1. Manage slide handling. In order to choose how your E7 behaves when you slide the screen up, go to “Settings -> Phone -> Slide handling“.
There are four fields, so you can tweak the settings to suit you best. If the first field, Transfer audio, is set to On, your call will be transfered to loudspeaker when you slide the screen up. In the second field, you can choose if you want the screen to be locked every time you close it, or not. If you set the third field to On, every time you close the screen, you’ll be at the home screen. Finally, field Home screen action allows you to set various actions to be performed when you open the screen (while on home screen). Here’s a screenshot of how I like to keep my E7, and I suggest you do the same.2. Unlock the phone using the keyboard. If your E7 is open, and the screen is locked, you don’t have to use the lock/unlock slider key. Instead, you can press any keyboard button, and the screen will unlock.
3. Use keyboard shortcuts while typing. This is one of the main reasons I would choose E7 over the N8. Physical keyboard brings some handy shortcuts, similar to those on your PC. While composing a SMS or email, you can select text precisely using a Shift key in a combination with navigational arrows. Hold the Shift key and press the left arrow (if your cursor is at the right side of text), and you’ll select letter by letter. You can select the whole row if you hold the Shift key and press the arrow up. Similar goes to right and down arrows, if you’re left from the text. If you want to highlight the whole text, just press Ctrl + A.
Once the text is highlighted, you can copy it by pressing Ctrl + C, or cut it, by pressing Ctrl + X. If you do that correctly, you’ll see a screen that looks just like the one below.
Now, you can easily paste it anywhere you want by pressing Ctrl + V.4. Use keyboard shortcuts in Email app. The inbuilt email client has a few handy shortcuts of its own, and they can save you A LOT of time. There are two groups of these shortcuts – while in folder (for example, Inbox), and while reading an email. All the shortcuts are very easy to remember, so here we go.
First, while in folder, you can compose a new email by pressing the letter C. You can easily start searching for some messages by pressing the letter S. Letter Z will synchronize the current mailbox, and letter H will open the Help. The screen below shows a reminder of these shortcuts – but shortcuts do not work while Options window is showed!
Now, while you’ll reading an email, you can easily reply to the sender by pressing the letter R, or to everybody who is involved, by pressing the letter A (reply to all). You can forward the email you’re reading by pressing the letter F, or delete it by pressing the letter D.
5. Use keyboard to navigate through home screens. You can switch between homescreens without touching the screen, simply by pressing navigational arrows left and right. You’ll see a highlight box around the app/contact you’re currently at (similar to non-touchscreen phones, s60v3), and you can launch it by pressing the Enter key.
6. Type a contact’s name while on the home screen. You don’t need to open the contact application in order to call someone, you can just start typing hers/his name on the home screen, and then, you’ll be able to call her/him simply by clicking on the name. If you want to send a message instead, just hold the contact’s name a little longer.
7. Start typing while in Calendar to create a new Meeting. This is a practical tip for those who are using the inbuilt calendar app very often. Once in Calendar, position your self on the desired date and just start typing – this will create a new meeting with that name and you will be able to modify the other fields as well.
8. Manage default numbers in a contact. A lot of your contacts probably have more than one number, and this is what you see when you open such a contact:
So, in order to lose the extra click, you need to set the default numbers. You can do that, while in a contact card, by pressing Options -> Defaults, and selecting the primary number for calling, texting, etc…
9. Call/text the non-default number. If you do what I’ve described in the previous tip, you may think you’ve lost the ability to dial the other number(s), that are not set as defaults. Don’t worry, all you need to do is to tap-and-hold the Voice call or Message field, and you’ll have an option to choose the desired number.
10. Create a contact group. This tip is a great time saver, and it will allow you to do various actions for a group of several contacts. You can create a group quite easily, by launching the Contacts app, and selecting the second tab, Groups. When here, just click “Options -> New group“, and give group a name, for example VIP or Business.
11. Add contacts to a group. Group by itself isn’t that useful, so you need to add some contacts to it! Click on the group’s name, and then “Options -> Add members“, as shown below.
Now go through your Contacts and select the ones that belong to that group. Click OK when finished.
12. Remove a contact from a group. If you do not fancy someone, you can remove him/her from your (VIP) group by doing the following: open the group, and tap-and-hold the undesired contact, until a pop-up window shows up. Then click on the “Remove from group“.
13. Send SMS to a whole group. In order to do this practical thing, open the message editor, click “To”, and select a group instead of a contact.
14. Set a special ringtone for a group. You can set your phone to ring in a different way when you get a call from someone in the group. Just open Contacts, select the “Groups” tab, tap-and-hold the group’s name and click on “Ringing tone“. Select the desired sound and you’ll be notified differently when someone special calls.
15. Set your phone to ring only when contacts from a group is calling. This tip is probably one of the most neglected things in Symbian, and I’m about to change that! Imagine this: you want to take a day nap, but you’re expecting an important call from a certain person. You cannot turn off your phone, but, you also don’t want to be disturbed by some random guy/girl. There is a simple way to deal with this: create a group of the most important contacts, as shown in the tip no. 9. Now, go to “Settings -> Profiles“, and click on some profile you want to modify. Click “Personalize” and scroll down till you get to “Alert for“.
Select the desired group in the next screen, and your phone will only ring if someone important calls!
16. Access your Dropbox via phone! This absolutely lovely tip isn’t actually mine, so you can read the how-to here. Thanks to Michael Hell for this one!
17. Call several people at once. If you’ve missed tip no. 38 from the Top 67 Nokia N8 tips and tricks, read it, and activate call waiting. This tip is really useful if you need to speak simultaneously to several people (up to six!). Here’s how you do it. Call the first person regularly. When she/he answers, ask her/him to be patient and press the “Contacts” icon. You can alternatively use the dialer, by pressing the button with the same name.
Find the second person you want to call and press hers/his name, followed by the pressing of “Voice call“.
If you’ve managed to do this correctly, 1st person will be on the hold, and you will be talking only to the second one!
In order to put the first person back into the call, just press the “Conference call” button. Now, you will be talking with both persons at the same time. You can repeat this until you get to 6 persons.
18. Use LED flash as a torch. E7 (as well as C7 and C6-01) have a handy illuminating feature hidden – just pull and hold the lock/unlock key for 3 seconds, and dual LED flash will produce impressive amount of light. to turn it off, pull and hold the same button for the same period of time.
19. Use voice dialing. In order to call someone by saying their name, you need to activate this feature by long-pressing the call key and pressing “Activate”. After that, hold the call key and say the name of the contact you wish to call.
20. Set up speed dialing. You can call up to 8 of your contacts using the digit keys in a particular way. In order to set this up, go to “Settings -> Calling” and then select “Speed dialing“.
Tap on any number you like, and assign it to the desired contact. Now you can swiftly call someone by long-pressing of one of the digits from the dialing pad.
