Windows Phone Tips and Tricks

Go to Settings – Applications – Phone to display your number

To disable caller ID, go to Settings – Applications – Phone.

Then change Show my Caller ID to either Everyone, No one or My contacts.

This is useful if you don’t want people to see your phone number when you call them.

When browsing on your phone you may notice images can be quite blurry or distorted. This is because your network provider is compressing the images before they are downloaded on to your device.

Unfortunately there is no way to override this, but if you have a WiFi connection nearby, then you can turn that on. This will mean that all image downloads come through the WiFi connection, rather than your carrier, and the images should appear normally.

If you are listening to the radio and like a song, but don’t know the name or artist, your phone can help you. This is similar to the Shazam music service.

Simply open the Bing App and press the Music button. The phone will then search for the song and provide you the song, artist, album cover and a link to purchase the track (or album) from the Zune marketplace.

To turn off the camera shutter sound follow these steps:

Go to Start – Applications list – Settings – Ringtones + sounds. Then press Camera shutter to turn it off.

This can be useful if you are taking photos in a quiet place, so that you do not disturb others.

This option might not be available in all regions however.

Instead of copying and pasting text you see on a website, you can highlight a word. Then press the Search button to search for the word on Bing

There is a way to filter your contact lists, however by default your Contacts list will show all Contacts for the various accounts you have setup on your phone. This list may include Facebook and Twitter and the list can become quite long.

To filter your contacts, go to Start, then flick left to the Applications list. Then press Settings – Applications – People. Then select Filter your contact list. Then choose the accounts you want displayed on your Contacts list.

Warning: This will remove ALL data on the phone.

To hard reset your phone, go to Start – Applications list – Settings. Then scroll to the bottom and choose About. Then press Reset your phone. Then press Yes.

If you can’t do that, then some alternative methods are as follows:

1) First press and hold the Camera + Volume Down + Power buttons simultaneously.
Then release the Power button when the phone vibrates – but continue to hold down Camera and Volume Down.
Then release the camera button and Volume Down when the Format prompt is displayed on screen.
Then press Windows button twice to confirm.

2) Turn the phone off. Then press and hold the power key until it vibrates. Then release.
Press and hold the Volume Down button. If the exclamation mark is displayed, then let go of the button.
Then input the follow sequence of keys: Volume Up – Volume Down – Power – Volume Down.

To rate your applications to help other users, go to the Applications list. Then Press and Hold on the app. Select Rate and review and give it a rating out of five

To bookmark a website, go to Start – Internet Explorer.

Then go to a website that you want to bookmark.

Make sure the phone is in Portrait mode. Then press the Favourite button.

Then if necessary you can change the name of the bookmark. Select Ok.