Huawei Ascend P6 Tips and Tricks

Android 4.2 (Jellybean)
Phone: Huawei Ascend P6
Factory OS: Android 4.2 (Jellybean)

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Then view tips for the most recent OS version(s): Android 9 (Pie) & Android 8 (Oreo)
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To find out information about Signal Strength, Network Information, Remaining Battery Time and Battery Usage (by Application), go to your Homescreen – Menu – Settings – About Device – Status.

Instead of the simple swipe gesture to unlock your phone, you can set a custom one which can be extremely difficult for a thief to guess.

From your homescreen, go to Menu – Settings – Lock screen. Then chose Screen lock and choose Pattern.

It is also a good idea to untick Use visible pattern. Then if someone is watching over your shoulder while you entering your pattern, it will be harder for them to remember the pattern.

If you have forgotten your unlock pattern, then after 5 unsuccessful tries a button will appear saying ‘Forgot pattern’. Press this and you will be asked to enter your Gmail username/password. The phone will then ask for a new unlock pattern. If you don’t have a Gmail account, then you will have to either call your carrier or factory reset your phone.

if you would prefer to correct your own mistakes, then go to Settings – Language and input. Then select the keyboard you are using and press the Settings icon again.

You should be able to find a predictive text option on this screen.

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

Then press the Menu key and choose Call settings. Then scroll down to Voicemail settings and set a Voicemail number (you might need to check with your carrier for the correct number).

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).

If you find yourself woken up by notifications, text messages or incoming calls, then there is a handy feature called Blocking mode.

To enable this go to Settings – Blocking mode. From here you can set a From and To time in which to block these notifications.

You can also allow notifications through from certain contacts that you don’t mind bothering you.

If you already have an Android phone, then simply ensure each of your old Contacts are stored on Google (rather than the Phone memory). This means your contacts are stored on Google’s servers under your Google/Gmail login. Then once you get the new phone, log in with your Gmail account and your Contacts will be automatically synced.

If you do not have an Android device, you need to find a way to Export your old contacts to a CSV (Comma Separated Values) file and save this to a 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 have quick access to some websites on your homescreen, then there are a couple of ways to do this.

First, browse to a site you want a shortcut created for. Then press the Menu button – Add shortcut. The shortcut will then be placed on your homescreen for you to move where you want.

Another way is to create a bookmark first. So go to the website, then press the Menu button – Add bookmark. Then press the Bookmarks icon (in the top right) and find the bookmark you have just created. Long press on it and select Add shortcut.

If you want to find your phone’s WiFi MAC address (for improved WiFi security), then from the Home screen, go to Menu – Settings – About Phone – Status.

Then scroll down until you see WiFi MAC Address. The address should be a series of Hex numbers and letters.

In the Calendar App there is no Year view along the top of the App. You can however use pinch to zoom gestures to zoom in and out of Month and Year view however.

This is useful if you want to quickly jump backwards or forwards through a few months at a time.

When browsing on your phone you may notice images are quite blurry. This is because your telecom provider is compressing the images before they are downloaded on to your phone.

There is no way to prevent this, but if you have a WiFi connection nearby, then you can turn that on. This will mean that all browser downloads come through the WiFi connection, rather than the carrier, and your images will appear normally.