Sony Xperia S Tips and Tricks

If you have just purchased an Android device, then you may want to copy your contacts from your old phone. The easiest way to do this is to Export your old contacts to a CSV (Comma Separated Values) file and save this to your 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.

To access the scientific calculator, rotate the phone to landscape mode.

The calculator will change to a scientific one.

To soft reset your phone press and hold the Power and Down button together for 10 seconds and the phone should  restart. Wait about 10 seconds and then press and hold the Power button again to restart.

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. It will not turn off the screen though.

To enable this, go to Settings – Accessibility – Power button ends call.

Note: Depending on which firmware you are running, you may need to update your firmware to see this feature.

In the Calendar App there is no Year view along the top of the App. You can however use pinch to zoom gestures to zoom in and out of Month and Year view however.

This is useful if you want to quickly jump backwards or forwards through a few months at a time.

There is an easter egg hidden in the Android operating system. To see it, go to your Homescreen, then press Menu – Settings – About phone.

Then tap on the Android version option 5 times and you will get a surprise.

Sometimes it doesn’t work, so try a couple of times. By the way don’t expect to see an actual Easter Egg. That is just the name given to things hidden inside software or operating systems.

There are two options to increase the font size on your phone:

The first is to simply install a new font that is larger than the default font. Font Changer and Type Fresh are two Apps that allow you to change Fonts on your phone (they do require Root access though).

The second option is to use dedicate Apps to change the font size, although they will normally only work for SMS and some Google Apps.

To enlarge the SMS font, go to the Android Market and download an App called ChompSMS. Among other things, the App allows you to increase the font size of your SMS messages.

For enlarge SMS and the standard Google Apps fonts, then download an App called SMS/Talk Text Enlarger.

To disable mobile view for websites, open your Browser and go to Menu – More – Settings – Untick ‘Mobile View’.

This option may be disabled on some phones or carriers.

If so, then download the Dolphin browser from the Android Marketplace.

Then open Dolphin – Menu – More – Settings – User Agent. Then select Desktop.

A similar option should be available with the Firefox, Opera or other third-party browsers.

To create homescreen shortcuts to your Gmail folders, long press on a blank part of your homescreen.

Then select Shortcuts – Gmail Label – Then choose the label you want. This will create a shortcut straight to that Gmail folder/label.

To install ringtones on your phone you will need to copy some MP3s on to your phone.

To do this, connect your Phone to a computer with the USB cable. It should mount automatically and appear as a drive letter on your computer. If it doesn’t, then drag the notification bar (the bar at the top) down and press USB Connected and select Mount.

Once that is done, go to the Phone’s drive letter on your computer. Create a folder called “ringtones”. Then copy your MP3’s from into this folder.

Once that is done, go to the Phone’s home screen, press Menu – Settings – Sound – Phone ringtone. Scroll down until you find the ringtone you want