Woke up to sound of rain falling and the bedroom window blinds swaying as the wind blew through the pull closed but not locked shut windows. Open the blinds to the grey cloud did nothing to improve the image that I saw. Earlier in the week I had succumb to ordering a new phone (my old phone being 6 years old), in fact I had ordered two as the wife phone was the same age as mine and hers was becoming unreliable.
Before we get into the new phone, I have to say a few words about our old phones, Samsung S6 they have worked perfectly since the day one, I have dropped mine on to carpeted floor, concrete floor and even a bucket of water and it has still continued to work. The only issue I had was an upgrade to the operating system would not install, the phone was under warranty and lucky enough there was a Samsung repair shop in town, took it in came back couple hours later all fixed. The phone was kitted out with a front and rear screen protectors (the back being made of glass) and then wrapped in a plastic like case. I have never broken a phone screen (not even when I hurled my Nokia across the room, long story don’t ask). Been very happy with the phone but now the battery barely lasts the day without needing a recharge, it is no longer undated by Samsung as it is deemed to old, newer version of some apps are not available due to it s age so the time had come for for a new phone.
The hard bit was which phone, well it definitely was not going to be a iPhone, I really dislike anything by Apple, over rated and overpriced. I really wanted to stay with Samsung as the S6 had lasted well and previous to that the S4 I had faired well as well. But the cost of the phones are seriously scary any where between £25 to £52 per month dependant on the version and price plan for the Galaxy S21 and that does not include the folding versions, last years S20 were only marginally cheaper. I did look at the Huawei and Xiaomi phones but there was always a little bit of doubt in my mind (even though my son has a Huawei P30 and has had no issue with his phone). While looking around we came across details of the Samsung A52s 5G, the phone got good reviews in many of the phone sites including like
GSM ArenaThat site is a great site for comparing phones, the wife used to work in mobile phone support and it was companies go to web site when they need to check phone details. The A52 was ticking all the boxes for me, I am not a heavy user of a phone, mine is used more for work providing secure access code via various apps, the wife is normally messaging or phoning certainly more than I do but again is not a heavy user so for her the the A52 was ticking the boxes. I opted for a G5 version not so much for today but in years to come when there a lot larger network of G5, and G4 is extinct. So we then started looking at the price, where we live we are limited to just one mobile phone network, so that made things slight easier as we only had compare one carrier against buying outright. We opted to buy outright, we make slight saving as opposed to buy from the provider under there two year contract, only time will tell if that was a good idea or not.
back to Saturday morning
The phones arrived earlier in the week and were left till the weekend to be setup, I put mine on charge on Friday night ready to be done sometime over the weekend, a wet Saturday morning was that time. I got my first mobile in 1995 and the art of moving all those text, contact details, photos etc. from one phone to another has always been a bumpy road, the wife managed to corrupt two Samsung flips phones before Orange realised that the exported data from a different phone could not be imported into the Samsung. I can’t comment on other phone manufacturers but Samsung have a program called Samsung Smart Switch, this allows you take a backup of your old mobile phone (this is something you should do regularly to your mobile phone so that if you loose, damage or it is stolen you can restore the data back to the replacement phone and limit the loss of personal data) and then you can restore it to your new phone. You install on your Windows 10 PC\Laptop then connect your phone to the laptop via the USB lead. Once backed up I made a note of the apps I wanted to install on the new phone (I know they are on the backup, but I am old school, things go wrong), then removed the sim from the old phone and then inserted it the new phone and turned it on. Next came a dozen prompt screen asking for language, Wifi, email, google account details along with many others. I normally setup the least amount of things I can at this stage, I just want to get the phone to the point where it is ready to use and avoid adding the rubbish they often push on you at this stage of the setup, then I will take my time adding accounts and other apps to the phone when I am ready, there normally is an Android update to install as well. I connected the phone up to the laptop, powered up Smart Switch and then selected to copy over contacts, videos, photos, wallpaper, ringtones etc. But for what ever reason Smart Switch decided that I wanted the apps to be restored as well, there was no way to stop so I had to let it happen. Upon rebooting everything seem to be in place I have 95% of the bits I want installed, I need to sort out ringtone, Wallpaper but things I can sit there and play with as I learn the phone. For me the whole setup took about 90 minutes, I had to do it a second time as I instructed the wife on setting hers up and she decided to select everything I did not which is why she is now sat there waiting for apps to install.
Only time will tell if the new A52 is a live up to the S6, if it does or does not I will probably post about it on here.