Samsung Note 5 Tips and Tricks

Android 5.0 (Lollipop)
Phone: Samsung Note 5
Factory OS: Android 5.0 (Lollipop)

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 are browsing a website and want to see the HTML source code behind the page, then Android doesn’t offer you the ability to do this by default.

There is however a handy App called View Web Source which can be installed. Whenever you want to view the HTML of a web page, you just press the Menu – Share – View Web Source.

You can then browse the code or copy the content into the clipboard.

To add a widget, simply long press on a blank part of one of your homescreens. Then select Widget. Scroll through the list of available widgets and choose one. It will be placed on your homescreen and you can move it around as you desire.

Smartphones that are always connected to the internet are great, but if you have a data plan that is capped each month, then you will want to keep an eye on how much data you are downloading. Fortunately there is a built in feature to monitor this.

Go to Settings – Connections – Data usage. From here you can set a limit and set the usage cycle (e.g. a from and to date).

If you press the Menu key or More at the top of the screen you will also see a number of features such as restrict background data usage (although this will prevent some Apps from working).

Google have hidden a clone of the amazingly popular game Flappy Bird inside of the Android Lollipop OS.

To access this (also known as an Easter Egg) follow these instructions:
Drag down the notifications screen and go to Settings. Then scroll down to About device. Then tap on the Android version option 5 times.

You should now see a Lollipop on the screen. Keep pressing the Lollipop and after awhile the game will appear. You may need to long press on the Lollipop if multiple presses doesn’t work.

Good luck because it is still as incredible frustrating as the original!

A great new feature is dual shot which lets you take a picture of someone else with the rear camera, while simultaneously taking a picture of yourself with the front facing camera. The problem is this feature isn’t obvious to find as it isn’t included in the list of camera Modes.

To find it open your Camera App and you will see three icons in the top right corner. Dual shot is the middle icon of these. Press that and you both cameras will activate allowing you to shoot away.

If you want to find your phone’s WiFi MAC address (for improved WiFi security), then go to Settings – System – About device – Status.

Then scroll down until you see WiFi MAC Address. The address should be a series of Hex numbers and letters.

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

Go to Settings. Then select System – Language and input. Then select your keyboard. From here you can change the vibration settings.

If you are abroad and don’t want to pay high data roaming charges, then you can save Google Maps for offline viewing later. Here are two ways to do this:

The first method will depend whether your phone supports it. First, open Google Maps and navigate to a section of the map that you want available offline. Then press on the search bar and scroll right to the bottom and select Make this map area available offline. You may need to repeat this with multiple areas.

Alternatively, open Google Maps and zoom down to street level. Then scroll around area you’ll be travelling too. If you’re visiting a city for example, do this at street level and cover as much area as you think you’ve be visiting. If you’re travelling outside a city, then street level view might be too detailed, so zoom out and just cover the main roads, towns etc.

This will load all the segments into your phone’s cache. Then when have arrived at your destination and you have data turned off, you will see the areas you’ve stored on the phone’s memory.

Note: this won’t give you your GPS location because that normally needs a data connection to pinpoint your position.

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 change your default font, go to Settings – Device – Display – Font. You can also change the font size here also.

Another option is to install the popular Go Launcher EX App. Then once this is installed, download their GoLauncher Fonts App.