Sony Xperia Z3 Compact Tips and Tricks

Android 5.0 (Lollipop)
Phone: Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
Factory OS: Android 5.0 (Lollipop)

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To copy files between your phone and PC, go to the Android Play Market and download an app called Air Droid.

This is an extremely useful App that connects your phone to your PC wirelessly, allowing you to move files and many, many other things.

Alternatively if you just want to copy using USB then simply plug a micro USB cable into your phone and it should appear as another drive on your PC.

If you call someone regularly this can be useful as you will have a shortcut to them handily placed on your homescreen.

To bookmark a Contact on your Home Screen, then first go into your Contacts App.

Find the Contact you want to add to the Home Screen and press on them.

Then press More or the Menu key and select Add shortcut to home.

Then go to your Home Screens, find the Contact you’ve just added. Press, hold and drag to another position.

Here’s how to pair your device with another Bluetooth device.

First you will need to turn Bluetooth on. To do this, drag your finger from the top of the screen down, to show your notifications menu. Then press Bluetooth so the icon is green.

Then press the Scan button and your device will start to scan for pairable devices.

Choose the desired device and press Accept. You may be asked to enter a PIN or Password.

Sometimes you might want to let someone borrow your phone, but you don’t want them messing with your settings or using some of your Apps.

Fortunately there is now a mode called Guest Mode. It may not be available on all models or phones but it can be accessed by swiping two fingers down from the top of the phone. Then select the User icon at the top right of the phone. Then select Add Guest.

To exit guest mode, just repeat the above steps but select Remove Guest instead.

If you tend to run out of battery power quickly, then you can turn on Power saving mode.

Pull down the notification screen by swiping your finger from the top of the phone. Then select Power Saving. You may need to scroll along the available icons.

To change the settings, then pull down the notification screen again, press the Gear icon at the top. Then under System select Battery and then Power saving mode to change the options.

If you want to remove the Google Search bar, then go to Settings – Applications – Application manager.

Then swipe from right to left so you are on the All screen. Scroll to Google search and press Disable.

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 – System – Language and input

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 – Application manager. Then swipe the screen from right to left until you are on the Running screen.

Then choose the application you want to stop and select Force Stop.

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.

Android manages Apps very well and some Apps do not have the option to close them specifically. Normally the App will stay running in the background and only close when many other Apps have been opened.

If you do want to close or terminate an App, then press and hold the Multitasking key on your phone. On some devices you may need to long press the Home key.

Then you can swipe the Apps off the screen to close them.