new to android....have a few questions

[galaxygo]

Hello All.....
A few days ago I purchased a Samsung Galaxy music player. I have been upgrading the iPod Touch since 2007 and its time for a change. But....some of this android stuff is confusing me ahhhhh but I'm excited to give Android a try.
Do I need to plug it into my computer EVER? I downloaded Samsung Kies and its ok....but my computer is becoming a dinosaur and I really would rather not. If I don't ever use Samsung Kies where will they send software updates and etc? To the decive? If it ever breaks or gets lost or I upgrade... I won't really care about losing my music. The only think I care about are my apps and what I have in them. I use it for organization so I already have several notes and list in a variety of apps. With the iTouch, when I would upgrade and start up my new device....my apps and notes always showed up with my info still on there. Will that happen with this device? I do like to upgrade often When you back it up with google is that kind of like iCloud?
Last question about WiFi. The device is constantly tell me that the connection was lost. Probably every 3 minutes....it tells me that and the wifi signal looking thing at the top disappears. I'm not sure how strong and good my wifi signal is but I never have that problem with my laptop or iTouch. Any ideas on how I can improve this? That is probably the only thing that made me want to send it out the window so far.
Thanks in advance for any info!

 

[darkuni]

You might find this article helpful: http://reviewlagoon.com/viewarticle.php?articleID=55

You're stuck with Kies ONLY for updates. Everything else you can do in the cloud. It's not natural in Androidland to have to be tethered to an evil PC app - but Samsung did indeed do it.

If you take notes with Google Docs - that is cloud based - and you'll never lose those (and you can access from a web browser anytime, too). If you are using some app to take notes - unless it is SPECIFICALLY saving them in the cloud somewhere, then no - you will lose those if your player dies. This is just like your computer, ya? If you open Word - make a document - save it on your hard drive ... and the hard drive dies - you lose it. If you upload it to the internet somewhere - it's always safe.

You're in GoogleLand now. I'd recommend you use Google Docs for keeping notes and if you're really concerned about not losing stuff if your player dies or gets trashed, make sure any app you're using is "cloud based" - that is, saves data in the cloud. But not many do.

Your wifi may "sleep" after the unit goes to sleep, but that is normal - it will wake up almost immediately.

I can ask my friend who has the Galaxy player if he's had any issue with wifi.

 

[galaxygo]

thanks for the info....I had not idea about google docs but I got the app and put all my important info in today.

 

[chanchan05]

Hello All.....
A few days ago I purchased a Samsung Galaxy music player. I have been upgrading the iPod Touch since 2007 and its time for a change. But....some of this android stuff is confusing me ahhhhh but I'm excited to give Android a try.
Do I need to plug it into my computer EVER? I downloaded Samsung Kies and its ok....but my computer is becoming a dinosaur and I really would rather not. If I don't ever use Samsung Kies where will they send software updates and etc? To the decive? If it ever breaks or gets lost or I upgrade... I won't really care about losing my music. The only think I care about are my apps and what I have in them. I use it for organization so I already have several notes and list in a variety of apps. With the iTouch, when I would upgrade and start up my new device....my apps and notes always showed up with my info still on there. Will that happen with this device? I do like to upgrade often When you back it up with google is that kind of like iCloud?
Last question about WiFi. The device is constantly tell me that the connection was lost. Probably every 3 minutes....it tells me that and the wifi signal looking thing at the top disappears. I'm not sure how strong and good my wifi signal is but I never have that problem with my laptop or iTouch. Any ideas on how I can improve this? That is probably the only thing that made me want to send it out the window so far.
Thanks in advance for any info!

1. Kies is mainly for syncing to Outlook or updating. I only connect my device to Kies to check for updates, that's where you get them officially. You can get your music to your device via Windows Explorer, without going through Kies. Of course if there are unofficial updates available you can get them, but you really have to use a PC.

2. When doing an official backup via Kies, none of your data would go missing.

3. Backing up to Google is more for contacts and calendar, and pictures if you enable Picasa sync. iCloud is sort of a cross between Google backup and Sugarsync. It backs up your contacts, calendars and pictures like Google, and syncs certain folders to your PC like Sugarsync does, the only difference is that Google + Sugarsync is better in some ways that iCloud. Google is almost universally compatible among almost everything, whilst iCloud locks you into the Apple ecosystem. iCloud also has limited storage space, while Sugarsync can get you up to 105GB online storage space free. Another alternative is Dropbox, which can get you 10GB free.

4. For WiFi, not so sure, as my Samsung device has been working fine in that regard.

 

[darkuni]

thanks for the info....I had not idea about google docs but I got the app and put all my important info in today.

Google Docs offers storage of other files too ... But knowing I can always get to my TO DO list - no matter where or on what - that means something to me.