Sony Xperia Z5 Premium Tips and Tricks

Android 5.0 (Lollipop)
Phone: Sony Xperia Z5 Premium
Factory OS: Android 5.0 (Lollipop)

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Android has an interesting new feature called Talkback which is designed for blind and low vision users.

The feature is an interesting way to navigate your phone however.

Simply go to Settings – Personal – Accessibility – Talkback to activate it.

Then your phone will give you an ongoing narration of its various functions.

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.

If you would prefer not to be told every time an Application has been updated, open the Play Store and swipe from left to right. Then select Settings and untick the Notifications options.

When entering text into Apps such as your Messaging App, Facebook App and so on, you can tap on the words to start selecting text. Normally, you would then drag the left and right sliders to select the word, or words you want to highlight.

If you double tap on a word however, it will quickly select that word. Very handy for quickly copying and one words, name or place.

Google have hidden a clone of the amazingly popular game Flappy Bird inside of the Android Lollipop OS.

To access this (also known as an Easter Egg) follow these instructions:
Drag down the notifications screen and go to Settings. Then scroll down to About device. Then tap on the Android version option 5 times.

You should now see a Lollipop on the screen. Keep pressing the Lollipop and after awhile the game will appear. You may need to long press on the Lollipop if multiple presses doesn’t work.

Good luck because it is still as incredible frustrating as the original!

To set your voicemail number which allows your phone to automatically input your voicemail password, then open your Dialler App.

Then press the More or Menu button and choose Call settings. Then scroll down to Voicemail settings and set a Voicemail number (you might need to check with your carrier for the correct number).

Depending on your carrier you may have to enter the series of steps required to go through the voicemail menu, for example: *86,,yourpassword# (a comma inserts a pause).

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 device 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.

To change the homescreen or lock screen wallpaper, press on a blank part of the homescreen. Next, choose Wallpapers.

From here you can use any image in your Gallery as your Wallpaper.

To change the backlight screen timeout, drag down your notifications screen and press Settings. Then under System 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. Then tap on Build number 7 times to enable this secret option.

To enable or disable the vibrate function when you receive text messages go to the standard Messaging App and press More. Then Settings and then Notifications. Then select Vibrate.