Lenovo Z5s Tips and Tricks

The following is a list of commands that can be used for the Google Now service. This can be accessed by using the Google Search widget on your homescreen. Simply press the little microphone icon and say the commands below:

General
Search for
Who invented
Show me the stocks for
Author of
How old is
How tall is

Time & Date
What time is it in
When is the ?in
When is the sunset in
What is the time zone of
Time at home

Weather
Show me the weather
Is it going to rain tomorrow?
Do I need an umbrella?
Do I need a jacket
What is the weather in
How is the weather on ?going to be?

Maps / Location
Map of
Show me the nearby ?on map
Where is ?situated?
in
Navigate to ?in car
I am hungry (shows all nearby food points on map)
How far is ?from

Calculations / Conversions
How much is ?times
What is ?percent of
Square root of
?… ?equals
What is the numerical value of Pi
Convert ?into
Temperature of the sun

Sports
points table
Who won the last match between ?and
scorecard
Schedule of ?games

Websites
Go to
Open
Show me
Browse to

Entertainment
Listen to
Play
YouTube
When was the first episode of
movies
Who acted in
Who is the producer of
When was ?released
Runtime of

Notes / Reminders
Remind me to ?at
Wake me up in
at
Self note to
Set alarm for

Contacts / Communication
Call
Send ?to ?via text
(shows the contact card)
Call ?in
Send a text to ?
Email to , B C C , Subject , message

Flights
Flight Status of
Has ?landed/departed
When will ?land

Other
Do a barrel roll

If you are abroad and don’t want to pay high data roaming charges or travelling to an area with no network coverage, then you can save Google Maps for offline viewing later. ?Here are two ways to do this:

The first method will depend whether your phone supports it. First, open Google Maps and navigate to a section of the map that you want available offline. Then press on the search bar and scroll right to the bottom and select Make this map area available offline. You may need to repeat this with multiple areas.

Alternatively, open Google Maps and zoom down to street level. Then scroll around area you’ll be travelling too. If you’re visiting a city for example, do this at street level and cover as much area as you think you’ve be visiting. If you’re travelling outside a city, then street level view might be too detailed, so zoom out and just cover the main roads, towns etc. ?

This will load all the segments into your phone’s cache. Then when have arrived at your destination and you have data turned off, you will see the areas you’ve stored on the phone’s memory.

Note: this won’t give you your GPS location because that normally needs a data connection to pinpoint your position.

If you want to find your phone’s WiFi MAC address (for improved WiFi security), then go to Settings – System – About device .

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

To adjust your screen brightness, there are two options:

1) Simply drag your finger from the top of the phone down to pull down your quick settings screen. Then at the top there will be a brightness bar. Drag this left or right or press Auto.

2) Drag your notifications screen down and select Settings. Then under Device, select Display – Brightness. Then choose the desired brightness setting.

You can also select Automatic brightness to let the phone decide for you.

While typing emails or notes, you can simply tap the space key twice and the phone will insert a full stop / period.

This option may need to be turned on in the keyboard settings. This can be found in Settings – System – Language and input

If you don’t want to have to unlock your screen every time you take your device out of standby then go to Settings – Security & location.

Then select Screen lock type and select None.

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.

To copy files between your phone and PC, go to the Android Play Market and download an app called Air Droid.

This is an extremely useful App that connects your phone to your PC wirelessly, allowing you to move files and many, many other things.

Alternatively if you just want to copy using USB then simply plug a micro USB cable into your phone and it should appear as another drive on your PC.

Some phones do not allow data transfer to PC, to enable this feature go to Settings – Developer Options – Networking, and then tap on USB configuration and change it from ‘Charging’ to ‘MTP’.

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.

If you don’t want to hear the shutter sound when you take photos, then there are a few things you can try.

Firstly, some countries have laws to force the phone to play these sounds. Assuming you’re not in one of these countries, then the first thing you can try is to go to the Camera App – Settings – Shutter Sound – Off.

If that doesn’t work, then you can try turning the volume of the phone down or put it in silent mode when taking photos.

The last option is to Root your phone. If you don’t know what that means, then it’s best not to attempt it unless you have thoroughly read about the process. Once Rooted, go to this folder on your phone: /system/media/audio/ui and rename the camerashutter and/or cameraclick OGG files to something else.

Alternatively, on a rooted phone you can use a Root Browser, to edit /system/csc/feature.xml and set the option to TRUE. Then you should be able to go to Camera App – Settings – Shutter Sound – Off.

If you want to remove an entire text message thread, go into Messages and look for the thread. Then long press on it and select Delete thread