Sony Xperia V Tips and Tricks

Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
Phone: Sony Xperia V
Factory OS: Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)

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To change the backlight screen timeout, go to Settings – Display – Sleep. 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.

To silence the phone when ringing there are two methods:

Either press the Volume Down (or Up) button or if the phone is on a surface facing up, simply flip it over so it is facing down.

If you want to type non-English letters (eg those with an accent), long-press on the relevant letter. A list of options will appear for you to select.

If you want to install Apps outside of the Android Market (called sideloading), then go to Settings – Security – Unknown sources.

Note: use at your own risk.

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 – Power button ends call.

Open your music and play a song. Then press Menu – Sound Effects. You will then be presented with an equalizer including presets.

To enable Face Unlock, go into Settings – Security.

Then select Screen lock.

It is best to avoid task killers such as Advanced Task Killer. Android is designed to automatically pre-load certain applications, even if you don’t load them yourself. If it starts to run low on memory, it will smartly unload the oldest running apps automatically.

Manually killing tasks will only mean they get loaded in memory again. Task killers can make the phone slow, laggy, or drain battery life more quickly.

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 have decided to ditch your iPhone in favour of Android, then there is a simple way to take your iTunes music, playlists and album art with you.

Simply go the Android Marketplace and download a Free App called Easy Phone Tunes. You will also need the computer version of the software, so go to http://easyphonetunes.com and download it from there.

Then, when that is done, turn your phone into a USB storage device (this will vary from device to device, but instructions are on the website).

Once your phone is connected to your computer, open the computer version of the software and select your device from the Easy Phone Tunes list. Then follow the instructions to Sync your media.