Huawei Mate X Tips and Tricks

Android 9 (Pie)
Phone: Huawei Mate X
Factory OS: Android 9 (Pie)

If you want to conserve battery life, you can turn off the WiFi while the phone is asleep.

Pull down the notifications screen. Then long press on the WiFi icon. Then press the Menu or More button and select Keep WiFi on during sleep.

To change the backlight screen timeout, drag down your notifications screen and press Settings. Then under System select Display. Then under Screen timeout you can set the screen time out duration.

You can also tell the phone screen to always stay lit when it is plugged in via USB. Go to Settings – System – Developer Options. Then check Stay Awake.

Note: Developer Options is not always enabled by default. To enable, go to Settings – System – About Device. Then tap on Build number 7 times to enable this secret option.

From the Contact list or the Messaging list, swipe from Left to Right to call a Contact.

This might not work on all models.

If you want to resize your homescreen widgets, then press and hold on a widget for 2 seconds. If the widget is resizable, then an outline will appear around the widget. Simply drag the sides to resize the widget.

If the outline doesn’t appear or you can’t drag the lines, then the widget is a fixed sized widget.

Rather than having to locate the hang up icon on the screen after each call, you can quickly end a call by pressing the Power button.

To enable this feature, go to Settings – Personal – Accessibility – Answering/ending calls. Then tick The power button ends calls.

To add a widget, simply long press on a blank part of one of your homescreens. Then select Widget. Scroll through the list of available widgets and choose one. It will be placed on your homescreen and you can move it around as you desire.

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 – Accessibility – Answering and ending calls.

Then select Pressing the power key.

While the stock standard keyboard is fine, there are much better keyboards available for the Huawei Mate X.

First, you need to go to the Play Store and download one. Try searching for the word ‘keyboard’ and you will see a number of options.

One of the best keyboards is a keyboard called Swiftkey, which is a top-rated App. This will literally change the way you feel about your phone as the standard keyboard can be quite a frustrating experience.

Download your chosen keyboard and go through any install steps that you are presented with.

If you see a warning saying the keyboard will collect all information (including credit cards) just ignore this. This is just a security feature that Android shows for every third-party keyboard that you install.

Then, go to the App you want to type in. You should now see a little Keyboard icon on the row at the bottom of your screen, towards the bottom-right corner. Press that icon and you can switch between all of the keyboards you have installed.

Some other notable keyboards that work on the Huawei Mate X are GO Keyboard and Gboard (the Google Keyboard). Download and install your keyboard app of choice. Once that’s done, follow these steps to switch your current keyboard to that newly installed one:

  1. You can click on your newly installed keyboard app (icon).
  2. Most of them can assist you on how to switch your keyboard.
  3. Just follow the instructions from the new keyboard app.

How to Switch Your Phone’s Default Keyboard to A New One

You can follow the steps above because most keyboard apps can assist you when it comes to switching the default keyboard to theirs. However, you can also do it manually by going to your Phone Settings. Just follow these steps:

  1. Go to Settings and scroll down or look for the “System” sub-menu.
  2. Under “System,” tap “Language and Keyboard” or “Language and Input.”
  3. Tap “Default Keyboard” and select the new keyboard app.

Depending on your unit and model, this method could vary. For those who can’t find the “Default Keyboard” option, you can follow these steps:

  1. Under “Language and Input,” you need to look for Virtual Keyboards → Manage Keyboards.
  2. Tap your keyboard of choice to activate it.
  3. You will get a message of confirmation. Just tap “OK.”
  4. Open your keyboard. You can do this by trying to write a message, email or search.
  5. Then tap the keyboard icon.
  6. Choose the Input Method (tap on your preferred keyboard).

Done! You can change your Huawei Mate X keyboard’s theme, predictive text, and other settings by opening its menu. You can do this by locating the keyboard icon on your home screen, or by tapping on the settings icon when you open the keyboard for typing.

To take a screen shot, hold down the Volume Down and Power Buttons together (i.e. exactly the same time).

Press and hold the power button to open the power menu- then tap on the ‘Screen Shot’. This may depend on the model you are using.

This will save the current screen to your phone’s memory card. They will be stored in the folder /Device Storage/Pictures/Screenshots. You can get to this folder by going to your Files App.

The Do Not Disturb is a very useful feature if you are in a meeting or somewhere where you want to block incoming calls or messages.

To enable Do Not Disturb, drag down your notifications and go into Settings – Sounds and notifications. Then under the Notifications section, press Do Not Disturb.

Once this is setup, you can allow exceptions for certain Apps. To set these up, press Allow Exceptions, then App notifications. You should now see a list of all of your Apps. Choose one and then select Set as priority.

Now, when notifications come in via this App and you have Do Not Disturb enabled, you should see the notifications.