading a third party launcher such as Nova launcher or Go LauncherEx. Note: you will need to re-create your homescreen shortcuts, but they are both great launchers.

Another tip is to always press the Back key instead of the Home key when leaving Apps. The Back key will often close the App properly, while the Home key will leave it running in the background.

First open your Contacts App. Then press the phone’s Menu button and select Edit.

Then you should see a silhouette of a person. Press this, or a little + sign next to it and you will be given the option to take a photo or add one from the Gallery.

The brightness of the browser is set separately to the phone’s main brightness. If you find the screen dims or brightens when you go into your browser, then you can change this by opening the browser, pressing the Menu key and scrolling down until you see Brightness and colour. You can adjust it from here.

To adjust the phone’s main brightness, go to the Homescreen, press Menu – Settings – Display – Brightness.

An alternative is to use a third party browser like Dolphin, Firefox, Opera and so on. These all use the phone’s main brightness setting.

Lastly, sometimes Power Saving Mode affects the screen brightness. Go to Settings – Power Saving Mode and change the Background Colour Only mode in there. Power Saving Mode can be found by in the Notifications bar by swiping down from the top of the screen too.