Sony Xperia E Tips and Tricks

While the stock standard keyboard is fine, there are much better keyboards available. First, you need to go to the Android Market and download one. Try searching for the word ‘keyboard’ and you will see a number of options.

Download your chosen keyboard and go through any install steps that you are presented with.

Then, go to the App you want to type in. You should now see a little Keyboard icon on the row at the bottom of your screen, towards the bottom-right corner. Press that icon and you can switch between all of the keyboards you have installed.

From the Homescreen press Menu – Settings – Display – Brightness. Then choose the desired brightness setting. You can also select Automatic brightness to let the phone decide for you.

Normally you don’t have the ability to create shortcuts to files or folders on your home screen.

There is a workaround however. Go to the Play Store and download an App called Linda File Manager.

Once installed, browse to a file or folder. Then press and hold on the file and select Create shortcut.

The shortcut will be created on your homescreen where you can hold and drag it elsewhere if you want.

Downloading loads of Apps is great, but sometimes they can cause havoc with your phone and a boot into safe mode is necessary.

To do this, long press your Power button. Then long press on the Power off option. You will then be asked to reboot into safe mode.

When your phone restarts it will not load any Apps allowing you to disable any troublesome ones.

Jelly Bean has improved the facial unlcock feature by creating a setting whereby you must blink when unlocking your phone. This prevents fraudsters using a photo of yourself and holding it up to the phone.

To activate this feature go to Settings – Security – Screen Security and tick Liveness check

If you would prefer the Desktop view of websites, rather than the Mobile view, then there is a way to change it. This may not work in all regions or on all carriers however.

Open the standard browser and type about:debug into the browser’s address bar. Then go to Menu – Settings. You should have a new option called Debug. Press Debug, then on the right side press UAstring and change the option to Desktop.

Websites should now be displayed as they would on a computer desktop browser.

Another alternative is to install a third-party browser like Dolphin, Firefox or Opera which have options to surf in Desktop mode.

If you have word prediction enabled while you are typing, you can long press the middle word that is suggested. This will bring up a menu allowing you to select various other suggested words.

If you want to remove the Google Search bar, then go to Settings – Apps – All – Google search bar – Disable.

Normally you can simply insert a SIM card and you will be able to browse the internet using 3G. Sometimes, this must be setup manually however. Before you start, you will need to ask your carrier or telco for your APN settings.

Once you have those, from your homescreen press Menu – Settings – Wireless and networks – Mobile networks. Then tick Use packet data. Then select Access Point Name (APN).

Then press the menu icon in the top-right corner and select New APN. Then fill in the details your carrier gave you. Then press the menu icon again and press Save.

After entering text a quick way to hide the keyboard is to press the Back key at the bottom of your screen. This saves having to hunt for the hide keyboard icon.