Sony Xperia M Tips and Tricks
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
To save an image in an email or in the browser, long press on the image and a menu will appear allowing you to save it.
For images inside text messages, you might have to press and hold on the message itself, rather than the image.
If you already have an Android phone, then simply ensure each of your old Contacts are stored on Google (rather than the Phone memory). This means your contacts are stored on Google’s servers under your Google/Gmail login. Then once you get the new phone, log in with your Gmail account and your Contacts will be automatically synced.
If you do not have an Android device, you need to find a way to Export your old contacts to a CSV (Comma Separated Values) file and save this to a PC. You may need to install the correct software for your phone first in order to do the export.
Then, if you don’t have a Gmail account, sign up for one.
Once that’s done, open Gmail. Go to Contacts, then press More – Import. Then import the CSV to your Gmail contacts.
Then on your phone, open the Contacts App. Press Menu and then Sync Contacts. This will pull the contacts from Gmail to your phone.
Jellybean now comes with an Equaliser so you can adjust your bass and treble.
Simply open a music file using the Music Player App. Then go to Settings – SoundAlive and select Custom.
Then simply drag the sliders up and down to adjust the bass and treble.
The standard Android keyboard is good, but not great. There are many third party keyboards available which will improve your typing speed and accuracy.
Go to the Android Market and search for ‘Keyboard’ to see some great alternatives, many of which are more accurate and make typing much easier.
A good one is GoKeyboard.
If you see a warning saying the keyboard will collect all information (including credit cards) just ignore this. This is just a security feature that Android shows for every third-party keyboard that you install.
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 – More networks – Mobile networks – Access Point Names.
From here press the Menu key again (bottom left corner) and select New APN. Then fill in the details your carrier gave you. Then press the menu icon again and press Save.
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.
One of the best keyboards is a keyboard called Swiftkey, which is a top-rate App.
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.
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.
Rather than having to locate the hang up icon on the screen after each call, you can quickly end a call by pressing the Power button.
To enable this, go to Settings – Accessibility – Answering/ending calls. Then tick The power button ends calls.
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.
To stop the Photo App or the Music player from indexing your files, place a blank text file called .nomedia in the folder containing your photos or music


