Pixel 3 OOBE - Beware!

CD Hill

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Dec 1, 2012
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:eek: Read this and save yourself an hour of headache with your new Pixel 3:

Pixel 3 arrived today (White, 128 Gb) and the Out of Box Experience was a great disappointment. Last year, I ordered the new Pixel 2 and returned during the 2-week return window because it would not work with my trusty Plantronics Voyager BT headset that works with everything (else). Google had no idea what the issue was and I think they never resolved BT connectivity for many headsets. So I was excited to order the P3 and looking forward to erasing the bad taste.

The instructions say move the SIM card, plug the phones together and transfer everything. What the instructions do NOT say is that this method ONLY works if the OLD phone is also running Android 9 Pie. We are talking DATA transfer. What happens is that you go through the setup steps as instructed on the new P3, then ... nothing happens. The old phone requests permission to transfer data, then says "Preparing..." forever. After 15 minutes, I tried a different cable, ultimately trying 4 cables, both with and without the included P3 USB adapter, all with the same result.

I contacted support, having paid for that when I ordered the phone. After about 15 minutes, I learned that the cable method only works if you have Pie on the old phone. Other than a handful of Pixel users, NOBODY will have Pie on their old device. You would think that a cutting edge software giant could program the P3 to give an alert, "Hey, you have Oreo on your old phone, so ditch the cable."

Google support suggested that I simply update my old phone to Pie! Who trains these guys? Verizon - and probably everybody else - don't even have Pie updates available for my phone (LG G6) nor for most other phones. Plan B - backup everything to Google Drive and then download to the new phone. I use Verizon Cloud to back up my texts and calls - Google already has enough info about me - so they didn't download.

Next step: call Verizon support. I pay for VZW Cloud storage, so it should be easy to download everything to my P3, right? It took an hour for then to get us there - although the support folks were awesome.

Not quite like upgrading to a new iPhone: insert SIM, download from iCloud and your new phone instantly looks like your old phone. But then, it's an iPhone and you can't really customize it.

So BEWARE: unless your old phone is running Pie, don't waste time trying to follow the Google instructions.

I am still downloading VZW backups, so have no idea yet what it is like to use the phone.
 

jephanie

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Nov 11, 2011
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I'm on Verizon. I switched from the 2 XL to the 3 XL. I powered down the 2 XL and moved the SIM card. Then I powered up both phones. When I got to the prompt, I plugged both in together with the USB-C-to-USB-C cable. It moved everything over flawlessly. No hiccups. No problems. Nothing. It was seamless and pretty darn quick.

My question would be why would your Pixel 2 still be on Oreo? I don't know why that would have caused an issue but why weren't you on Pie?

Side note: I did the same procedure and moved my wife from her Pixel XL to my Pixel 2 XL and it was as smooth, fast and seamless as my migration.
 

Theot

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I'm on Verizon. I switched from the 2 XL to the 3 XL. I powered down the 2 XL and moved the SIM card. Then I powered up both phones. When I got to the prompt, I plugged both in together with the USB-C-to-USB-C cable. It moved everything over flawlessly. No hiccups. No problems. Nothing. It was seamless and pretty darn quick.

My question would be why would your Pixel 2 still be on Oreo? I don't know why that would have caused an issue but why weren't you on Pie?

Side note: I did the same procedure and moved my wife from her Pixel XL to my Pixel 2 XL and it was as smooth, fast and seamless as my migration.
No no, he returned they Pixel 2 last year, this was an LG G6.

My question is what did you need to transfer just texts and call logs? Theres a great app that does this called smabackup that is free and you can backup where ever, cloud or locally. Stop paying Verizon for cloud storage. When I do a factory reset or switch phones I don't keep that stuff anyway. I don't get why people do. I've never gone back through old SMS messages. If it's important information I save it somewhere.
 

anon(1733)

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This exactly is what I do. For important messages I save them somewhere by screen shot or something. I have no need to keep messages forever. I have to many messages anyway to keep.
No no, he returned they Pixel 2 last year, this was an LG G6.

My question is what did you need to transfer just texts and call logs? Theres a great app that does this called smabackup that is free and you can backup where ever, cloud or locally. Stop paying Verizon for cloud storage. When I do a factory reset or switch phones I don't keep that stuff anyway. I don't get why people do. I've never gone back through old SMS messages. If it's important information I save it somewhere.
 

detmek

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Ah, you are right. I used this app a few months ago but it was to transfer data from Huawei to Samsung phone, not vise versa. Sorry, my mistake.
 

klau25

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Dec 15, 2009
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This doesn't make sense sense that only Android Pie phone can transfer data to the Pixel. Isn't one of the thing Google advistised is getting your IPhone data to Pixel? That's why there's a Type C to USB adapter in the box. Here's the link to Google on how to transfer data from any Android phone to Pixel. It doesn't say you have to have Pie. They also have instructions on transferring data from Blackberrys and iPhone.

https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/7129955?hl=en&ref_topic=7084200
 

ndonnine

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Yeah.. Their website says you can do it with older android - and it includes instructions on the website on how to do that.

If I remember correctly, OTA google transfer works with texts and emails. At least it did when i switched from pixel 2 to pixel 2 xl
 

CD Hill

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Dec 1, 2012
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Wow, interesting responses. Typically, I have purchased my Android phones from Verizon but I don't like the branding - it takes longer to start, brands me as an American (logo printed on case and onscreen at start) and when traveling I use foreign SIM cards, so I get to watch my phone chide me that my SIM card is not from Verizon. So I purchased the unlocked phone from Google (delivered from Ingram Micro 30 miles away). I wonder if the VZW branded phones do allow transfer from Oreo to P3? And, yes, I did read the Google web support info, which apparently has not even been updated for the P3. On the plus side, my callback from Google took just one minute.
 

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