Microsoft Lumia 640 Tips and Tricks

To disable the mobile version of websites, go to Settings – Applications – Internet Explorer and change it there.

This is useful if you get annoyed by websites automatically serving you mobile versions of their site. By following the steps above, you can tell the phone browser to act as a standard browser for each website that you browse.

When in your Email application, you can Press and Hold on individual emails. This will give you a menu whereby you can Delete, Mark as unread, Move or Set a flag to your emails

Sometimes, especially if you’re going abroad, you will want to save maps to view when your phone is offline.

This isn’t an obvious feature to find, but you should go to Settings – Applications – Maps – Download Maps.

From here you can download whole regions, countries or continents to your phone for viewing when you don’t have a data connection. Be warned that this can take up a lot of storage space however. For example the whole of the UK might take around 500Mb of storage space.

If you’re abroad and want to translate text or street signs with your camera, then Window Phone provides this great feature.

Be warned that it does require a data connection, so if you’re roaming then make sure you check how much the costs will be.

First, press the search button at the bottom of your phone (three dots) Then press button that looks like an eye to open the Camera. Next, press Scan Text to take a picture of the text and then press Translate.

If it doesn’t work the first time, then try taking the photo straight on, or from a slightly different angle. Once the phone has recognised the text, select a language to translate to and Windows Phone will translate it for you.

If a URL is wrong, then it will often be cut off the screen. To see the whole thing, simply swipe left or right on the text to view the whole address.

Press and hold on various keyboard keys and you will find hidden options. A couple of examples are the Period (full stop) key which will present you with other punctuation marks. Or the open bracket ( which will also give you the <, { and [ symbols.

If you would like your phone to read out text to you, then you can use an accessibility option by going to Settings – Ease Of Access. Once this is enabled your phone will narrate text that is displayed on the screen.

This feature is currently only available in some countries, however if you go to Settings – Region and select the United States, then this will work for you. It will however read things out with US style currency and dates.

To delete maps history, start from the homescreen and scroll to the right.

Then choose Settings – Applications. Then select Maps.

From here you can delete various parts of the maps history.

If you are taking photos where there is a high contrast between light and dark colours or shapes (for example taking a photo of someone with the sun in the background), then there is a function that will improve these photos.

Launch the Camera app and then choose the Gear icon in the bottom right of the screen. Scroll down and select Wide Dynamic Range and change this to On

Losing your phone or having it stolen is everyone’s worst nightmare, but Windows Phone comes with a feature called Find My Phone.

To set this feature up, go to Settings – Find My Phone. Once setup you can use this system to send Apps, Lock, Ring, or Erase from your phone by going to WindowsPhone.com. You can also use it to push the phone’s location so you can try to locate it.