Motorola Moto G7 Power Tips and Tricks

There are a couple of ways to bring up one of your contacts.

First, while in your Contacts App, simply start typing in the search bar at the top of the screen.

Or else a quicker method is to use the Google Search widget (installed by long pressing on a vacant part of your homescreen and installing the widget) and start typing the name of the contact you want to dial. This will quickly filter the correct contact.

Android now has a way to display your name, phone or email on your lock screen. Perfect if you have lost or misplaced your device.

To enable this go to Settings – Security & Location

Then tap on gear icon under Screen Lock- Lock Screen Message.

Here you can enter any information you want, such as your name or email address.

Android has an interesting new feature called Talkback which is designed for blind and low vision users.

The feature is an interesting way to navigate your phone however.

Simply go to Settings – Accessibility – Talkback to activate it.

Then your phone will give you an ongoing narration of its various functions.

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.

You can also select to turn Lock screen notification ‘ON or OFF’ from this menu.

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

It is best to avoid task killers such as Advanced Task Killer. Android is designed to automatically pre-load certain applications, even if you don’t load them yourself. If it starts to run low on memory, it will smartly unload the oldest running apps automatically.

Manually killing tasks will only mean they get loaded in memory again. Task killers can make the phone slow, laggy, or drain battery life more quickly.

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 – System – Reset Option . It may ask for a password. Then select
Erase all data (factory reset).

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.?

Most Android devices come with an alternative way of entering text called Swype. Many prefer this method and believe it is quicker.

When any text entry box appears, press and hold the box. Then select Input method: SWYPE. Once enabled, you simply drag your finger around the keyboard moving over the letters in the correct order to spell a word.

Drag down your notifications screen and press Settings. Then select System – Language and input. Then under Keyboards and input methods, press the little Gear icon.

From here you have various options including Haptic feedback, Vibration intensity and so on.

You can also adjust notifications for various functions.

You can backup your phone contacts either through your Google account or by exporting it as a vCard file. Here’s how:

GOOGLE ACCOUNT

Method 1:
1) Go to your Android phone settings.
2) Click account, and make sure your Google account is already logged in your device.
3) Doing this automatically syncs all your data to Google, including contact numbers.

Method 2:
1) Open the Android Contacts app.
2) Go to Settings.
3) Choose Move device contacts to Google.

To efficiently backup all your contacts, you have to make sure that these are actually saved on your device, and not just on your SIM card.

To check if your contacts are already successfully synced or backed up on your Google account, just go to contacts.google.com, and log-in to your Google account to see if your contacts are already there.

EXPORT CONTACTS AS A VCARD / VCF FILE

1) Go to your phone’s Contacts.
2) Go to Settings and export contacts as a vCard file.
3) Alternaively, in Contacts, go to Settings and select Share. Then select which contacts you want to export. Then choose a method to export to.
4) This will collate all your contacts in one .vcf file which can be saved on your SD card or uploaded into a file storage service like Dropbox.