Cell Phone News and Reviews

How-to: ZTE Radiant (AT&T): Tips & Tricks to Conserve Battery Life
How-to: ZTE Radiant (AT&T): Transferring Audio Files and Customizing Ringtones and Notification Sounds
nokia asha 303
galaxy SIII

How-to: ZTE Radiant (AT&T): Tips & Tricks to Conserve Battery Life

Posted: 11 Feb 2014 11:13 AM PST

Decreasing the Screen's Brightness and Timeout Duration:

From the home screen, press the "Menu" button
Select "System Settings"
Under "Device", tap "Display" and select "Brightness"
Clear the check box associated with "Automatic brightness"
The brightness slider will now be available. Drag it to the left in order to decrease the brightness
Tap "OK" to confirm the level
Return to the "Display" menu and touch "Sleep"
Choose a lower value for the timeout, like "15 seconds"

Disabling Your Live Wallpaper:

While viewing any of the home screens, press "Menu"
Tap "Wallpaper"
Select a desired wallpaper option, aside from "Live Wallpapers"
Browse through the images and when reaching a desired one, tap "Set wallpaper"

NOTE: if you wish to assign a picture from the gallery or your photos, you may need to crop, drag and resize the image before setting it as a wallpaper

Disabling GPS:

A smartphone's GPS is one of the most demanding features and it can hit the battery pretty hard. As such, it's highly recommended that you disable GPS connectivity when not in use. To do so:

Press "Menu" while viewing the home screen
Tap "System settings"
Go to "Personal" and select "Location services"
Uncheck the boxes associated with "GPS sattelites"

NOTE: to use the handset's network in order to approximate your location for applications like "Google Maps", you can enable "Location & Google search"

Disabling Bluetooth and Wi-Fi:

Both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are great tools that many smartphone users tend to leave enabled when not in use. This can chew through your battery like there's no tomorrow, so make sure you always disable these features when not in use. To do so:

Press the "Menu" button while viewing a home screen
Select "System settings"
Tap the switches associated with "Wi-Fi" and "Bluetooth" in order to set them to "OFF"

Disabling Vibration Notifications:

While on the home screen, press the "Menu" key
Tap "system settings"
Go to "Sound" under "Device"
Uncheck the "Vibrate when ringing" check box
Flick the screen down and also clear the check box next to "Vibrate on touch"

Stopping Unused Applications and Services:

From the home screen, tap "menu"
Select "System settings"
Under "Device", tap "Apps"
Swipe left or right in order to go to the "Running" tab
Choose an app or service, and tap "Stop"
If prompted, press "OK" to confirm

NOTE: keep in mind that certain Android services cannot be stopped, thus the button will not be available

Changing Your Accounts' Sync Settings:

You can conserve battery life by setting your accounts to sync less information, or to do so less often.

Press "Menu" while viewing a home screen
Tap "System settings"
Scroll down to "Accounts" and choose an account type
Select the desired account
From the list of applications that sync data, clear the check boxes associated with the apps in order to disable data sync. Uncheck as many apps as possible to obtain greater results

How-to: ZTE Radiant (AT&T): Transferring Audio Files and Customizing Ringtones and Notification Sounds

Posted: 11 Feb 2014 10:46 AM PST

Transferring Audio Files from a Windows PC:

Using the USB cable, connect your smartphone to your computer
From the home screen, drag the "Notification" bar down and tap "Media device (MTP)"
In the AutoPlay window that opens on your PC, select to browse the device's files and folders
Open the "Phone" storage
Open a different Windows Explorer window and locate the audio files that you wish to transfer from your computer
Copy the files, and paste them on your smartphone's storage. NOTE: there should be a "Ringtone" and "Notifications" folder. Copy the audio files in the proper location, depending on how you want to use them
After the file transfer has ended, click the USB icon from the system tray and safely disconnect your device from your computer

Changing the Phone's Ringtone from the Settings Menu:

Tap the "All apps" icon located on the home screen
Tap "Settings" > "Sound" > "Phone ringtone"
Browse the list of audio files and select the one that you wish to assign
Tap "OK" to confirm your selection

Changing the Ringtone via the Music Player:

From the home screen, tap "All apps"
Open the "Music" application and go to the music library
Sort between "Albums", "Songs", "Artists" and so on
Once you've located the desired song, touch the icon depicting a triangle, associated with the song
Select "Set as phone ringtone"

NOTE: alternatively, you can assign a song that is playing by pressing "Menu" > "Set as phone ringtone"

Changing the Ringtone for a Single Contact:

Tap the "All apps" icon located on the home screen
Open the "People" application
Look for the desired contact, and tap it
Press "Menu", followed by "Set ringtone"
Choose the desired audio file to set as a ringtone
Tap "OK" to confirm

Changing the Volume of Ringtones, Alarms and Notifications:

Tap "All apps" from the home screen
Go to "Settings" > "Sound"
Tap and hold > drag the sliders next to "Ringtone & notifications", "Alarms" and set the volume to a different level
When ready, press "OK" and save the changes