A follow up to the original 10 things your Lumia Windows Phone can do, Nokia offers 10 more things you can do with your Lumia Windows Phone. Most of these “things you can do” are tips, tricks, and/or exclusive features available only on Nokia Lumia Windows Phones. With that said, you can find the full list from Nokia right below.
1. Easily input .net, or .org into a URL window
In Internet Explorer, there’s a handy .com button in the lower right to easily enter .com when typing in a link to go to. For example, you can type Nokia and then hit the .com button to avoid the extra keystrokes. If you’re trying to access a .net or .org address, just do a long press on the .com button and the alternative choices will pop up.
2. Use your voice
If you want to use your voice to conduct commands on your Lumia, click and hold the Windows button. A prompt will come up and allow you to speak your command. I do this a lot while I’m in the car via Bluetooth. My most used one is “Call Home” when I want call my family at the house.
3. Hear a cool song? Identify it with built-in search
I love Shazam, but I haven’t had to load the app because Bing search has song identification built right in. To access it, click the search button on your phone and hit the icon that looks like a musical note. The app will search for the song and will allow you to even access the title of the track later by selecting music history.
4. Are you a stranger in a foreign land? Never need a translation dictionary
Use Translate to conduct translation services straight from your mobile. Translate can do its work via spoken word or even by taking a photo of a block of text to have it translated on screen for you. This would be very handy when traveling abroad!
5. Filter your people
By default, Windows Phone pulls in all the people from all the accounts you’ve set up and adds them to your People Hub. That’s fine in many cases, but what if, for example, you’re following a whole bunch of people on Twitter that you’d never phone or email? In that case they’re just in the way. Go to Settings->Apps->People and chose ‘filter my contact lists’ to exclude accounts that are mostly casual contacts.
6. Get back to your app with ease
If you want to switch between apps quickly and easily, press and hold the back button. A selector will appear and allow you to switch between your open applications. This can be a huge time-saver for multi-taskers like me.
7. Focus your image
Sometimes when you’re shooting a photo or video, you want to focus on a specific aspect – such as an individual or mountain in a landscape photo. To do this on your Lumia, while in the camera application, put your finger on the subject you wish to focus on, the aut0-focus will key in on them and snap the photo.
8. Control your music volume with ease
If you’re listening to tunes on your Lumia phone, and you want to crank up (or down) the volume on your music, you can easily use the volume up/down buttons, even if your phone is locked and the screen is black. Give it a shot…and rock on.
9. Tag your friends in photos and upload to Facebook, the easy way
On any photo you take with your phone, if you want to tag friends and then upload to Facebook, use these easy steps. In the photo, click Share to Facebook, then add a tag using the button on the button to “Add Tags”, the upload..and you’re done!
10. Find hot spots around you
We’ve all been in the situation either while on holiday or just bored, where you want to know what places are around you and which are worth your time. There’s a cool feature to check out in Nokia Maps – after loading the app and in the main Map view, click on the Places button which is in the bottom center of the screen. Instantly, you can see popular places around you.
You can go a step further and click the down arrow and see the explore tiles for even more options.
Feel free to comment any tips and tricks you have discovered that Lumia Windows Phone users may not know yet!
so you talked about the lumia being able to use volume control while its locked, but mine does not control volume while screen is black. maybe im doing something wrong can you help me out
It clearly states you can only change volume when your screen is off if you are listening to music.
Sorry, volume control does NOT work if the phone is locked and the screen is black. Give it a shot…and be disappointed. Love the phone, but hate that this feature does not work like on the Samsung Focus.
Very strange, I did try it on my Samsung Focus and it does work. That’s a shame indeed.
Clicking on the musical note in bing? Not on my Lumia 800. Am I missing an update?
You may just be missing an update. If I recall correctly, the Bing Music search function was added with Windows Phone “Mango”.