How to see SIM contacts on a Samsung Galaxy S2

Although many people currently using Android phones such as the Samsung Galaxy S2 will have most of their contacts synced via either Gmail or Facebook (or even Skype)
some people may still have numbers on their SIM card that they want to access on their phone. This guide should show you how to make the contacts from your SIM card appear in your contacts list.

Firstly you need to open your contacts list so press "Contacts" on your phone (by default it will be at the bottom of your screen along with the other "Dock" icons). After opening your contacts you will need to press the phones "Menu" button which should open up 6 options for you to select from. From these options select "More" (which is the one in the bottom right corner).

After clicking "More" you will see a long list of options popping up on your screen. From these new options you need to select on "Display options" which will be near the bottom of the screen (as you can see in the image on the right). 

After clicking on "Display options" you will be greeted by yet another menu on a whole new screen. This time the menu will be
split into 2 separate parts with the the first (top) part being 
"Display options" and the second being "Select contacts to display". You want to scroll down to the second option and then click where the screen says "SIM" (see the picture on the left if you need any help).

After clicking on "SIM" you will notice a new tick box appears along with the option of "All contacts". If you click on the box and tick it then click on "Done" at the bottom of the screen the SIM contacts will become visible on the contacts list of your phone!

Whilst this maybe fantastic if you have an old SIM card and you want to add numbers that you haven't got in other ways it can pose one or two issues of it's own. Mainly that it can replicate numbers that you may have via other means (I.e. You may have the same contacts on Facebook or on your Gmail account) so you may wish to merge those contacts into 1. Other than some minor issues however this should work perfectly.

Note-You may need Android version 2.3.5 or above (this is untested on earlier versions).

How to search your Samsung Galaxy S2 for other things like music

 By now we know how to access the search feature on the Samsung Galaxy S2 by holding the menu button and we also know how to do voice searches on the phone but did you know the phone can search for things that aren't just via google, things such as messages, music or contacts?

Firstly we start at the search screen which you can see to the right here, on this screen
you need to click on the small google logo and you'll see a small menu allowing you to search through different things (see the screenshot to the left). As you can see in the screen shot there is a little grey icon above the empty space (directly below the voice search icon), pressing this opens a world of options (see the screen shot to the right) listed as "Searchable items".

 From the list of searchable items you need to click in the check boxes for the ones you want to add to google, web and apps (or which ever other defaults ones you may have). This for example allows you to add things like music to your search areas.





Now when you press on the google icon you will be able to select these different searchable items, which makes finding things like the track you want to hear or the message you want to find an absolute breeze compared to scrolling through them to find it.

As we can see in the screen shot to the right however, having a popular term searched for on the phone may actually not make life easy. Instead of searching for "Buckley" maybe I should of searched for "Jeff Buckley Grace". But you see the idea well in this image of just how effective and easy this is.

How to turn on 5.1 sound on a Samsung Galaxy S2

 If you've been using you're Samsung Galaxy S2 as an MP3 player and using the default music application you may well have see the small "5.1 ch" option towards the top left of the screen. If you've been a little bit curios odds are you've decided, at some point, to click it and been met with the message you can see on the screen shot to the right:
"5.1 channel can only be activated when sounds effects are off"

If like me you like to tinker about you'll almost certainly have clicked on the menu button and clicked settings then made sure you put "Sound effects" on normal. Then you've gone back and clicked the 5.1 option....and seen the same message ago.

 If you now click on "Menu" and then "Settings" what you now need to do is also make sure "Equaliser" is ALSO set to Normal. Make sure your settings screen looks like the screenshot to the left in regards to the top 2 options (Note: Visualisation can be left unchecked). When you've set things like this press the "back" button on the phone.

If you now press on the 5.1 button you will see it lights up.and you'll have your headphones providing you with 5.1 dolby surround sound technology giving a very different feel to your music the really adds something.



Note: 5.1 is only available when using headphones as he phone speakers cannot provider the correct channel. Pressing the option with out headphones being connected will see a message appear on the screen telling you that headphones are needed for 5.1 playback.