Sony Xperia L Tips and Tricks

Android 4.1.1 (Jellybean)
Phone: Sony Xperia L
Factory OS: Android 4.1.1 (Jellybean)

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

From the homescreen press Menu – Settings – Sounds. Then under Feedback, press Vibration intensity. Then slide the bar left or right to change the intensity.

You can also turn off Haptic feedback if you really don’t want any feedback.

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.

There are a number of solutions to this error. Go through the following steps:

Go to Settings – Applications. Then swipe right to left to go to All (along the top). Then find the App called Media Storage. Click on that and select Force Close. Then select Clear Data. (warning: this will delete the cache for your media player so you may lose things such as recently played, most played etc. But you will not lose your music).

Next, go back to list of Apps and find Music Player. Again, press Force Close and then Clear Data.

Once that’s done, go to the Play Store and download an App called Re Scan Media and run it. Wait 5 minutes for the device to re-scan your media.

If you still cannot play your music, then try turning your phone off and removing your SDCard / memory card (if you have one). Then turn the phone on without the card. Then turn it off again and reinsert the card. Finally turn it on again with the card back in.

If you still can’t play music, then some users have said that there may be a conflict with the Twitter App. Try uninstalling this and see if the error persists.

Jelly Bean has an interesting new feature called Talkback which is designed for blind and low vision users.

The feature is an interesting way to navigate your phone however.

Simply go to Settings – Accessibility – Talkback to activate it. Then your phone will give you an ongoing narration of its various functions.

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 Menu – Settings – Security. Then select Screen lock. Then chose Pattern to set one up.

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.

Instead of finding your Settings App icon, a quicker way is to drag down your notification bar (from the top) and press the Settings icon. It should be next to the date.

To bookmark a contact on your homescreen, long press on the home screen background and select Shortcuts. Then select Direct dial.

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

While in the Music Player, long press on the song title of the music and you can search Youtube for more music

To lock your screen while you are watching videos, simply press the power button.

This will disable the touchscreen buttons while the video is playing, but it won’t turn the screen off like the lock key normally des.

Note, this will only work on video files that you are playing that are stored on your phone. It won’t work for videos played within websites, such as Youtube videos.

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 Dialer App – Settings – Quick responses. You can only have 4 of them and you may need to edit existing ones.