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Disapointed with Android and Samsung Galaxy S2

O

olibara

Newbie
Hello

It took me long before to decide between Apple or any Android for my first smartphone

I finaly decide for Android and Samsung Galaxy S2
And I'm very disapointed

- Integration is not clear : what is the responsability of Android level what is Samsung Level

- I can't find any EASY way to do a simple back-up of the content of my phone (messages, contact, photo, etc) :

- Even samsung is not coherent : they have Kies or Samsung PC Studio
Both are very complicate to use to get to connect to the phone

- Finaly Samsug Galaxy S2 have a very poor reception and I always get my old Nokia 2600 Classic with me because it always get network where galaxy get nothing

- navigation into menu is not really user-friendly (this is Android I think)

So the choice of Android and Galaxy is a great deception for me : is much more a stupid object than a smartphone

But to give it a last chance before I move to something else

1- Is there any easy way to back-up an adrooid phone and specially the Galaxy S2
2- Is it normal that the Galaxy S2 is always loosing the network where the Nokia 2600 classic have a good reception ?
 
Don't waste your time. Go get your iphone. Android is not for everyone.
 
Can't help you, my reception is fine.

I don't use Kies or backup applications because I have no use for them.
 
olibara said:
Hello

It took me long before to decide between Apple or any Android for my first smartphone

I finaly decide for Android and Samsung Galaxy S2
And I'm very disapointed

- Integration is not clear : what is the responsability of Android level what is Samsung Level

- I can't find any EASY way to do a simple back-up of the content of my phone (messages, contact, photo, etc) :

- Even samsung is not coherent : they have Kies or Samsung PC Studio
Both are very complicate to use to get to connect to the phone

- Finaly Samsug Galaxy S2 have a very poor reception and I always get my old Nokia 2600 Classic with me because it always get network where galaxy get nothing

- navigation into menu is not really user-friendly (this is Android I think)

So the choice of Android and Galaxy is a great deception for me : is much more a stupid object than a smartphone

But to give it a last chance before I move to something else

1- Is there any easy way to back-up an adrooid phone and specially the Galaxy S2
2- Is it normal that the Galaxy S2 is always loosing the network where the Nokia 2600 classic have a good reception ?
Click to expand...


Hi

Welcome to the forums.

Can I suggest you post in the S2 forum as you'd likely get more helpful responses there regarding back up techniques etc. Samsung Galaxy S2 - Android Forums

As for dropping signal; my phone started doing that (a desire HD) and i found that I had inadvertently changed my network Mode (accessed via Settings; Mobile network settings) source to WCDMA only rather than GSM/WCDMA auto. If that doesn't sort it out bring it back to the shop for a replacement as it could be a hardware issue.

Hopefully once you get these things sorted out you'll become an android convert like lots of us on here :)

Gg
 
There are lots of people who do not have reception problems with their Galaxy S2's. For that reason I think it prudent to assume that you have a problematic phone.

In terms of backups, there are a number of different ways of accomplishing this. The easiest is if you use Gmail as your primary email integration. Your contacts, calendar, and email are automatically backed up to your Gmail account. Similar can be said of MS Exchange when you use a third party email client like Touchdown.

Text messages can be backed up using a number of different third party clients found in the Android Market. Many are free!

For photo's, if you use Google's Picasa to manage your photo's then they're automatically saved in the cloud. If you want to keep them local then you'll need to use a Samsung app like Kies, a third party app, or manually copy them to/from the phone.

If you want complete, total, and cookie cutter integration then I think you might want to consider another technology like iPhone. Personally, however, I prefer the shortcomings of Android over the lack of flexibility of an iPhone.
 
Martimus said:
For photo's, if you use Google's Picasa to manage your photo's then they're automatically saved in the cloud. If you want to keep them local then you'll need to use a Samsung app like Kies, a third party app, or manually copy them to/from the phone.
Click to expand...

Google+ now has the feature to auto-upload your photo's (ones stored on phone and any taken afterwards) to a private album in Google +; loving it :)
 
olibara said:
- Integration is not clear : what is the responsability of Android level what is Samsung Level
Click to expand...
Not really sure what you want here?

olibara said:
I can't find any EASY way to do a simple back-up of the content of my phone (messages, contact, photo, etc) :
Click to expand...
I use a Samsung Galaxy SL, so most stuff should be similar for use. For contacts and calendar, I have mine backing up to cloud via Google sync. Messages on mine are backed up to both cloud and SD card via sms backup apps free from market. Photos on mine are backed up to Sugarsync because my photos are something I want to be able to access on all my computers with no hassle. Basically it depends on how you want to access your data after backing up. Or you could just backup to Kies.

olibara said:
Even samsung is not coherent : they have Kies or Samsung PC Studio
Both are very complicate to use to get to connect to the phone
Click to expand...
Use Kies. PC studio is outdated now. As for complicated, plug in your phone via USB, choose Kies on your phone screen, wait for drivers to install and you're good to go.

olibara said:
Finaly Samsug Galaxy S2 have a very poor reception and I always get my old Nokia 2600 Classic with me because it always get network where galaxy get nothing
Click to expand...
Check if the signal you are looking at is 3G or GSM. 3G would almost always have a lower signal than GSM, and normally 3G enabled devices would show 3G signals. Even if the 3G signal is showing low, it doesnt mean you have no signal, as the phone is also cnnected to the GSM network which shows full signal on your Nokia. This is normal for all smartphones, whether iPhone, Android, or Nokia

olibara said:
navigation into menu is not really user-friendly (this is Android I think)
Click to expand...
How exactly is it not user friendly? I'm having no trouble with app drawer or settings menu. As for comparison with iPhone, the app drawer is actually what generic iPhone looks like.

olibara said:
So the choice of Android and Galaxy is a great deception for me : is much more a stupid object than a smartphone
Click to expand...
Personally, I find calling something stupid because you dont know how to use it is stupid. Since you are coming from a Nokia dumbphone, your shift to any smartphone, whether Nokia, Android or iOS, would result to you having the same frustrations you stated above as smartphones have almost infinitely more features and settings than the generic phones you used to have.



olibara said:
Is there any easy way to back-up an adrooid phone and specially the Galaxy S2
Click to expand...
Define easy. For me the easiest way to backup contacts and calendar is to Google. Just enable Google contacts and calendar sync on your contacts and they are automatically backed up. Any changes you make are backed up to your Google account immediately. Pictures on mine are set to backup to sugarsync cloud so that I can access them on all of my computers automatically. However note that I have unlimited data plan, so backing up stuff to internet is easy and not costly for me.


olibara said:
Is it normal that the Galaxy S2 is always loosing the network where the Nokia 2600 classic have a good reception ?
Click to expand...
I have already discussed this a while ago. Smartphones have two antennae, a 3g and a gsm one. GSM signals are strong anywhere, which is what your old Nokia shows. Smartphones in general, even if theybhave full signal on GSM, would usually show 3G signal which is weaker in some areas than GSM. It doesnt mean that you have no or low signal.
 
Thanks a lot for all your message (Except brice : forums are not for everyone too)

So I will try to get a fix for my phone but before that I have to back-up it)
With all your message I can see that there are a lot of posibilities to do it but it seems that I have to use 2 or three different apps to back-up everything !
Sound strange to me
I will investigate
At least I know now that PC Studio ist outdated and Kies is the alternative
But I've heared elsewhere that Kies is rubish .....:(
 
Kies is just fine. Relative to iTunes, it has far less rubbish.

Your contacts and calendar are automatically backed up to Google, no matter what. You don't need Kies or iTunes or anything like that. If you got a new Android phone tomorrow, and you don't have a PC, when you login to the new phone using your Google account, all your contacts and calendar will sync right back to the phone. You can even operate the second phone in parallel with your old phone and they will sync wirelessly in real time.

As for your signal, yeah, you have to make sure you got your network mode set to GSM/WCDMA, so that if you drop out of 3G, your phone returns to GSM mode. Your Nokia dumbphone is only on 2G GSM mode.

The reception I have on my Galaxy S2 is as every bit as good or better than my Nokia N85 and 5530.
 
olibara said:
At least I know now that PC Studio ist outdated and Kies is the alternative
But I've heared elsewhere that Kies is rubish .....:(
Click to expand...

People are always going to have opinions and those opinions are always going to have a bias based on a range of factors so best to wait until you try it yourself and then make your own decision.

I'm on HTC and never use their Sync without any significant impact ( positive or negative); other people on the forums use My Phone Explorer and never touch the branded software meant for their phone;it's only a bit of software....don't give it so much power ;)

Smartphones are very different than dumbphones; give yourself a bit of time to get to know it, remember you're not in Kansas anymore and you'll be flying in no time.
 
Gs2 is not an entry level phone, and if connectivity was an issue u should not have chosen samsung android phones greatly from oem to oem. I would have gotten a windows phone for what u want to do... sry...I wouldn't chose the gs2 for gaming either.
 
While I don't have an SGS2, there are some easy ways of doing the things you're doing.

Personally, I use Google Voice for my voicemail/textmessaging. All my voicemail and text messages are stored in the cloud, where I can access them from my phone or any computer with internet access.

My contacts are backed up to my Gmail account, like others have said.

From the reviews of the latest version of Touchwiz that's on the SGS2, I imagine it's just the initial blow of smartphone shock coming from a "dumbphone". I had an iPod Touch and a multimedia phone before my first Android, so it wasn't nearly a shock for me. (Honestly, I liked the multimedia phone better than the iPod in the sense of usability, it was far more customizable).

You have a lot of home screens, make shortcuts to things. Everything can be access through the menu button (with the exception of the apps that can only be used through the app drawer). Make a shortcut by long pressing on the screen and selecting "shortcut"

But, if you do all what people say here and you're still having difficulty, maybe Android isn't for you. It happens, it's ok. iOS may be better suited for you.
 
olibara said:
Thanks a lot for all your message (Except brice : forums are not for everyone too)

So I will try to get a fix for my phone but before that I have to back-up it)
With all your message I can see that there are a lot of posibilities to do it but it seems that I have to use 2 or three different apps to back-up everything !
Sound strange to me
I will investigate
At least I know now that PC Studio ist outdated and Kies is the alternative
But I've heared elsewhere that Kies is rubish .....:(
Click to expand...

You can use just Kies to backup contacts, calendar, pictures, music. You dont need 2 or 3 apps. It all depends on how you want to be able to access backups. For example, on a Nokia or Kies backup, they exist as files which you can open. You can only restore them on your phone.

If I use Google Contacts/Calendar for my backup, I can go to Gmail and see my contacts/calendar there. If I buy a new Android phone, once I log in, all my contacts/calendar data will automatically be downloaded to my phone in less than 5min after first turning it on.

If I use Sugarsync on my picture backups, I can always open my Sugarsync account via a web browser on any PC, or on my Sugarsync folder in my PC and get/copy the pictures I had from my phone, even if my phone is turned off or if it was stolen, even if I forgot to back it up to PC.

You also need App List Backup only if you are not rooted, so that market can remember what apps you have already downloaded (unless you root and get titanium).
 
If you want to take full control of your phone you can root and and use NAND backups with a custom recovery. It takes a little hackery though and judging from your initial post, may not be what you want or what you're willing to do.

Good luck.
 
Thanks for your Help

Lets go for the first step :

How can I save all my phones contact on my Gmail account ?
If done is there any way to go see them from a web browser ??
 
olibara said:
Thanks for your Help

Lets go for the first step :

How can I save all my phones contact on my Gmail account ?
If done is there any way to go see them from a web browser ??
Click to expand...


Yes, just log in to your Gmail account (same google account you used to activate phone, or make a new one) and go to contacts.

As for transferring to Google, First you have to go to menu>settings>accounts and sync and check if background data and autosync is enalbled.
Go to contacts>menu>import/export>export to sd card. Once exported, import them again but this time choose to import them to your gmail account. They will automatically upload to Google once you are connected to the internet.

In your contacts app again, you can either set it to show only Google contacts, or merge the existing Google and phone contacts.
 
If i could just chime in here, i think i have some special experience in these matters. See im working on a couple of apps atm that restart telephony services at first run (you may know Root Call Blocker for one).

Now in the last 4 months or so we have had thousands of emails from people with very different phones claiming that RCB forces their phones to drop data and it never returns. That of course, is not true.

Its actually the radio trying to switch from 3g to 3g again. In this period, all sorts of wacky things can happen, including your operator unregistering you from the network, or if you/your operator have 3r party roaming set up it might actually attempt to register on another network, or fail and attempt another network again.

This is normal. It happens on all phones, and will happen more often if your are already in a low-signal area.
 
Thank you

I learn a lot here, but I still do not have an answer for the question

How can I save all my phones contact on my Gmail account ?
Click to expand...

I already have a Gmail account, I can go to gmail from my desktop or laptop computer, I can go to Gmail from my Samsung Galaxy S2

But I did'nt see any way to save all my Phone contact to any Gmail place

So the question remain ! :

What it the best and simpliest way to back-up all my phone contact

Is there a standard build-in way from Android ?
Otherwise how many and wich third part application do I have to buy / donwload to do that ?
 
How is it that you can be disappointed with the Galaxy SII??!! It's the first smartphone that I got and it's been fantastic so far.. Fast. Powerful. Beautiful.
 
olibara said:
Thank you

I learn a lot here, but I still do not have an answer for the question



I already have a Gmail account, I can go to gmail from my desktop or laptop computer, I can go to Gmail from my Samsung Galaxy S2

But I did'nt see any way to save all my Phone contact to any Gmail place

So the question remain ! :

What it the best and simpliest way to back-up all my phone contact

Is there a standard build-in way from Android ?
Otherwise how many and wich third part application do I have to buy / donwload to do that ?
Click to expand...

Even if you don't know it, all your phone contacts, if you have clicked you want to back up to Google, has already been saved with Google.

If you are not sure, go to Settings, then Privacy, and make sure Back Up My Data is checked.

All you have to do is go to PC desktop, open browser, open GMail, then on the side, you will see Contacts, and they should all be there.

I think I am seeing you have a hard time understanding what a Cloud is. Basically, all your contacts have been sync'ed to the Google servers and associated to your Google identity. You don't have to see them on your GMail app, all your contacts are stored in the Google servers. You use the desktop only to check, your browser doesn't store any information as well.
 
olibara said:
Probably but it does not answer to my question !
Click to expand...

Perhaps being a little nicer will yield you better results;)

I understand part of it may be language barrier, as it seems English may not be your first language, but please understand we are here of our own free will, donating our time to help you out.

Perhaps we need some clarification though. What is it exactly that you want to do with your device? I understand about you wanting backups, but what else do you want from your new device?

I think if you list want you want to accomplish, and be a little friendlier about it, you may just achieve your goals!

A great example is this guy, who has similar questions to yours! Follow his example and knowing the people here, they (myself included!) will jump to help you with whatever you need!
http://androidforums.com/android-lo...ential-apple-convert-questions-dont-bite.html

Regards, IOWA
 
StartappTeam said:
I'm not a super techy person, but found Kies very easy to use. UI requires some tweaks, but overall works good.

Also, reception is overall OK. But what phone doesn't have occasional drops? If it's something you experience often, maybe it's your device? Go check it out, maybe get it replaced.

Best of luck!
Click to expand...

It is also a commonly known fact that most smartphones don't have the same kind of reception the old bar and flip phones did, ironically.:(
 
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