Backup phone for a replacement phone.

alarsen77

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Hi guys. My S7 edge has been having some issues with 4g connectivity so verizon is sending me a replacement. This is my first replacement situation with an android phone. I am coming from apple and the iCloud backup was nice as it was a perfect clone of the phone and you didn't even know you changed phones when you were done restoring from the backup. What is going to be my easiest way to do that with my S7 edge? Will samsung smart switch do this? I get very used to icon layouts and settings and such and hate having to spend hours if not days getting the phone setup the way I had it before.
 

alarsen77

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This might help. I transferred mine from a Note 5 to the S7 Edge and it worked perfectly... just can't remember if it includes apps or if, like it's the usual 'Google' way, you'll just be prompted to download everything again (not perfect, but then again, clean installs are usually better).

How to use Samsung Smart Switch to backup your Galaxy phone | Android Central

The apps I can be ok without some. What I am going to do is take a screeenshot of my app layout on home screen and also the app drawer pages and then decide what I want to keep and what I don't. I just want to try to keep all my pictures in the same order all my settings the same. I have all my pictures actually transferred to my SD card so that should hopefully take care of the order thing since I will just put the SD card in the new phone and they should show up the same as they did on this phone? Text messages are another thing I want to be able to transfer over too. Will smart switch transfer just the texts or will it transfer the MMS messages too?
 

SpookDroid

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Oh, in that case yeah, Smart Switch will do just that. Settings, layout (as long as you stick to TouchWiz), SMS/MMS, pictures... you're good to go.

If you're using a different launcher, then you'd have to use said launcher's back up option (if available) to restore your layout on the new device.
 

alarsen77

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Oh, in that case yeah, Smart Switch will do just that. Settings, layout (as long as you stick to TouchWiz), SMS/MMS, pictures... you're good to go.

If you're using a different launcher, then you'd have to use said launcher's back up option (if available) to restore your layout on the new device.

I am not using a different launcher but I do have a theme installed from the theme store.
 

alarsen77

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this whole situation has been a nightmare. verizon said they would be replacing the phone with a new phone and not a refurb and now I see it is a certified like new which I am not happy about as I take very good care of my devices and don't leave them plugged in all the time to help with the health of the battery and now I am going to get a device someone else has used but has been checked out and certified pre owned. Not sure I am too happy about that as my phone is only 2 months old and the issue started and was documented a month ago. I guess I will just have to wait and see what I get and how it looks and operates.
 

SpookDroid

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Unfortunately that's how many warranty replacements work :( Not ideal, for sure!

As for the themes, I'm not sure if you'll get those as I didn't have themes on my Note 5, but I do recall someone saying they had to go into the Theme store and restore the themes they had purchased/downloaded (not sure, however, if said poster used Smart Switch or just switched phones).
 

alarsen77

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Unfortunately that's how many warranty replacements work :( Not ideal, for sure!

As for the themes, I'm not sure if you'll get those as I didn't have themes on my Note 5, but I do recall someone saying they had to go into the Theme store and restore the themes they had purchased/downloaded (not sure, however, if said poster used Smart Switch or just switched phones).

Alright I will have to see how it works out with the themes. And yeah it's not ideal at all. I am hoping I don't have any battery life issues with the new phone and it doesn't have any blemishes on it. I am very particular with my devices.
 

osubass1

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this whole situation has been a nightmare. verizon said they would be replacing the phone with a new phone and not a refurb and now I see it is a certified like new which I am not happy about as I take very good care of my devices and don't leave them plugged in all the time to help with the health of the battery and now I am going to get a device someone else has used but has been checked out and certified pre owned. Not sure I am too happy about that as my phone is only 2 months old and the issue started and was documented a month ago. I guess I will just have to wait and see what I get and how it looks and operates.

most warranty replacements work this way. it's part of the terms you agreed to when you opened the box. that aside, it doesn't mean that it is a phone someone else has used.

i worked for a very large hard drive manufacturer. any warranty replacements sent from our repair facility were required to be marked as certified as new even though many of them actually were new. i'm not sure where the requirement came from, but i know it was something we had to do. so, while there is a possibility it may be a pre owned, that's not necessarily a mathematical certainty.
 

tonyr6

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Most pre-owned junk is more defective then the defective product they replaced. The only pre-owned products I trust are from Apple because just about everything including cosmetic is new except for a few inside components and yes the battery is new too.
 

alarsen77

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Most pre-owned junk is more defective then the defective product they replaced. The only pre-owned products I trust are from Apple because just about everything including cosmetic is new except for a few inside components and yes the battery is new too.

That is why I was so upset when Verizon told me I was going to get a new phone and then I see that it is certified like new and not new. That was a long argument with Verizon that led no where other than there is nothing they can do for me. I got some bill credits but nothing they can do to get me a new phone. I will have to see how this phone is when I get it and go from there. If this one has problems too then I will cause an even bigger issue out of it. But I am going to give it a shot. The new phone should be here tomorrow.
 

alarsen77

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Good luck! I hope there are no issues with that one.

Well the new phone arrived today and it too is defective. The display right up by where the battery percentage is has a little half circle black spot coming from the top of the phone where the display is dead. So called verizon and they are now overnighting a new phone to me for saturday delivery to be here tomorrow. Let's hope this one comes in good condition.
 

alarsen77

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Well my second replacement got here saturday and this one is free of defects now we will just wait and see if I still have the 4g connectivity issue again.


I do have a question though. I used smart switch to transfer everything over and it even transferred my messages which worked great. But my text conversation with my gf is very long and hasn't been deleted in a while and I don't like to delete it. And now that conversation when I open it takes a second to load instead of being instant like before. Why is that? It's the same amount of messages that the old phone was loading why is this one taking forever to do it, and is there a way to fix it?

I keep getting a message saying unfortunately messages has stopped. I have already cleared the cache for messages and wiped the cache partition on the phone as well. What else can I do to make sure it is seeing these messages the way the old phone was?
 

SpookDroid

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It shouldn't take that long, and I honestly don't know what else you could do other than maybe resetting the data and re-syncing messages, just not sure if you still have the old phone to do that or not.
 

alarsen77

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It shouldn't take that long, and I honestly don't know what else you could do other than maybe resetting the data and re-syncing messages, just not sure if you still have the old phone to do that or not.

I cleared the cache and data on the messages app and force stopped it and deleted a few thousand messages from the conversation thread with my gf and it is better now. It's just that her conversation since it has to load so many messages will pop up to a black screen when I hit it and then a second or two later the messages show up. But I would also get the unfortunately messages has stopped after closing out of messages. So I will wait and see if clearing the data and cache helps. Last time I just cleared the cache not data.
 

alarsen77

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Just remember to have a backup somewhere else! I'm not sure if clearing data will also clear all your messages!

I had them backed up. It didn't clear all the messages just the messages application data such as settings and stuff. So far no more issues with the unfortunately messages has stopped.