Question How to connect USB to pc?

[zif835]

Hi, noob user here. A few weeks back I bought a ZTE Blade A52 Pro because my provider is closing down the 3G network and so I was forced to get a new phone. This is my first smartphone and I am totally, absolutely, completely clueless.

I downloaded the manual, but half the things it talks about either don't work or are not even there. It's all incredibly frustrating. Perhaps I'm too stupid, but I have no choice - I need to learn this stuff.

I don't have a google account nor do I want one, so everything I do has to work without the account. At this stage I'm not interested in apps, email, internet or the camera - they can be worked out later.

So far I've worked out how to turn it on and off, and how to reboot. I've had to reboot several times after getting stuck in some menu or screen. The screen turns off after 5 seconds and when I press the power button to turn it back on I'm back at the start, forcing me to have to navigate back to where I was.

I've worked out how to make a call, but not how to receive one. I've worked out how to read a SMS but not how to send one.

Now, someone sent me a photo via SMS and I want to save the photo onto my Windows 7 PC. According to the manual, simply plugging in the USB cable should cause a menu to pop up on the phone but apart from charging the battery, nothing happens. The PC doesn't do anything at all. I know it works because a friend visited a week ago and he showed that it does work, but I simply cannot get anything to happen. I searched online and asked other people, but all the responses refer to things that just aren't there.

I'm hoping that someone here could help me out.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! You might want to take a look at my old guide -- it's pretty old, but a lot of the basic principles are unchanged: https://forums.androidcentral.com/t...-with-android-updated-2016-for-nougat.399060/

When you connect the phone to your PC, swipe down from the top of the phone's screen to bring down the notification panel. Do you see a notification for the USB? Tap that and look for an option for "File Transfer" (it might be called "MTP") -- tap that, and then look in your Windows File Explorer. The phone should appear in the device list.

But before you can copy the photo over, you have to download the photo to your phone's storage first. Look for a Download or Save option for the photo in your Messages app -- when you download it, it should show up in the directory on your phone called "/Download" (although some phones, it might be /Pictures/Message). Once the photo is downloaded to your phone, you can use Windows File Explorer to drag and drop it to your PC.

You can generally use an Android phone without setting up a Google account, but that may make things a lot more inconvenient. When the phone asks you to enter a Google account during setup, do you see an option to skip that step?

 

[Mooncatt]

If you are still in the return window, I would ask your carrier if they offer feature phones. The name is counterintuitive because these are going to be more bare bones non-smart (sometimes referred to as dumb phones) phones, and are probably like what you use to have. Not everyone wants a smartphone, and feature phones are still produced for that reason. You can get them compatible with modern networks. You may have to pay a restocking fee, but may be worth it in the long term if Android is frustrating you and you prefer something more like what you had. I suspect the sales clerk tried to push you into a smartphone because they are a lot more profitable for the carrier, not actually paying attention to what you really want.

If you do want to give it time and try to learn it, you have a lot of enthusiast here willing to help, but I think you'll be better off learning from guides like what B.Diddy posted or getting one on one help from a friend or even the carrier on getting introduced to Android. Once you learn the basics, a lot of it becomes fairly intuitive. Asking questions here is fine, but asking how to do everything right off the bat is going to present you with a ton of info in a disorganized fashion as others chime in with their 2 cents about different aspects. That's why I think people in your position are going to be better off learning from self help guides that are written cohesively, or getting a one on one intro from someone in person.

Since you did say you don't want a Google account, pay special attention to what B.Diddy Said about it making things more inconvenient. Let's say you would prefer to use Yahoo for email. To download the Yahoo email app securely, you'll need to access the Google Play store, which requires a Gmail account and being logged in. The benefit there is it provides you an official source for apps, and also regularly scans itself to keep malicious apps out. Without a Gmail account, you'll have to download the app from other sources, which can put you at higher risk of installing hacked apps that infect you with malware. Some sites are more reputable than others, but I simply avoid them all. Sometimes you can get an app direct from the company/developer, which is generally safe. If you want to go the route of no Gmail account, then make sure to read up on how to do it with minimal impact. There are guides out there to de-Google the phone.

 

[zif835]

I tried a feature phone before making the purchase but I decided I needed to get up to speed with current technology. After all, millions of people know what to do, how hard can it be? However, it's a steep learning curve but I'm determined to get there... one day.

Now, I just plugged the phone into the computer again, the phone buzzed, but nothing else happened.

I scrolled down as suggested, there's a bunch of things, but none say USB. It says:
Wifi, Bluetooth, Ring, Torch, Location, Flight Mode, Mobile data, Quick Share. There's a slider above that changes the brightness. And the usual little bunch of tiny icons along the top.

I'll look at that guide and see if it offers any insight. Also, if you have any more things to try.

 

[zif835]

Finally got the right advice from someone, and I can browse the phone's memory from my PC.

When the cable is plugged in, it makes a teeny little line of text saying it's charging. Tapping that tells me to swipe up. When I did that, the menu I was after appeared, where I could choose File Transfer. Then finally the computer could install the driver and see the files.

However the photo in the sms wasn't there, it seems I need to save it somehow from the sms into memory that the pc can see. Online help didn't work as usual, so that still needs to be worked out.

I was able to change the time to 24-hour format. I tried changing the screen timeout to 10 minutes, but it still goes off after 5 seconds. I turned off the screensaver, but it still goes off.

 

[B. Diddy]

Ok, you're making progress. As I mentioned previously, in order to copy the photo from your messaging app to the PC, you have to download/save the photo to the phone's storage first, after which you should be able to see it in Windows File Explorer, where you can drag and drop it from the phone to your PC. The steps for downloading/saving a photo from your messaging app can depend on which app you're using -- different apps can have different menu options. If you're using Google's Messages app, tap the photo once, then tap the Download icon at the lower left. The photo gets saved to the /Pictures/Messages directory (not the Download directory).