HTC Desire 500 Tips and Tricks

To change the homescreen or lock screen wallpaper, press on a blank part of the homescreen. Then press the plus icon in the top-right corner and choose Wallpapers. Then choose Live (animated / moving wallpapers) or standard wallpapers (images) and choose whether you want the wallpaper on the homescreen or the lock screen. Then crop the wallpaper and press Ok in the top-right corner.

You can also use images Gallery images taken with the phone’s camera for your wallpaper.

If you want to receive calls during the night, but don’t want to be woken up by notifications like text messages, then you can turn notifications to silent.

Go to Settings – Sounds. Then change notifications to silent.

There are a number of ways to get your IMEI number.

First, the easiest option is to look at the label of the box that your phone came in.

Secondly, if your phone has a removable battery then open the cover and remove the battery. Your IMEI should be on a serial number plate and your IMEI number should be shown there.

Thirdly, from the Dialler, enter *#06# and it should be displayed on the screen. This won’t work on all phones and all networks however.

Lastly, you can go to Settings – About Phone – Status.

To use your phone as a WiFi hotspot, tether it via USB or via Bluetooth, then go to Settings – Tethering And Portable Hotspot.

You can then choose from three options:

1) USB – connect your phone via a USB cable. The phone should automatically configure the correct settings.

2) WiFi Hotspot – To turn your phone into a WiFi hotspot, press Configure WiFi hotspot. You will then be asked to enter a Network SSID (this is your own name for the WiFi hotspot). Then choose Security and lastly, choose a password (this is password for your WiFi hotspot which you will enter on your computer).

3) Bluetooth – With this option, you will need to pair a Bluetooth device with your phone. On the other device, ensure you search for Bluetooth devices and your phone should show up.

Jelly Bean now comes with an Equaliser so you can adjust your bass and treble.

Simply open a music file using the Music Player App. Then go to Settings – Equaliser.

Then simply drag the sliders up and down to adjust the bass and treble.

If you find yourself regularly switching profiles when you get to work, get home, go to bed and so on, then there is a great way to have your phone do this automatically.

Simply go to the Google Play store and download an App called Profile Valet.

This will automatically switch profiles for you based on the time of day or your location.

If you have just purchased an Android device, then you may want to copy your contacts from your old phone. The easiest way to do this is to Export your old contacts to a CSV (Comma Separated Values) file and save this to your PC. You may need to install the correct software for your phone first in order to do the export.

Then, if you don’t have a Gmail account, sign up for one.

Once that’s done, open Gmail. Go to Contacts, then press More – Import. Then import the CSV to your Gmail contacts.

Then on your phone, open the Contacts App. Press Menu and then Sync Contacts. This will pull the contacts from Gmail to your phone.

If you want to remove an entire text message conversation (or thread), go into Messages and look for the thread. Then long press on it and select the Trash icon.

You can also select multiple threads. Before you press the Trash, you can highlight the threads you want deleted. Then press Trash.

Downloading loads of Apps is great, but sometimes they can cause havoc with your phone and a boot into safe mode is necessary.

To do this, long press your Power button. Then long press on the Power off option. You will then be asked to reboot into safe mode.

When your phone restarts it will not load any Apps allowing you to disable any troublesome ones.

There are two options to increase the font size on your phone:

The first is to simply install a new font that is larger than the default font. Font Changer and Type Fresh are two Apps that allow you to change Fonts on your phone (they do require Root access though).

The second option is to use dedicate Apps to change the font size, although they will normally only work for SMS and some Google Apps.

To enlarge the SMS font, go to the Android Market and download an App called ChompSMS. Among other things, the App allows you to increase the font size of your SMS messages.

For enlarge SMS and the standard Google Apps fonts, then download an App called SMS/Talk Text Enlarger.