Google Nexus 5X Tips and Tricks

An almost essential setting is the ability to lock your screen by pressing the power key once. It will save plenty of time in the long run.

If this isn’t enabled, then go to Settings – Personal – Accessibility – Answering and ending calls. Then select Pressing the power key.

Your phone comes with a handy widget which lets you kill all running tasks. This is great if you want to quickly free up some memory.

To use the widget, press and hold for 2 seconds on a blank part of any home screen. Then find the Active Apps Manager widget and install it.

Once that is done, press the widget and it will show you all currently running Apps. Press End all to close all running Apps.

To see which firmware version of Android you are using, use the pull-down menu by dragging your finger from the top of the phone.

Select Settings and under System, choose About Device.

This should list your Device name and model Number.

Select Software info to show more information such as your Android Version, Kernel Version, Build Number and other technical information.

No one likes nuisance phone calls, so here’s how to deal with these on your phone.

The first option is to block all anonymous calls, although this may block some calls from people or companies that you do want to allow, so use this carefully.

To enable this, go to your Dial App press More in the top right.

Then choose Settings. Under Call settings, choose Call blocking and then Block list. Then select Block anonymous calls.

Secondly, if you’d like to block calls on a case-by-case basis, then follow these instructions:

First, wait until you’ve been called by a nusiance number. You can either answer and verify who they are, or when the phone is ringing, do a quick Google search for the number (ideally on a PC, otherwise you may need to switch between apps on your phone).

Often the number will come up on Page 1 of Google and be reported as a nusiance call number. You can often tell pretty quickly because the number will have many negative review.

Then once the phone has stopped ringing, go to your Dial App and then select Log to find the number on your recent call list.

Find the number that called you and press on it. Then in the top right, select More and select Block/unblock number.

To manage this list, then go back to the first screen of your Dial App and press More in the top right.

Then choose Settings. Under Call settings, choose Call blocking and then Block list. From here you can see which ones to block or unblock.

From now on you will see that you received a missed call, however the phone will not ring and you won’t be bothered by the caller.

With the recent versions of Android you can now take photos while recording video by simply pressing the screen.

This will save that particular frame to the gallery while continuing to record video.

If you don’t like the default A-Z way of viewing your contacts you can change this.

First, go to your Contacts App and press the Menu key or More at the top of the screen.

Then select Settings.

Then choose Sort by.

To share or upload a video to services like Facebook or YouTube, simply go to your Video App and long press on a video.

Then select Share via. From here you will be given options to share the video with various services.

If you want to access your quick settings more quickly, then instead of swiping down with one finger, then use two.

This should take you straight to the quick settings, however it may not work on all phones and models.

To change keyboards (if you have additional keyboards installed), you can switch between them by pressing the small keyboard symbol in the top left of your screen. You will need to be in keyboard input mode (i.e. typing something) for this to work.

Note: you need to have more than one keyboard installed for this to work.

If you want to go to settings, then you can go to your list of Apps and open the Settings App.

There is however a quicker way. Simply position your finger right at the top of the screen and drag it down. You may need to do this twice on some phones.

Your notification bar will appear and you can then press the small Gear icon at the top of the screen to go to the Settings.