Huawei Ascend P8 Tips and Tricks

Sometimes you may need your screen to stay on when plugged in via USB.

To do this, Drag down your notifications screen and press Settings. Then under System, select Developer Options. Then check Stay Awake.

If you can’t see Developer options then you need to enable this. Go to Settings – System – About device and press on Build number 7 times. Developer options will now appear in the System section of your settings.

Warning: This will remove ALL data on the phone (but not the MicroSD card).

To perform a hard reset, or factory reset, then there are a number of methods to try:

1) Go to Settings – Personal – Backup and reset – Factory data reset – Reset device. It may ask for a password. Then select Erase everything.

If the phone is totally unresponsive, even after a reboot, then try the following methods.

2) While the phone is turned off, press and hold the Volume Up and Volume Down buttons together. Then, while holding these, press and release the Power button (keep holding the volume buttons). The phone should turn on and a menu will appear. Press the Volume down button to navigate to the Recovery option. Press the Volume Up to select (if that doesn’t work, use the Power button to select). A yellow triangle and an Android logo will appear. Press the Volume Down and Volume Up button together and a recovery menu should appear. Use the Volume buttons to move to the Wipe data/Factory reset option and then press Power to select. Again, use the Volume Down key to choose Yes and press the Power button again to select.

3) While the phone is turned off, press and hold the Volume Down button. Then, while holding, press and release the Power button. A menu should appear. Use the Volume down key to go to Clear Storage. Use the Power button to select the option. Then when asked to confirm, press Volume Up for Yes.

4) While the phone is off, press and hold down Volume Up + Home + Power buttons at the same time. Then release the buttons when you see the Logo. Use the Volume Down button to go down and the Home or Power key to select. Choose the Wipe data/Factory reset option. Then Select Yes to delete all user data. Then choose to reboot the phone.

5) A final method is to enter the code into your phone’s dialler: *2767*3855# This method will not give you an option to reverse the process, so be careful! This method will only work if you can boot into your phone.

To add an email or phone number to your contacts from a text message, you can long-press on the email / phone number. Then select Add to contacts

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.

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.

Android manages Apps very well and some Apps do not have the option to close them specifically. Normally the App will stay running in the background and only close when many other Apps have been opened.

If you do want to close or terminate an App, then press and hold the Multitasking key on your phone. On some devices you may need to long press the Home key.

Then you can swipe the Apps off the screen to close them.

A great new feature is dual shot which lets you take a picture of someone else with the rear camera, while simultaneously taking a picture of yourself with the front facing camera. The problem is this feature isn’t obvious to find as it isn’t included in the list of camera Modes.

To find it open your Camera App and you will see three icons in the top right corner. Dual shot is the middle icon of these. Press that and you both cameras will activate allowing you to shoot away.

Google have hidden a clone of the amazingly popular game Flappy Bird inside of the Android Lollipop OS.

To access this (also known as an Easter Egg) follow these instructions:
Drag down the notifications screen and go to Settings. Then scroll down to About device. Then tap on the Android version option 5 times.

You should now see a Lollipop on the screen. Keep pressing the Lollipop and after awhile the game will appear. You may need to long press on the Lollipop if multiple presses doesn’t work.

Good luck because it is still as incredible frustrating as the original!

Having notifications come through on the lock screen can be handy because you don’t have to unlock your phone to see what the notification is about.

The problem with this is that someone may see the content of a notification (a text message for example) which you would like to keep private.

To change this setting to only display that the notification has arrive (rather than the actual content), then go to Settings – Sounds and notifications. Then under the Notifications section, select Notifications on lock screen. Select Hide content to only show the notification and not the content itself.

There are a number of ways, as below. The first two of these may be disabled on some networks/carriers or Android versions however.

1) Go to Settings – Device – Applications – Application Manager. Then swipe from right to left until you are on the All screen (at the top). Then scroll down to Contacts Storage – Clear Data.

2) Go to Contacts. Then hold and press on a contact. Then choose the All option at the top of the screen and select Delete. .

3) Go to Settings – Personal – Accounts and sync. Then press More at the top and choose Disable auto sync. Then go to Gmail (or an account that your phone syncs with) and delete all of your Contacts from there. Then re-sync your phone.

4) Download an App called ‘Delete All Contacts’ and use that as a last resort.

The methods above will delete contacts from the Phone only, not the SIM card.