Samsung Galaxy Fame tips and tricks

How to find your IMEI address

There are two ways to find your IMEI address on your Samsung Galaxy Fame. The first one is to look in the phone's settings by going to Settings - About Phone - Status.

Then scroll down until you see IMEI Address.

The other method is to open your battery cover and remove the battery. Find your phone's serial number plate and your IMEI number should be shown there.

How to find your MAC address

If you want to find your Galaxy Fame's WiFi MAC address (for improved WiFi security), then from the Home screen, go to Menu - Settings - About Phone - Status.

Then scroll down until you see WiFi MAC Address. The address should be a series of Hex numbers.

Setup a new email account

To setup new email accounts on Galaxy Fame, like Yahoo or Hotmail, go to All Apps and press the Email icon. A setup wizard will then be launched.

Enter you email address and password into the fields. You can also change the settings after this step.

Once you're happy with the settings, give your account a Name and you're done.

Hide folders or files on Samsung Galaxy Fame

If you want to hide folders or files from being index or displayed, simple put a . (full top / period) before the file or folder name.

Use PIN instead of Face Unlock

If you use the Face Unlock feature on Galaxy Fame but you're in a dark room or wearing a hat or scarf, you can bypass the unlock just once.

Simply press the Lock icon on your screen and you can then enter your PIN instead.

Turn off App update notifications

If you would prefer not to be told every time an Application has been updated, open the Play Market - Menu - My Apps. Then Menu again. Then Settings. Under General settings, untick the Notifications option.

Quickly display browser bookmarks

There are two ways to bring up Bookmarks on Galaxy Fame while browsing:

1. The quickest way is to simple long press the Back key to bring up your bookmarks
2. Alternatively you can enable the Quick Control panel. Go to Settings - Labs. Then check the option for Full screen. Then when you are browsing slide your finger in from the left or right of the screen. A semi-circular Quick Control panel will appear. Slide your finger to the top icon to see your bookmarks. This also means your browser runs in full screen mode so you maximise your website viewing area.

Store number from email

To store a phone number that you have received in an email, hold down on the number and you will be given the option to call, send an SMS or add the number to your contacts.

Lock screen while watching videos on Galaxy Fame

To lock your screen while you are watching videos, simply press the power button.

This will disable the touchscreen buttons while the video is playing, but it won't turn the screen off like the lock key normally does.

Note, this will only work on video files that you are playing that are stored on your phone. It won't work for videos played within websites, such as Youtube videos.

Create folders in your Quick Launch bar

If you have used up all of your Quick Launch spaces, then there is a trick.

Once it is full, press and drag an App from the homescreen and move it over the top of an App in the Quick Launch area. Then release your finger. This will create a folder containing the original App plus the new one. This is a great way to have access to regularly used Apps.

Disable the screen lock

Go into Settings - Location and security. Then under Screen unlock settings press Change screen lock. Then chose None.

Have more control over your notification light

If you are not happy with Galaxy Fame's notification light, then you can change and tweak it. Go to the Google Play and download an App called Lightflow.

You might need to enable the notification light before the App works. Go to Settings - Display. Then check Pulse notification.

Connect Galaxy Fame to computer in USB mode

Unlike older versions of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich does not go into USB mode automatically when you connect your phone to your computer with a USB cable.

To enable USB / Mass Storage mode, first go to Settings. Then under Wireless and network, press the More... button.

Then connect your phone to your PC using a USB cable and press USB utilities.

Then click the button that says Turn on USB Storage.

Your phone will now appear as another drive letter on your PC.

How to stop screen going bright or dim when in browser

The brightness of the browser is set separately to the phone's main brightness. If you find the screen dims or brightens when you go into your browser, then you can change this by opening the browser, pressing the Menu key and scrolling down until you see Brightness and colour. You can adjust it from here.

To adjust the phone's main brightness, go to the Homescreen, press Menu - Settings - Display - Brightness.

An alternative is to use a third party browser like Dolphin, Firefox, Opera and so on. These all use the phone's main brightness setting.

Lastly, sometimes Power Saving Mode affects the screen brightness. Go to Settings - Power Saving Mode and change the Background Colour Only mode in there.

Turn notifications off by application

While your notification bar can be handy to inform you of updates, downloads and other useful information, sometimes it can get cluttered.

There is now a way to turn this off for each application.

Go to Settings - Applications - Manage Applications. Then find Info and un-tick the box labelled Show Notifications.

Change quick response texts

Samsung Galaxy Fame has the ability to send quick response text messages if your phone is ringing but you can't answer it.

To change these, go to your Dialer App - Settings - Quick responses. You can only have 4 of them and you may need to edit existing ones.

Remove Google Search bar

If you want to remove the Google Search bar, then go to Settings - Apps - All - Google search bar - Disable.

Change Google Navigation voice

If you prefer a different voice when listening to the Google Maps voice navigation, you can select another language or accent.

From the Homescreen press Menu - Settings - Voice input and output - Text-to-speech settings. Then under the Default settings section, press Default engine.

To change the language, go through the same process, but instead of Default engine, select Language.

View HTML source code of web pages

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.

Stop Play Market from adding App shortcuts

When you download a new App, the Google Play will add a shortcut to the App on your homescreen. Sometimes this can get annoying.

To disable this, go to Google Play - Settings. Then uncheck Auto-add Shortcuts.

Remove numbers from the call log

To remove numbers from the call log that you don't want anyone seeing, then open your Call Log.

This will normally be found on your Apps list or you can also go to your Dialer and find Logs or Call Logs.

Then press and hold on the contact you want to remove. When the Menu appears, press Delete.

Remove a whole text message conversation

If you want to remove an entire text message thread, go into Messages and look for the thread. Then long press on it and select Delete thread.

Double tap for a full stop (period)

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

Read the Samsung Galaxy Fame review