HTC Desire 500 Tips and Tricks

From the Homescreen press Menu – Settings – Display – Brightness. Then choose the desired brightness setting. You can also select Automatic brightness to let the phone decide for you.

To add a widget, go to the homescreen and press the Apps icon (the circle with 6 dots). Then you will see a list of your Apps with the word Apps and Widgets at the top. Press Widgets, then you will be presented with a list of available widgets.

To add a widget, press and hold on it and then position it where you want.

The phone has the ability to send quick response text messages if your phone is ringing but you can’t answer it.

To change these, go to your Dialer App – Settings – Quick responses. You can only have 4 of them and you may need to edit existing ones.

Go to Menu – Settings – Display – Screen Time Out.

Then chose the screen time out duration.

To show the Browser History, press the Star in the top right corner of the browser. Then press History.

This will only work in the standard Android browser.

To set your voicemail number which allows your phone to automatically input your voicemail password, then open your Dialer App.

Then choose the Phone tab and go to Settings – Voicemail settings – Voicemail number and enter it there.

Depending on your carrier you may have to enter the series of steps required to go through the voicemail menu, for example: *86,,yourpassword# (a comma inserts a pause).

When you download a new App, the Play Market will add a shortcut to the App on your homescreen. Sometimes this can get annoying.

To disable this, go to Market – Settings. Then uncheck Auto-add Shortcuts.

Android manages your applications so if the phone is running low on memory, it will close the oldest running App.

If you do need to manually close an application go to Settings – Applications – Manage Applications – Running. Choose the application you want to stop and select Force Stop.

Go to the Android Market and search for an App called Spare Parts. Download and then open the App. Go to the Compatibility Mode and Uncheck it. Then re-check it (so the tick appears again). Then turn your phone off by pressing Home and then turn it on again.

Once that’s done, go back to the Spare Parts App and Uncheck the compatibility box again. This time DON’T re-check it though. Then turn your phone off and on again once more.

Once re-booted, go to Spare Parts again. If it opens in full-screen mode, then the process has worked and any other Apps that run in non-full screen mode should work.

If you are browsing Youtube videos on your phone and they appear blurry, then this is usually because of your connection speed.

If you are using 3G / 4G and you’re in an area of low signal strength, then Youtube will sometimes automatically reduce the quality of the video. Unfortunately this can make the video very pixelated and of poor quality.

If you are using the standard Android browser, then when the video is in full screen, press the back button. Then press HQ and start playing it again.

If you are using another browser, then press the Settings icon on the bottom right of the Youtube video. Then change the quality.

This may improve the quality, but it may also lead to buffering issues.

Another solution is to use a WiFi connection, if one is available.