Despite spoiling me for choice, my job still hasn’t taken away my eagerness to unbox and play with a new Android phone. But before getting to the good part, I have to go through the tedious process of setting up and moving my data to the new device. However, if you have a reliable data backup routine in place (and with some help from Google), you should be all set with your phone in just a matter of minutes. Here is everything that you need to know about setting up a new Android phone from scratch.
Before you begin
We already have a comprehensive tutorial on various ways to back up your old phone and restore the data on the new one. But here, I’m going to touch on the things that I back up to make sure nothing important is left behind.
Android’s built-in backup tool takes care of the basics — contacts, call history, SMS, apps, and device settings — pretty well. But I also use the SMS Backup & Restore app as a failsafe for my call details and SMS. Photos and videos are as important to me, and for them, I use both Google Photos and Synology Photos. WhatsApp chats are another thing that must be moved to the new phone, so I kick off a fresh cloud backup right before making the switch.
While most mainstream apps save a copy of your data on their cloud, there are some privacy-focused apps, like my 2FA app Aegis, for which you need to take an offline backup. Before moving to a new phone, remember to keep such backup files somewhere safe, away from your old device, to be able to restore them later on. As for my music, everything is already on either Spotify or YouTube Music, so I don’t need to worry about them. But I still have to ensure that all the files on the device make it to the new phone; had Google Drive for Android supported folder syncing, I wouldn’t need to fuss over this either.
Setting up your new Android phone
The steps to set up an Android device outlined here are for a Google Pixel phone running Android 12. However, the screens may look rejigged on other phones and older Android versions, but the options themselves won’t be any different. If needed, you can go through the OEM section at the bottom for additional details on non-Google devices. With that out of the way, we can now look at the setup process:
- Booting up your phone for the first time will show you a welcome screen with options to pick your preferred language and region and some vision settings. These assistive options include basic things like font and display size, along with some more advanced tools like TalkBack and Select to Speak to help people with vision impairment.
- The phone will ask you to set up the networks on the following screens. You can insert a physical SIM card at this stage or download an eSIM (the process may vary depending on your country and carrier). Also, connect to a Wi-Fi network here to restore any backups in the next step.
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- After having a working internet connection, the phone will take you to the data restoration page. If you have your old phone handy, you can transfer your data wirelessly or using a data cable, but pulling a recent backup from Google Drive is the easiest option. Tap on Can’t use old phone? and sign in to your Gmail account. You should then see the last backup from your old phone. Tap on it, confirm your old phone’s lock screen PIN/password/pattern, and select what all you want to restore on your phone. When done, hit Restore. Visit our dedicated data transfer tutorial for a step-by-step guide.
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- While your data restores in the background, the phone will move on with the setup process. Google will next seek your permission for its various services, including backup, location history, and diagnostic data aggregation. All these are optional even though they’re enabled by default, so you can either allow only a few or turn them all off before accepting.
- In the final step, you’re suggested to add a security lock to your phone using a PIN or a password that usually accompanies your registered fingerprints as backup unlocking methods. Fingerprint + PIN is the most common combination, but it’s okay if you feel strongly for the good-old pattern lock.
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And that’s it! Your phone should be ready to use while Play Store restores and updates your apps in the background.
Google may still want you to check out some of its additional features or finish up anything left in the initial setup. You’ll get a notification to get these last few things sorted. In my case, it was my fingerprint that I didn’t set up earlier, along with the option to enable Google Assistant and other basic things like Pixel’s Now Playing, always-on display, and add another Gmail account.
Other options from OEMs
There’s a good chance that your new Android phone isn’t made by Google. For a Samsung, OnePlus, or a Xiaomi phone, you may see additional screens and options during the setup process than what you get on a Pixel. They could range from a user account for automatically signing you into the first-party apps to slyly getting you to agree to show ads on the device.
Images 1-3: Samsung One UI, 4-7: OnePlus OxygenOS, 8-9: Xiaomi MIUI
As a general rule of thumb, you can skip anything optional without worrying about it breaking something on your phone. And be wary of all the pre-checked (often promotional) options that brands like Samsung and Xiaomi may slip in (as highlighted in the included screenshots) to take advantage of your ignorance.
With Google’s robust backup mechanism, the whole process of moving to a new phone has become pretty straightforward, while Android has also gotten smart enough to do the heavy lifting in the background as you ecstatically play with your new phone. And in case you haven’t found the right Android smartphone for yourself yet, these are the best Android phones you should buy.
"Android" - Google News
January 05, 2022 at 07:01PM
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How to set up a new Android phone - Android Police
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