Samsung Galaxy S5 Mini Tips and Tricks

There are a couple of ways to add new home screens to your device.

The simples is to go to one of your existing Homescreens and simply pinch the screen. This will show all of your Homescreens in thumbnail view. Then just press the Plus symbol to add another. You can also press and hold, then drag a Homescreen to a different position. Or press the little Home icon to make one of them your default Homescreen.

Another option is to download a Launcher App. These are third-party user interfaces that allow you to customize your phone in many ways. Most of them allow multiple homescreens. A very popular launcher which supports multiple homescreens is GoLauncher EX. Simply go the Play Store and search for GoLauncher EX or another launcher.

Instead of the simple swipe gesture to unlock your phone, you can set a custom one which can be extremely difficult for a thief to guess.

From your homescreen, go to Settings – My device – Lock screen – Screen lock and choose Pattern.

It is also a good idea to untick Use visible pattern. Then if someone is watching over your shoulder while you entering your pattern, it will be harder for them to remember the pattern.

If you have forgotten your unlock pattern, then after 5 unsuccessful tries a button will appear saying ‘Forgot pattern’. Press this and you will be asked to enter your Gmail username/password. The phone will then ask for a new unlock pattern. If you don’t have a Gmail account, then you will have to either call your carrier or factory reset your phone.

If you want to check how much RAM you have available, go to Settings – More – Application Manager. Then swipe from right to left so you see the Running Apps. At the bottom it should say how much is used and how much is free.

If you find yourself being stalked or receiving unwanted calls nuisance calls from people or companies then you should use the Call rejection mode.

Simply go to Settings – My device – Call – Call rejection. From here you can manage your rejection list of numbers.

To store a phone number that you have received in an email, hold down on the number and you will be given the option to call, send an SMS or add the number to your contacts

An almost essential setting is the ability to lock your screen by pressing the power key once. It will save plenty of time in the long run.

If this isn’t enabled, then go to Settings – My Device – Lock Screen. Then select Lock instantly with power key.

If you call someone regularly this can be useful as you will have a shortcut to them handily placed on your homescreen.

To bookmark a Contact on your Home Screen, then first go into your Contacts App.

Find the Contact you want to add to the Home Screen. Then press and hold on the name. Select Add shortcut to home from the options.

Then go to your Home Screens, find the Contact. You can press, hold and drag to another position.

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 button. Then select Call Settings – Set up call reject messages. You can then add or edit your reject messages.

When browsing on your phone you may notice images are quite blurry. This is because your telecom provider is compressing the images before they are downloaded on to your phone.

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