All things related to Android phones & tablets

ianp5a said:
You don't need G+. Just a normal Google account. Without it you can't use the Play Store for apps.
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Just realised that, thanks Ian. Not sure if she's coming round yet, we'll see. For complicated reasons she doesn't take well to anything going wrong like this and tends to catastrophise rather badly, so I spend quite a bit of time trying to smooth things out if I can!
 
When setting up the new phone it will probably ask her to sign in with a Google account . Do this and the contacts (if saved here originally) will appear.
 
Yeah i use whatsapp for for most of my messaging.
Does what it says on the tin.
 
Cheers Stuart.:)
 
With messaging, you can install more than one different messenger. And use each one for those people you know on it.

I prefer Telegram messenger, as it has many nice features, and better for groups. You can include people who don't have smartphones for example. As you can use it on a PC. And continue your chats on any device. Even in a web browser.
 
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I use whatsapp. Easy to use and to share pics and video. You can get a desktop version as well, which I find handy when sending larger messages.
 
Thanks guys.:)
 
I just got a small car vent clip to hold the phone. I'd only seen those big ugly clamps with suckers and fuss, up til now. This one is small, and doesn't stick out in front of the screen, and it's cheap too.

clip.JPG

In tests it looks and works as expected. The next one up has a 60° swivel-ball, to angle the phone if your vent is not well located .
 
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Contract up at the end of Feb and am leaving EE due to complete lack of signal at home, Sky are doing some good deals for TV customers so have ordered a sim from them. Next stop, new phone - will probably buy outright so just have to decide what to get. New smartphones all appear to be phablets - i've got an HTC M8 at the moment and have been looking at the S7 Edge, which is only fractionally bigger although not cheap!

Any suggestions from any one here on what else to look at - definitely don't want anything oversize!
 
ianp5a said:
I just got a small car vent clip to hold the phone. I'd only seen those big ugly clamps with suckers and fuss, up til now. This one is small, and doesn't stick out in front of the screen, and it's cheap too.


In tests it looks and works as expected. The next one up has a 60° swivel-ball, to angle the phone if your vent is not well located .
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Problem with those type of clips is in winter there's hot air in the vents and in summer there's ice cold air. Neither is good for the phone.
 
ashtennisguru said:
Contract up at the end of Feb and am leaving EE due to complete lack of signal at home, Sky are doing some good deals for TV customers so have ordered a sim from them. Next stop, new phone - will probably buy outright so just have to decide what to get. New smartphones all appear to be phablets - i've got an HTC M8 at the moment and have been looking at the S7 Edge, which is only fractionally bigger although not cheap!

Any suggestions from any one here on what else to look at - definitely don't want anything oversize!
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Maybe the samsung a5 2017 ?
 
ChrisR said:
The old phone has gone back to the insurance company, so we're left with what we've got, ie the old SIM card and microSD, plus the Smart Switch backups on our PC. I guess we'll just have to try putting Smart Switch on the LG (supposed to work on "some" other Android phones though it is a Samsun app) and attempt the restore...

EDIT: The backup does contain folders for Contacts, Messages, Settings, Photos and Videos among other thongs I don't remember (I'm not using that PC at the moment).
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Just for completeness... we tried running Smart Switch on the LG G4, but it wouldn't recognise that the phone was connected to the PC so that was no good. Today I was looking for a way to convert the Contacts file in the backups (either .spb or .spba format) to something more useful, and discovered that the Kies program will read it, display contacts on the screen, and convert them to VCards. Since the backup is a bit out of date, I suspect her best bet is to read through it and create new contacts from the information for those she really wants.
 
A quick Android app review:

KDE Connect.

When installed on both smartphone and PC, and they are on the same LAN, copy on phone and paste on the PC. And vice versa.
Swap files between them.
See mobile notifications on the PC.
Use the smartphone to control the PC cursor or PC media player.
Send SMSs from your PC.

I frequently scan documents with my phone (e.g. Camscan), press 'share', choose KDE Connect, and a PDF appears in the PC download folder.

And it's free too.
 
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Is anyone using their Android phone as an MP3 player?
I have a very old iPod, but want to get away from anything to do with Apple.
I've looked at the inbuilt bits and pieces on my Galaxy 3 and all there seems to be is Google music that costs £9.99 per month, every month. What downloads I need I'm happy to pay for at the time - I don't want to be constantly updating. I've looked at the apps available but they all seem to be offering me free downloads. That sounds a bit hookey.
So, can I use the phone as an MP3 player and if so how? How do I get my music onto it? I know there is no way of transferring from my iPod so I'll have to start again.
 
mickledore said:
Is anyone using their Android phone as an MP3 player?
I have a very old iPod, but want to get away from anything to do with Apple.
I've looked at the inbuilt bits and pieces on my Galaxy 3 and all there seems to be is Google music that costs £9.99 per month, every month. What downloads I need I'm happy to pay for at the time - I don't want to be constantly updating. I've looked at the apps available but they all seem to be offering me free downloads. That sounds a bit hookey.
So, can I use the phone as an MP3 player and if so how? How do I get my music onto it? I know there is no way of transferring from my iPod so I'll have to start again.
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You should have one called 'music'. I know my S6 has it and it's more what you're looking for in terms of a player vs a streaming app. Here it is circled in my apps list.20170305_090858.jpg
 
As what Ian said all Android devices come with a music player. It is basic enough to meet your needs as an MP3 player.
If you want more bells and whistles you can get 3rd party MP3 apps in the playstore.

My personal favourite is "Poweramp" as i Luke the ability to have control over the bass, treble and equalizer.
Here's some screen shots
View attachment 97128 Screenshot_2017-03-05-09-26-43.png Screenshot_2017-03-05-09-26-49.png
 
Ian W said:
You should have one called 'music'. I know my S6 has it and it's more what you're looking for in terms of a player vs a streaming app.
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Yes I do, thank you. I made the mistake of looking in the Google bit and got myself confused. Easy to do is that!
 
mickledore said:
Yes I do, thank you. I made the mistake of looking in the Google bit and got myself confused. Easy to do is that!
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Google like people to get confused and end up using their services as if they were the 'standard' ones.

My Sony phone came with a Sony mp3 player. But it tries to be too clever and ends up being annoying. Sony have been pushing their 'Walkman' heritage since way back in the feature phone days.

As an Amazon Prime member I installed the Prime Music app. Which is just OK with wifi.

With my new TV speaker system, I can Bluetooth music to the living room from any app. It sounds really good.
 
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Thanks guys.
Next problem is getting my music in there.
I can't find a download setting anywhere. Do I need another app to do this?
Also I've tried transfering a CD across through Windows media player, and whilst it asks me to drag tracks across to sync I get the no entry sign that says I can't do it.
What am I doing wrong?
 
mickledore said:
Thanks guys.
Next problem is getting my music in there.
I can't find a download setting anywhere. Do I need another app to do this?
Also I've tried transfering a CD across through Windows media player, and whilst it asks me to drag tracks across to sync I get the no entry sign that says I can't do it.
What am I doing wrong?
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Your PC might have a program to copy the CD tracks to Mp3s. Mine opens that as soon as I put the CD in. The process is called 'ripping' a CD.

I have my mp3s backed up on a NAS disk on the wifi network. So I can copy them directly to the phone when it's connected to wifi at home. Or play them from there without copying them to the phone.

Alternatively, plug the phone into the PC with a USB wire. And copy them using the PC file manager.
 
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mickledore said:
Thanks guys.
Next problem is getting my music in there.
I can't find a download setting anywhere. Do I need another app to do this?
Also I've tried transfering a CD across through Windows media player, and whilst it asks me to drag tracks across to sync I get the no entry sign that says I can't do it.
What am I doing wrong?
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Is your music already stored on your PC?
 
mickledore said:
No.
Some is on CD and some I'll have to download.
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Its been a while since I have done this but I'm sure for CDs you have to rip them to your PC before dragging them on to your phone. As for downloads it depends whether you are downloading direct to your phone or to your PC first.
 
I usually download from Amazon or HMV for my music.
There is a way to purchase through the playstore and play on non google music apps i believe.
 
I don't know the exact answer, but I transfer apps to the card in Settings - Apps then change storage location. And also in the various apps I set the storage location of photos, maps and music to the SD card.

You might find an app to move stuff in one go though. My Sony phone came with an app that when the internal memory starts filling up, a pop up asks if I want to move stuff across.
 
michael23 said:
Come across a problem on my sons tablet. It's an Alba running Android 5.1, I have put an sd [emoji388] in for extra storage and nothing will download to it from the play store , nor can I see how to transfer anything to the card. Thanks in advance.
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By default all playstore content has to be installed to internal memory.
You have the ability to move apps to external storage afterwards by going to "settings" - "apps"
From there click on the app you want to move then click on "storage".
If the app can be moved to external then there will be a box called "change". No box means you cant move it.

Since the incarnation of android 4 the ability to move all apps to external storage has decreased simply because most devices come with sufficient onboard storage.
Although to be frank i would say the bare minimum by todays standards is 16gb as once partitioned for the OS you are only left with about 10-11gb of useable space,which usnt much in this day and age of media consumption (music, videos, photos etc)

Hope this helps.
 
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ianp5a said:
I don't know the exact answer, but I transfer apps to the card in Settings - Apps then change storage location. And also in the various apps I set the storage location of photos, maps and music to the SD card.

You might find an app to move stuff in one go though. My Sony phone came with an app that when the internal memory starts filling up, a pop up asks if I want to move stuff across.
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stupar said:
By default all playstore content has to be installed to internal memory.
You have the ability to move apps to external storage afterwards by going to "settings" - "apps"
From there click on the app you want to move then click on "storage".
If the app can be moved to external then there will be a box called "change". No box means you cant move it.

Since the incarnation of android 4 the ability to move all apps to external storage has decreased simply because most devices come with sufficient onboard storage.
Although to be frank i would say the bare minimum by todays standards is 16gb as once partitioned for the OS you are only left with about 10-11gb of useable space,which usnt much in this day and age of media consumption (music, videos, photos etc)

Hope this helps.
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Thanks both, will take another look and see what i can do with it.
 
Has anyone owned an Nvidia Shield K1? I picked one up from Amazon on recommendation that for the cash it was the best smalls screen tablet around and having had a similar chip in a previous Pixel C tab expected it to be fast. It is however incredibly laggy, slowing down while doing any simple task and constantly refused to wake up. I suspect I've got a faulty unit but wondered what others had experienced? I really didn't want to spend a lot more on one than this.
 
chrism_scotland said:
Has anyone owned an Nvidia Shield K1? I picked one up from Amazon on recommendation that for the cash it was the best smalls screen tablet around and having had a similar chip in a previous Pixel C tab expected it to be fast. It is however incredibly laggy, slowing down while doing any simple task and constantly refused to wake up. I suspect I've got a faulty unit but wondered what others had experienced? I really didn't want to spend a lot more on one than this.
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Check the power settings for the tablet. If its on power saving mode then it throttles the chip back to just two cores which may cause the resulting lag. If it's nothing to do with that and you bought it new from Amazon then I would send it back and that is for the simple reason that new out of the box the tablet should work as expected.
 
Need some help from people that seem a bit more tech savvy than me. Have a HTC one which won't boot up properly all I get is the HTC screen then it goes blank turns off and reboots itself. Tried a hard reset as on the HTC website bit that hasn't made any difference. The phone is well out of warranty so I am tempted to have a go at maybe trying to install a custom ROM? Any body got any good how to guides and links to software needed to do it?
 
ian-83 said:
Need some help from people that seem a bit more tech savvy than me. Have a HTC one which won't boot up properly all I get is the HTC screen then it goes blank turns off and reboots itself. Tried a hard reset as on the HTC website bit that hasn't made any difference. The phone is well out of warranty so I am tempted to have a go at maybe trying to install a custom ROM? Any body got any good how to guides and links to software needed to do it?
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Sounds like your phone is stuck in a boot loop.

If you can get the boot loader unlocked then you stand a chance of getting a custom recovery on the phone which will let you install a custom rom.
XDA forum is the place to go for info,how to's and downloads.

If you want further assistance feel free to ask me. Ive lost count of how many phones i have custom rom'd/recovered from boot loops.
 
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stupar said:
Sounds like your phone is stuck in a boot loop.

If you can get the boot loader unlocked then you stand a chance of getting a custom recovery on the phone which will let you install a custom rom.
XDA forum is the place to go for info,how to's and downloads.

If you want further assistance feel free to ask me. Ive lost count of how many phones i have custom rom'd/recovered from boot loops.
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Cheers. Found someone I work with is into putting custom ROMs on their phone.he has told me to try a program called ODIN
 
ian-83 said:
Cheers. Found someone I work with is into putting custom ROMs on their phone.he has told me to try a program called ODIN
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Unless things have changed recently ODIN is for use with Samsung phones only so tread carefully!
 
stupar said:
Unless things have changed recently ODIN is for use with Samsung phones only so tread carefully!
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Just noticed that after Google searching it. Will try to find an alternative program to use
 
@ian-83 here is a link to get you started.
Its for the HTC one M7 as i have assumed that is the phone you have if not though let me know.

This is Cyanogenmod which is basically a vanilla android ROM. Well developed and well supported.
Have a read through the thread to find out whats involved in getting it on your phone.

If your phone is the M8 then there will be a like minded thread for that varient too.
 
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