Notes Android - How To Conserve Mobile Data

This note applies to Android mobile phones, smartphones, tablets, phablets. Other non-Android devices may have something similar.


Check and limit your data usage
- tap Settings - Data usage.
From this screen you can do many things like:
- Mobile Data - can switch this off.
- Set mobile data limit - check this option to enable the following settings:
--- Data usage cycle - use this to define your own cycle to correspond to your billing cycle.
--- Set your own Warning and Limit of how much data you can use.
--- Restrict using Mobile data for individuals apps.

Use wifi where possible, especially when downloading apps, upgrading apps, listening to music, watching YouTube and any other data intensive tasks.

Reducing data usage when doing the internet. For example some browsers compresses html data, images and uses proxy servers.
- In opera Mobile Browser, choose the Off-Road mode.
- In Chrome Browser, goto Settings, Bandwidth Management, Reduce Data Usage.

Music players like Spotify, lets you choose a lower streaming rate or use offline playlist.

Android apps can disable syncing while Play Store apps can be chosen to not update automatically.

Notes Android - How to handwrite / take notes in Chinese

This instruction is written based on experience using the following phablet:
- Sony Xperia Z Ultra
- Android 4.3
However, the instructions may also work for similar Android smartphones.

This note will show how to use the phablet to take notes in:
English - via keyboard,
English - via hand write
Chinese - via keyboard
Chinese - via hand write

Prerequisite apps:
Google Keep - this is a note taking app which is quite flexible. Users may choose other editors.

Change Language Settings:
- Go to Settings on Android.
- Under Personal, tap "Language & Input"
- Under "Keyboard & Input Methods", tap Default
- A window pops up with the following choices.
----- For international Xperia keyboard
----- Xperia Chinese Keyboard (Choose this if you want Chinese)
----- International Keyboard   (Default, for English)

Using English Keyboard or Handwrite
- Open up Google Keep or another notepad-like editor app.
- Start writing the note and activate the keyboard.
- WARNING: to write in English, the "Xperia Chinese Keyboard" also has an English option but don't use this. Instead, for English, choose "International Keyboard" in the Language settings section above.
- Look at the keys at the botton row, and find the key marked "EN" for English or "CN" for Chinese.
- Toggle this buttion to get "EN" for English, if it is not EN already.
- Tap and hold the EN key for a few seconds, to switch between Keyboard mode or hand-writing mode.

Using Chinese Keyboard or Handwrite
- Open up Google Keep or another notepad-like editor app.
- Start writing the note and activate the keyboard.
- WARNING: to write in Chinese, the "Xperia Chinese Keyboard" must be chosen in the Language settings section above.
- Look at the keys at the botton row, and find the key marked "EN" for English or "CN" for Chinese.
- Toggle this buttion to get "CN" for Chinese, if it is not CN already.
- Tap and hold the CN key for a few seconds, to switch between Keyboard mode or hand-writing mode. The options given could be "Stroke", "Handwriting", "Pinyin".

Tricky important note is that, once in a chosen language already, changing from stroke to hand-writing requires tapping and holding on the language button, eg "EN". Different models may have different option names for handwriting or using keyboard.