Sony Xperia C Tips and Tricks

Android 4.2 (Jellybean)
Phone: Sony Xperia C
Factory OS: Android 4.2 (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

Depending on how your phone is set up, sometimes you will see lag when swiping between homescreens. There are a number of things you can try to fix this, as follows:

First, try restarting your phone. This will fix many problems.

If that doesn’t work, then remove any Widgets that pull data to the phone, such as Twitter, Weather widgets etc

If you have Live wallpapers turned on, then try turning them off by going to Settings – Wallpapers, then changing to a different Wallpaper.

Go to Settings – Developer Options – Window Animation Scale and Transition Animation Scale. Try changing these to 0.5x (or even 0).

Sometimes the problem can be with the phone or operators skin or launcher, so try going to the Play Store and downloading a third party launcher such as Nova launcher or Go LauncherEx. Note: you will need to re-create your homescreen shortcuts, but they are both great launchers.

Another tip is to always press the Back key instead of the Home key when leaving Apps. The Back key will often close the App properly, while the Home key will leave it running in the background.

From the Homescreen press Menu – Settings – Sound.

From here you have various options including Haptic feedback, Vibration intensity and so on.

You can also adjust notifications for various functions.

If you are browsing and have zoomed in or out and the column you’re reading doesn’t fit the screen properly, you can pinch to zoom in. Then double tap on the column. The column will then be reformatted to fit the screen width.

To change the backlight screen timeout, go to Settings – Display – Screen timeout. Then choose the screen time out duration.

You can also tell the phone screen to always stay lit when it is plugged in via USB. Go to Settings – Developer Options. Then check Stay Awake.

Note: Developer Options is not enabled by default. To enable, go to Settings – About Device. Then tap on Build number 7 times.

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 – Call – Call rejection. From here you can manage your rejection list of numbers.

To enable Face Unlock, go into Settings – Lock screen – Screen lock.

Then select Face unlock. From here you will be required to look at the phone via the front facing camera. It is usually better to do this during the day when the lighting is better, although the phone will guide you through the process.

To delete or remove homescreen widgets, simply press and hold. Then drag the widget to the top-right corner of the screen and into the Trash icon.

This tip is relatively obvious, but some users overlook it.

Once you go into your Apps screen you should see a row of 5 dots. This indicates which of the 5 App screens you are on. Rather than flick between each screen, you can simply press one of the dots and you will jump to that homescreen.

Or alternatively, slide your finger across the dots to move between screens.

To see notifications on your homescreen, the best option is to download an App called NoLed from the Play Store. This will show notifications such as text messages, emails and missed calls as bright icons on your homescreen.

You can choose between very small squares or small icons and these can assigned by coloured.

When entering text into Apps such as your Messaging App, Facebook App and so on, you can tap on the words to start selecting text. Normally, you would then drag the left and right sliders to select the word, or words you want to highlight.

If you double tap on a word however, it will quickly select that word. Very handy for quickly copying and one words, name or place.