Sony Xperia S Tips and Tricks

Ensure auto-brightness is disabled, then press and hold on the notification bar at the top of the screen.

After a second, start sliding your finger to the left or right. This will adjust the screen brightness up and down.

We produce a great list of the best mobile phone accessories and if you have purchased a smartphone, one of the first things you will want to do is accessorise it. Our guide shows you the best accessories and the best places to buy them from.

Simply go to the menu at the top of this page and select: Phone Guides – Best Cell Phone Accessories (for US users) or Best Mobile Phone Accessories (for UK users).

Aside from using a third party app, there are two standard ways to remove applications.

1) Go to Settings – Applications – Manage Applications, then choose the application you want to close and select Uninstall.

2) Go to Market – Downloads. Choose the application you want to remove and select uninstall

To quickly search for a contact, open the Contacts App and start typing the name of the contact you want to dial.

This will quickly filter the correct contact.

To allow swear words in voice recognition, go to Settings – Voice input & output – Voice recognition settings. Then untick Block offensive words.

By default, the phone will actually recognise swear words, but will insert x’s instead of the word.

Instead of the simple swipe gesture to unlock your phone, you can set a custom unlock pattern which can be extremely difficult for a thief to guess.

From your homescreen, go to Menu – Settings – Location and security – Change 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.

While viewing your list of Contacts you can swipe from Right to Left to send a text message to the selected contact.

While in the Camera App, there are two ways to zoom in or out.

First, you can use Volume Up and Down keys.

Secondly, you can pinch your fingers on the screen to zoom in and out.

To quickly hide the on-screen keyboard, press the Back button

If you want to find your phone’s WiFi MAC address (for improved WiFi security), then from the Home screen, go to Menu – Settings – About Phone. Then scroll down until you see WiFi MAC Address. The address should be a series of Hex numbers and letters.