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When you buy an electronic device like a mobile phone these days you’ll probably find that it comes in a small box with very little paperwork inside. Usually you’ll find some kind of “getting started” or “quick start” leaflet with the bare bones of how to start using your device along with any safety or legal notices. What a lot of people don’t realise is that most manufacturers also produce user manuals for using the devices. For economic and ecological reasons they don’t often ship printed manuals these days so it’s likely that they’ll tell you to visit their website to download any other information relating to their device.
Would always recommend that you have a read of any user manual at least once, sometimes you don’t always know all the features and things your device is capable of! Even if you don’t have a use for these features right away, just knowing what you might be able to do in the future is helpful especially if your own health changes. If your device has accessibility features it will normally be outlined in the manual so this can be useful to you or a carer or professional to help set up your device in such a way that it’s easier for you to use.
Tip: phone manufacturers tend to put downloadable manuals (usually PDF files) in a section of their websites called ‘Support’, some may have a product page on their website for your device and then have links to other documents there. It usually helps if you know exactly what model of device you have, it may be a name or some seemingly cryptic combination of letters and numbers. Here are some places you might find the model
- It might be printed onto the case of your phone
- If you have the original box it came in it when you bought it it would usually be printed on there
- If you have a sales receipt from purchase it might be printed there.ย
- If you don’t remember some manufacturer websites will have pictures of their models and you can find yours that way.
Here’s a list of support sections for some of the main manufacturers. If you haven’t read yours…
Stop What You’re Doing Right Now And Go And Read Your User Manual Instead!