Sony Xperia Z2 tips and tricks
Sony’s Xperia Z2 smartphone is a five-star masterpiece of glamorous tech and uber-cool features, but with so much packed into its iconic f...
https://iskablogs.blogspot.com/2014/06/sony-xperia-z2-tips-and-tricks.html
Sony’s Xperia Z2 smartphone is a five-star masterpiece of glamorous tech and uber-cool features, but with so much packed into its iconic frame, it’s easy to miss out on some of the best features.
Here’s our quick and easy tips n’ tricks guide to getting started with the Xperia Z2, and unlocking its full potential - including getting longer battery life, making it suitable for older users, and improving your camera footage.
Quite often we find ourselves turning random features such as Wi-Fi on and off, usually to preserve battery life when they’re not needed.
1. The easiest and quickest way to toggle these settings is to flick down from the top of the screen, revealing your notifications bar, and then tap the ‘Quick Settings’ tab in the top right
2. You’ll see a panel of buttons, including the likes of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and auto-rotate: just tap each one to turn the feature on or off (shaded means the feature is off)
3. A few of our favourite features such as Airplane Mode, Mobile Data and Stamina Mode aren’t in the panel by default - you’ll need to add these yourself. To do so, hit the ‘Edit’ button to the right off the date and time, and then select/de-select any features you want/don’t want
One of the coolest new features of the Sony Xperia Z2 smartphone is its built-in noise cancellation when using earphones. This only works with Sony’s earphones, bundled with the Xperia Z2, so you can’t just plug in any old pair sadly, but the clever cancellation jazz is performed by the phone itself, so the ‘phones don’t require any batteries for the feature to work.
To make sure noise cancellation is turned on, just go to Settings > Sound > Audio accessories, and make sure ‘noise-cancelling headset’ is selected. Then plug in your ‘phones and enjoy the peace.
See that thin bar at the top of the Xperia Z2’s screen, which shows the time, reception bar etc? That’s the ‘status bar’, and it quickly gets cluttered when you’ve got lots of features turned on. Thankfully it’s quick and simple to tidy the damn thing up.
1. Go to Settings > Personalisation > Status bar icons
2. From this menu, you can select and de-select which icons appear in the status bar
If you’re not used to smartphones, or you just prefer a simplified, stripped-back interface, you can swap to Sony’s ‘Simple Home’ layout instead. This custom desktop features larger icons, ideal for older users with restricted eyesight or mobility, plus three speed dial buttons.
1. Go to Settings > Home
2. Select ‘Simple Home’. A brief explanation appears, just tap ‘OK’ to proceed
3. Your one-piece desktop will appear, containing only the most useful features plus the speed dial buttons. To exit back to the normal Xperia desktop, go to Settings > Exit Simple Home
We found the Xperia Z2 comfortably lasted a day between charges, providing you aren’t caning it with lots of video streaming and gaming. But if you find yourself stranded often with almost no power left, Sony has a few different features to extend your battery life.
1. Go to Settings > Power Management, where you’ll find a number of different modes - turn on each one you want to by flipping the virtual switches to ‘on’.
2. STAMINA mode extends battery life by turning off Wi-Fi and mobile data when the phone’s screen is off. That means you’ll have to turn your phone on to receive any new emails, social media updates etc. but the battery will barely drain when in hibernation.
3. Low-battery mode activates at a set battery level (e.g. 20 percent by default), and disables certain features (e.g. Bluetooth, GPS) until the phone is charged again. You can select which features are disabled, and at what point low-battery mode turns on - simply tap Low-battery mode in the Power Management menu.
4. Location-based Wi-Fi is worth turning on too - this only activates Wi-Fi when you’re in range of a saved Wi-Fi network, so it doesn’t stay on pointlessly at all times.
When taking a photo, it's helpful to know what the interface buttons do, so let's talk through what you'll see.
One of the things that sets the Xperia Z2 apart from the rest is the addition of camera modes. You can use this menu to change what type of photos or videos your camera takes. We will talk about a few of the modes here, but the best advice we can give you is to play with them all to know exactly what you can achieve with them.
Simply fire-up the camera > select the camera mode button on the bottom left corner > scroll right down to the bottom and select “Evernote”. Any shots taken while in this mode will be automatically saved to your Evernote account along with the option to add text and other comments.
Chances are that you leave the camera on with the default “Superior Auto” mode and snap away, ignoring the “Info-eye” mode tucked away right at the bottom of the camera interface.
But Info-eye is an extremely useful tool that goes well beyond just adding cute effects to pictures. Info-eye can be used to extract contact information from business cards, scan barcodes on products which provide more information about the product including online shopping options in addition to serving as a handy QR (quick response) code reader. Info-eye will even work with books and wines, giving you more information by simply pointing your camera at the item.
Also if you’re visiting a landmark, shooting with Info-eye will provide more information about it right on your screen.
To access Info-eye simply select the camera mode button on the bottom left corner > scroll down and select “Info-eye”. Now simply take a shot of a barcode, QR code, business card or landmark and let Info-eye take care of the rest.
One of the best new video features of the Sony Xperia Z2 is the ‘SteadyShot’ option, which helps to cut down annoying shaking when you’re shooting video and moving about at the same time.
1. Open the Camera app
2. In the bottom left corner you’ll find an icon that looks like three square dots in a line. Tap this to bring up the camera settings.
3. The menu that springs up has three tabs - camera, video and general settings. Go into the video settings by tapping the movie reel icon.
4. Make sure ‘SteadyShot’ is activated (the switch should be positioned to the right).
The first two features you are going to want to enable is the “tap to wake” (under Settings > Display > check tap to wake) and Smart call motions (Settings > Personalisation > Motion).
Once enabled you can wake the phone by simply double tapping on the screen while “Smart call” allows you to answer calls by simply bringing the phone to your ear. In addition you can reject calls by shaking the device and turn the ringer off by placing the phone face down.
Here’s our quick and easy tips n’ tricks guide to getting started with the Xperia Z2, and unlocking its full potential - including getting longer battery life, making it suitable for older users, and improving your camera footage.
Fast access to your favourite settings
Quite often we find ourselves turning random features such as Wi-Fi on and off, usually to preserve battery life when they’re not needed.
1. The easiest and quickest way to toggle these settings is to flick down from the top of the screen, revealing your notifications bar, and then tap the ‘Quick Settings’ tab in the top right
2. You’ll see a panel of buttons, including the likes of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and auto-rotate: just tap each one to turn the feature on or off (shaded means the feature is off)
3. A few of our favourite features such as Airplane Mode, Mobile Data and Stamina Mode aren’t in the panel by default - you’ll need to add these yourself. To do so, hit the ‘Edit’ button to the right off the date and time, and then select/de-select any features you want/don’t want
Block out the world
One of the coolest new features of the Sony Xperia Z2 smartphone is its built-in noise cancellation when using earphones. This only works with Sony’s earphones, bundled with the Xperia Z2, so you can’t just plug in any old pair sadly, but the clever cancellation jazz is performed by the phone itself, so the ‘phones don’t require any batteries for the feature to work.
To make sure noise cancellation is turned on, just go to Settings > Sound > Audio accessories, and make sure ‘noise-cancelling headset’ is selected. Then plug in your ‘phones and enjoy the peace.
Tidy up your status bar
See that thin bar at the top of the Xperia Z2’s screen, which shows the time, reception bar etc? That’s the ‘status bar’, and it quickly gets cluttered when you’ve got lots of features turned on. Thankfully it’s quick and simple to tidy the damn thing up.
1. Go to Settings > Personalisation > Status bar icons
2. From this menu, you can select and de-select which icons appear in the status bar
Simplify your desktop
If you’re not used to smartphones, or you just prefer a simplified, stripped-back interface, you can swap to Sony’s ‘Simple Home’ layout instead. This custom desktop features larger icons, ideal for older users with restricted eyesight or mobility, plus three speed dial buttons.
1. Go to Settings > Home
2. Select ‘Simple Home’. A brief explanation appears, just tap ‘OK’ to proceed
3. Your one-piece desktop will appear, containing only the most useful features plus the speed dial buttons. To exit back to the normal Xperia desktop, go to Settings > Exit Simple Home
Get longer battery life
We found the Xperia Z2 comfortably lasted a day between charges, providing you aren’t caning it with lots of video streaming and gaming. But if you find yourself stranded often with almost no power left, Sony has a few different features to extend your battery life.
1. Go to Settings > Power Management, where you’ll find a number of different modes - turn on each one you want to by flipping the virtual switches to ‘on’.
2. STAMINA mode extends battery life by turning off Wi-Fi and mobile data when the phone’s screen is off. That means you’ll have to turn your phone on to receive any new emails, social media updates etc. but the battery will barely drain when in hibernation.
3. Low-battery mode activates at a set battery level (e.g. 20 percent by default), and disables certain features (e.g. Bluetooth, GPS) until the phone is charged again. You can select which features are disabled, and at what point low-battery mode turns on - simply tap Low-battery mode in the Power Management menu.
4. Location-based Wi-Fi is worth turning on too - this only activates Wi-Fi when you’re in range of a saved Wi-Fi network, so it doesn’t stay on pointlessly at all times.
Camera interface
When taking a photo, it's helpful to know what the interface buttons do, so let's talk through what you'll see.
- Flash Settings - Use this to change what type of flash mode is being used
- Camera Switch - Switch between the front and back camera
- Photo Settings - Change settings such as the quality of the photo being taken and timer options
- Photo Type - When in 'Superior Auto' mode, the camera will automatically change the type of photo its taking, and let you know here
- Gallery Shortcut - Tap here to go to the gallery and see your snaps
- Shoot/Record Buttons - Tap here to take a photo or start recording
- Camera Mode - The Z2 comes with several different modes you can take photos in. We'll talk through these next.
Camera Modes
One of the things that sets the Xperia Z2 apart from the rest is the addition of camera modes. You can use this menu to change what type of photos or videos your camera takes. We will talk about a few of the modes here, but the best advice we can give you is to play with them all to know exactly what you can achieve with them.
Manual Shot
The manual shot mode is great for any budding photographer who knows their stuff. The manual setting lets you fine tune exactly what kind of photo your Z2 can take, and it features all the same settings you'd expect to find on the Sony range of DSLR cameras. There hasn't been a stone left unturned here and it's a great way to really get behind what happens to your photos.Background Defocus
For something slightly different to most smartphones, the Xperia Z2 has also added a mode called Background Defocus. This allows you to take a photo of something and blur the background out to emulate a photo taken by an SLR camera. You can use the sliders and buttons to change the amount and style of the unfocused background. You do need to make sure you're taking a photo with something obvious in the foreground for the camera to pick up, or it won't work, but when done right, the results can be pretty cool!4K Video
This does exactly what it says on the tin. The Xperia Z2 is one of the first smartphones to allow full 4K video recording. Just set the phone onto 4K mode, point and shoot and you'll have amazing videos with a quality that will certainly stand the test of time.Creative Effects
If you want to start having a bit of fun with your photos you can add creative effects to them. Creative effects allow you to add filters such as a sepia tone, or lets you only add colour to one portion of a picture, and playing around with these can help you capture some really unique images.Timeshift Video
The Sony Xperia Z2 has joined the ranks of newer smartphones offering a slow-motion video capture system. Timeshift video allows you to capture a video, and while watching it back, add in and change any number of 'slow-mo' sections that play back at 120FPS instead of the usual 30FPS. This can make for some really awesome videos, as demonstrated by our own Agent King above.Automatically save snaps to your Evernote account
You can take snaps that automatically save directly to your Evernote account.Simply fire-up the camera > select the camera mode button on the bottom left corner > scroll right down to the bottom and select “Evernote”. Any shots taken while in this mode will be automatically saved to your Evernote account along with the option to add text and other comments.
Info-eye
Chances are that you leave the camera on with the default “Superior Auto” mode and snap away, ignoring the “Info-eye” mode tucked away right at the bottom of the camera interface.
But Info-eye is an extremely useful tool that goes well beyond just adding cute effects to pictures. Info-eye can be used to extract contact information from business cards, scan barcodes on products which provide more information about the product including online shopping options in addition to serving as a handy QR (quick response) code reader. Info-eye will even work with books and wines, giving you more information by simply pointing your camera at the item.
Also if you’re visiting a landmark, shooting with Info-eye will provide more information about it right on your screen.
To access Info-eye simply select the camera mode button on the bottom left corner > scroll down and select “Info-eye”. Now simply take a shot of a barcode, QR code, business card or landmark and let Info-eye take care of the rest.
Banish the shaky-cam videos
One of the best new video features of the Sony Xperia Z2 is the ‘SteadyShot’ option, which helps to cut down annoying shaking when you’re shooting video and moving about at the same time.
1. Open the Camera app
2. In the bottom left corner you’ll find an icon that looks like three square dots in a line. Tap this to bring up the camera settings.
3. The menu that springs up has three tabs - camera, video and general settings. Go into the video settings by tapping the movie reel icon.
4. Make sure ‘SteadyShot’ is activated (the switch should be positioned to the right).
Tap to wake and smart call
The first two features you are going to want to enable is the “tap to wake” (under Settings > Display > check tap to wake) and Smart call motions (Settings > Personalisation > Motion).
Once enabled you can wake the phone by simply double tapping on the screen while “Smart call” allows you to answer calls by simply bringing the phone to your ear. In addition you can reject calls by shaking the device and turn the ringer off by placing the phone face down.
