Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini Tips and Tricks

Android 4.1.1 (Jellybean)
Phone: Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini
Factory OS: Android 4.1.1 (Jellybean)

Have you updated your Operating System?
Then view tips for the most recent OS version(s): Android 9 (Pie) & Android 8 (Oreo)
Or view tips for all Android versions

If you want to type non-English letters (eg those with an accent), long-press on the relevant letter. A list of options will appear for you to select. For example, to insert an acute á, then press and hold the a key, then drag your finger to the accented character.

If you find the vibration of your phone a little too much, this can easily be reduced.

From the homescreen press Menu – Settings – Sounds. Then under Feedback, press Vibration intensity. Then slide the bar left or right to change the intensity.

You can also turn off Haptic feedback if you really don’t want any feedback.

To change the homescreen or lock screen wallpaper, press on a blank part of the homescreen. Then press the plus icon in the top-right corner and choose Wallpapers. Then choose Live (animated / moving wallpapers) or standard wallpapers (images) and choose whether you want the wallpaper on the homescreen or the lock screen. Then crop the wallpaper and press Ok in the top-right corner.

You can also use images Gallery images taken with the phone’s camera for your wallpaper.

Warning: This will remove ALL data on the phone, but not the MicroSD card.

From the homescreen, press Menu – Settings – Privacy Factory data reset. Then press Reset phone and Erase everything.

Your phone will now be restored to its original factory settings.

Go to Menu – Settings – Display – Screen Time Out.

Then chose the screen time out duration.

Go to Settings – Display. Then tick the Display battery percentage checkbox. If your phone doesn’t have this option, then go to the Google Play store and download a useful App called Battery Percentage.

There are two different Apps under that name, but they are both good.

To access the scientific calculator, rotate the phone to landscape mode.

The calculator will change to a scientific one.

Your phone comes with a handy widget which lets you kill all running tasks. This is great if you want to quickly free up some memory.

To use the widget, press and hold for 2 seconds on a blank part of any homescreen. Then find the Program monitor widget and drag it on to your homescreen. Once that is done, press the widget and it will show you all currently running Apps. Press End all to close all running Apps.

To share or upload a video to services like Facebook or Youtube, start from your Gallery App and long press on a video.

From here you will be given options to share the video with various services.

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.