Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.5 Tips and Tricks

The fast and easy way to change the wallpaper on the Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10 5 is to tap and hold on a blank space on your home screen and then tap “Wallpapers.”

From there, you can choose any image from your gallery or from a preset selection of live wallpapers from your device.

You may also go directly to your Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10 5 Gallery then open an image of your choice. Once you open the image, select “More” to look for the “Set as Wallpaper” option.

You can also change your wallpaper from the Settings menu on your phone. Just follow these steps:

1. Swipe up or unlock your home screen to display all apps.
2. Look for the Settings icon, tap and then look for “Display.” For some phones, you might want to look for “Home Screen” or “Wallpaper” right away.
3. Next, tap “Wallpaper” and select which folder or file you want to use.
4. Find your desired image and tap “Set Wallpaper.”

You can always use your own image as a wallpaper. However, most phones also have a preset selection of wallpapers (or live images) that can be used anytime too.

You may also choose different images each for your wallpaper and lock screen. However, you may also use just one image for both.

Android cleverly uses Picasa to sync photos between your account and your phone. Sometimes however, this means that you will get duplicates appearing in your Gallery when they’re not actually on your phone.

To stop this from happening, and so you only see photos on the Phone or SD card, then follow these steps:

Drag down your notification menu from the top and click on the Gear icon to bring up your Settings. Then select Accounts and Google. Then select your Gmail account.

You should see a list of options that are ticked. Scroll down to the one that refers to Picasa and untick that.

Now that’s done we want to remove the thumbnails from your Gallery, so we need to refresh the Gallery. To do that, swipe down and go to Settings again. Then select More – Application Manager. Swipe across to show ALL Apps. Then find the Gallery App and press Clear Data.

This will erase the thumbnails in your Gallery, so don’t panic that your photos have disappeared. Just wait for the Gallery to re-build its index which could take awhile.

But the good news is that your Picasa Albums shouldn’t be there anymore.

If you don’t like the default A-Z way of viewing your contacts you can change this.

First, go to your Contacts App and press the Menu key or More at the top of the screen. Then select Settings.

Then choose Sort by.

To silence the phone when ringing there are two methods:

Either press the Volume Down (or Up) button or if the phone is on a surface facing up, simply flip it over so it is facing down.

If you don’t want to have to unlock your screen every time you take your device out of standby then go to Settings – Personal – Lock screen and security.

Then select Screen lock type and select None.

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 – Personal – Backup and reset – Factory data reset – Reset device. It may ask for a password. Then select Erase everything.

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.

To enable / disable your notification light, go to Settings – Device – Sounds and notifications – LED indicator.

From here you can choose various options.

This may not be available on all models. An alternative however is to download NoLED from the Play Store, which has many options for incoming notifications.

If you want to move a widget from one homescreen to another, simply press and hold on the widget. Then drag it to the edge of the screen. The next homescreen will appear. Then, just drag the item to where you would like.

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.

From the Contact list or the Messaging list, swipe from Left to Right to call a Contact.

This might not work on all models.