Factory Reset--Newbie

[ptkelly]

I am new to cellphones. I have a Nexus 5 and got my Android 5 yesterday morning. I downloaded and installed. I had a variety of problems, one being no email, and it seemed, well, not good. I wasn't sure what backup and restore actually does. I wasn't sure a couple of my apps that were paid for would restore.

This morning I just went ahead and did a factory restore. It took about an hour. All the apps I'd paid for restored. My contacts transferred and as far as I can tell only one is missing and I have no idea why.

Android 5 seems to run better and is cleaner with a factory restore. If you're having problems you might want to consider it. Some of the people here who know more than I do, which would be just about everyone, have recommended a factory restore and, for me, it was good advice.

 

[Golfdriver97]

The reason a reset often helps is because you made a major change to the OS. Usually, a reset is recommended so that the Framework behind the OS can rebuild itself.

As for the contact error, it might have been an error in the syncing.

 

[ptkelly]

thanks

 

[checkmate]

Was it a reset via the 'Settings' menu or by holding Power and Volume Up when restarting the phone? which is better?

 

[Jtmorris]

Was it a reset via the 'Settings' menu or by holding Power and Volume Up when restarting the phone? which is better?

The former just reboots the phone like if you turned it off and then back on again. A factory data reset wipes your phone and makes it like new out of the box. The above posts are referring to the latter - a factory data reset through settings menu. This is good to do after a big update like this. I used Helium backup to keep a few apps and data that I wanted - easy and worked great.