Motorola Moto X Play Tips and Tricks

Depending on how your phone is set up, sometimes you will see lag when swiping between homescreens. There are a number of things you can try to fix this, as follows:

First, try restarting your phone. This will fix many problems.

If that doesn’t work, then remove any Widgets that pull data to the phone, such as Twitter, Weather widgets etc.

If you have Live wallpapers turned on, then try turning them off by going to Settings – Wallpaper, then changing to a different Wallpaper.

Go to Settings – System – Developer options – Window Animation Scale and Transition Animation Scale. Try changing these to 0.5x (or even 0).
(you will need to unlock Developer options if you can’t find this. Use the search form on this site).

Sometimes the problem can be with the phone or operators skin or launcher, so try going to the Play Store and downloading a third party launcher such as Nova launcher or Go LauncherEx. Note: you will need to re-create your homescreen shortcuts, but they are both great launchers.

Another tip is to always press the Back key instead of the Home key when leaving Apps. The Back key will often close the App properly, while the Home key can leave it running in the background.

To find out information about Signal Strength, Network Information, Remaining Battery Time and Battery Usage (by Application), drag down your notifications screen and select Settings.

Then under System, select About device and choose Status.

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 – Personal – Accessibility – Talkback to activate it.

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

To open a web page in a new tab, find a link on a web page. Then press on it and then choose to open the site in a new tab.

The phone has the ability to send quick response text messages if your phone is ringing but you can’t answer it.

To change these, go to your Dialler App and press the Menu or More button. Then select Settings – Call rejection.

From here you can add or edit your reject messages.

To see notifications on your Lock screen, the best option is to download an App called NoLed from the Play Store. This will show notifications such as text messages, emails and missed calls as bright icons on your homescreen.

You can choose between very small squares or small icons and these can assigned by coloured.

To save an image in an email or in the browser, long press on the image and a menu will appear allowing you to save it.

For images inside text messages, you might have to press and hold on the message itself, rather than the image.

The most recent version of Android now comes with a built in Flashlight / Torch App.

To find this, simply pull down to see your notifications. Then on the top bar (where you see your settings for WiFi, Bluetooth etc.), scroll across until you see Torch.

There is a great app called Moves by a company called Protogeo that makes use of your devices accelerometer to record your movements, whether by walking, cycling or running.

Go to the Play Store and search for Moves.

To share or upload a video to services like Facebook or YouTube, simply go to your Video App and long press on a video.

Then select Share via. From here you will be given options to share the video with various services.