Sony Xperia S Tips and Tricks

To do a universal search, press and hold on the menu key (the right-most key at the bottom of the phone). This will bring up a keyboard which allows you to search your phone for Apps, Widgets or content on the internet

To change the contact list order, go to your Contacts and press Menu .

Then press More – Display options – Display contacts by.

Then select either First name first or Surname first.

On most Android phones, when you rotate the phone when on Homescreen mode, the Homescreen stays in Portrait mode. One way around this is to install a third-party Launcher Application which allows you to customise your phone in many ways.

One popular launcher is called GoLauncher. Or alternatively, open the Android Market and search for the word Launcher.

To change the screen brightness, start from the Homescreen and press Menu – Settings – Display – Brightness.

Then choose the desired brightness setting. You can also select Automatic brightness to let the phone decide for you

If you have auto-brightness enabled, you can also press and hold the notification bar at the top. Then move your finger left and right to adjust the screen brightness..

You can tether your computer or laptop to your phone so that the PC uses the phone’s 3G or 4G connection.

To do this, connect the phone to your PC via USB cable. If a screen appears saying Choose a connection type, then select USB tethering and you should be able to start surfing straight away. If it doesn’t then press the Home key to go into normal mode. Then go to Menu – Settings – Wireless and network – Tethering and portable hotspots. Then tick USB tethering. Your computer should then install the relevant drivers. To test, simply open your browser and start surfing.

Another alternative if the above doesn’t work is to use an App called PdaNet. Before you install this App, you will need to go to Menu – Settings – Applications – Development. Then tick the option which says USB Debugging. Then download both the App and the software for your computer. Once they are both installed run PdaNet on your laptop and then on your phone. Follow any other instructions to complete the process.

Warning: Some carriers will tell you that tethering is not allowed in their contract. You should still be able to use the above techniques, but be aware that your carrier may not be happy. Also, if you are not on an unlimited data plan, be sure you do not use too much data through your laptop or computer as you may incur extra charges.

To use custom ringtones for your phone ringtone, your alarm or your text message notification, simply copy an MP3 file to one of the following folders:
/sdcard/media/audio/ringtones
/sdcard/media/audio/alarms
/sdcard/media/audio/notifications

If they don’t already exist, then create a new folder.

The file will then show up when you want to change your ringtones.

For Ringtones go to Settings – Sound – Phone ringtone
For Text Messages go to – Settings – Sound – Notification ringtone
For Alarm, set the sound when you add a new alarm

Android manages your applications so if the phone is running low on memory, it will close the oldest running App.

If you do need to manually close an application go to Settings – Applications – Manage Applications – Running. Choose the application you want to stop and select Force Stop.

Type a word that is not in the dictionary. The word will show up in the suggestion box to the left. Long press on the word and it will save to the dictionary.

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.

Once saved, images should be located in the /phone/Download folder.

To remove an icon from the home screen, simply press on it, hold and drag to the Trash at the bottom of the screen