About to buy S4, new to Android

[DoberNole]

Hi all!

I have had the iPhone 4 since it came out, and that is my only experience with smartphones. I am ready for something new, and it won't be the iPhone 5. After going to AT&T and playing with the S4 and One, I decided that the S4 is what I want...I can't really explain why, just a gut feeling.

So now that I have that decision out of the way, I am facing another issue: 16 or 32 GB? Initially, I figured I would spring for the 32 because I know I will not need more than that ever, but I will probably need additional storage with the 16 GB. I will mostly be using my phone for pictures, music, and customization. I'm not a big gamer, but there are probably 15...maybe 20 apps that I use regularly. I am currently maxing out the internal storage on my 16 GB iPhone 4, as well as the 5 GB of cloud storage Apple gave me. But that is really only because I have over 1000 pics on my phone right now...which I know is stupid and not safe.
With that said, I would assume that the 16 GB will not be enough on its own, but the 32 GB will be, and I would likely never have to buy an sd card. Regardless, if I were to buy the 16 GB, is there a way to make pictures and music automatically save onto the sd card instead of the internal storage? Or, alternatively, is there a cloud service that could automatically save my pics and music? I don't want to have to manually do that every time I take a picture. Seems like it would be a pain. If any of that is possible, I will be more inclined to go with the 16. Any insight?

Also, what is the easiest way to get my contacts, emails, and music onto my new phone?

Sorry for all of the questions! I just want to make the right decision and make my transition from iOS to Android as smooth as possible
Thanks for the help.
Oh and GO 'NOLES!

 

[skiner5246]

Hi Dober, and welcome. Good choice on phones by the way! (that seems to be the hardest descision!) There are many threads here that will answer your concerns. And I am confidant that my fellow community members will chime in and offer you great advice. I personally have learned alot from these folks, so I'm confidant that you're at the right place here!!

In short, from what I hear that your needs are, I'd suggest the 16GB version. First and formost, the S4 cannot save applications to the SD card unfortunately. And if you were to upgrade to the 32GB from the 16GB version, the cost differential would be $50. You COULD just buy a 16GB or 32GB SD card and save some money and capture more storage for yourself at the same time. (You Win) Yes, Google play for example, can store all of your music and pictures within the cloud automatically. (and it's free) Another one would be dropbox. The free version ofers only 2GB however it automatically links all your devices and does a good job as well.
Comming from an i-phone, you probably have itunes. I would not recommend the Samsung Keis transfer app to sync your music, but an application like Easy-phone sync. or (even better) I-Sncr from google play will do this perfectly. And the other benefit to getting a SD card is that you can choose where to save your media. Either on-board the phone or to the SD card directly.

And for e-mails, Get a google account. IMO it's the easiest way to get everything togeather. You'll start this process when initially setting up the phone, takes like 2 minutes.
-Cheers and good luck.

 

[garublador]

Regardless, if I were to buy the 16 GB, is there a way to make pictures and music automatically save onto the sd card instead of the internal storage?

Pictures: yes. You can have all of them saved to an SD card with no problem.

Music: maybe. If you use something like iSyncr or DoubleTwist to put your iTunes music on you S4 (remember you'll have to get the DRM off any iTunes purchases from before April, 2009) you can specifiy the SD card. If you migrate to a cloud player like the Google Play Music app you'll be able to stream music, but you might not (and currently can't with the Google one) be able to store cloud music on the SD card for listening when you don't have a data connection, or don't want to use your data plan to listen to music. You have to save it to internal memory.

Or, alternatively, is there a cloud service that could automatically save my pics and music? I don't want to have to manually do that every time I take a picture. Seems like it would be a pain. If any of that is possible, I will be more inclined to go with the 16. Any insight?

I use Dropbox for that. It automatically uploads new pictures from my phone to the cloud when I'm connected to WiFi. It does not automatically delete them from my phone, though. Google Drive just upped to 15GB free storage and while I'm not sure how their app works for automatic uploading, I know you can find other apps that will do that for you, including deleting them from your phone, IIRC.

Long story short: pictures are not an issue. You can save them to the SD card and there are several options for cloud storage. Music may or may not be an issue depending on how you decide you wan to store it. If you're OK synching from iTunes (which can be done automatically when you're on WiFi) then the SD card will work for storage. If you use a different cloud music manager you'll have to see if they allow storing to the SD card or not.

Just get your contacts into Google. If they're on iTunes I believe that's really easy to do and a quick Google search will show you how. It's worth running Google's "Find and merge contacts..." option once you do that. Once your contacts are there you can synch that with your phone, which will probably be done when you set up your phone for the first time.

I'm not sure if there's anything special done with email on the iPhone, but AFAIK you can use the Android Email app to recognize most, if not all, major, fee email services. You may have to be more specific about what email service you're using now if you want a better answer.

 

[DoberNole]

Thanks for the help guys! One of my emails is actually gmail (my other is university email through outlook), so that makes things easier! Can't wait to get my new phone, thanks again