Sony Xperia XA1 Tips and Tricks

To change the backlight screen timeout, drag down your notifications screen and press Settings.

Then select Display.

Then under Screen timeout you can set 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 – System – Developer Options. Then check Stay Awake.

Note: Developer Options is not always enabled by default. To enable, go to:

Settings – System – About Device – Software info . Then tap on Build number 7 times to enable this secret option.

While typing emails or notes, you can simply tap the space key twice and the phone will insert a full stop / period.

This option may need to be turned on in the keyboard settings.

This can be found in Settings – General management – Language and input.

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 – Settings – Import/Export Contacts. Then import the CSV to your Gmail contacts.

Then on your phone, go to Settings – Cloud and accounts – Accounts – Google and then select Sync to pull the contacts from Gmail to your phone.

If you see the following errors:
Resting robot
Exclamation point (for rooted phones)
No command

This indicates that your phone is in Android Recovery mode and often appear when you try to recover or reboot.

To fix this, follow these steps:

1. Once any of the three appears, press and hold your phone’s volume up button for 10-15 seconds.

2. Next, without letting go of the volume up button, press and release the power button once. It will display a menu.

3. Navigate around the menu using the volume button.

4. Select Reboot System Now and your phone should be rebooting

Alternatively, you can do the following:

1. When any of the three appears, press and hold the power button for 2-3 seconds.

2. Then, without letting go of the power button, press and release the volume up button, once. It will display the same menu.

3. Select Reboot System Now and your phone should reboot.

If Reboot System Now doesn’t work try updating first.

If you are browsing a website and want to see the HTML source code behind the page, then Android doesn’t offer you the ability to do this by default.

There is however a handy App called View Web Source which can be installed. Whenever you want to view the HTML of a web page, you just press the Menu – Share – View Web Source.

You can then browse the code or copy the content into the clipboard.

There are some other Apps that are similar to this if it isn’t what you need. Try searching the PlayStore for HTML Viewer or similar.

If you are browsing YouTube videos on your phone and they appear blurry, then this is usually because of your connection speed.

If you are using 3G / 4G and you’re in an area of low signal strength, then YouTube will sometimes automatically reduce the quality of the video. Unfortunately this can make the video very pixelated and of poor quality.

If you are using the standard Android browser, then when the video is in full screen, press the back button. Then press HQ and start playing it again.

If you are using another browser, then press the Settings icon on the bottom right of the YouTube video. Then change the quality.

This may improve the quality, but it may also lead to buffering issues.

Another solution is to use a WiFi connection, if one is available.

Here are the top 5 tips to make your phone run faster:

1) Use only essential widgets on your home screen – each widget consumes memory and processing power which can slow your down your phone.

2) Uninstall apps that you don’t use – after a while your phone can get cluttered as some Apps are designed to always run in the background. If you rarely use an App, then uninstall it to free up memory and CPU resource.

3) Install Apps to your phone memory – if you have an SDCard, always install Apps to the phone memory, which can be accessed faster. If you have Apps on the SDCard, then move them back to the phone memory with an App called Move2SD available from the Play Market.

4) Use Static rather than Live wallpapers – Live wallpapers consume processing power and memory. Unless you really must have them, uninstall them.

5) Kill tasks occasionally – Some Apps will run in the background indefinitely unless you kill them. Most of them won’t cause a problem, but it pays to check your running tasks from time to time. Hold down your Home key and check the Task Manager. You can use Apps such as DU Speed Booster for this.

Locking your phone is a great security feature, but when you’re at home it’s normally not necessary.

A featured called Trusted Places enables you to bypass the lock screen when you’re at specific geographic places.

To set it up go to Settings – Lock screen and security – Smart lock – Trusted places.

You can also set up the bypass to work when your phone is connected to specific Bluetooth devices such as Smartwatches or Audio devices.

You can also override this (i.e. lock your screen when it is at the location). To override, just press and hold the padlock icon on the lockscreen.

This may not work on all phones, models or networks. Also, if you choose to trust your location, then you will need to turn your GPS on when at home.

If you want to setup new email accounts, like Yahoo or Hotmail, go to the Play Store and download your favourite email service.

Almost all of them have an App now, so the setup is much easier than in the past.

Install the App and follow the instructions to set it up correctly.

Then if you want to modify or view your accounts, go to Settings – Cloud and accounts.

To take a screenshot on your device, press the Home and Power buttons at the same time. Sometimes you may need to press the Home button first for a second, then the Power button.

Hold them together for between 1-2 seconds and you should hear a camera shutter sound.

To locate the screenshot you’ve just taken, go to your Apps and find My Files.

Then it should be under Device Storage or Internal Storage – DCIM – Screenshots.

It’s possible that they may also be found under Device Storage or Internal Storage – Pictures – Screenshots.

If you want to move the Screenshot to another folder, then long press on the file name. You should see a tick appear.

Then press the More button in the top right and select Move or Copy. Then select the destination of the screenshot.