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New to Android

mikeheel

Lurker
Jun 1, 2016
6
2
I guess it was time for me try Android in earnest. I'm generally the family geek, so you'd think it would have happened before now. But my prior Android phone experience was limited to helping my wife navigate her Motorola Defy from about 6 years ago and occasionally goofing around with my brother's Nexus 5. I also had used Android on tablets a little bit.

Historically, I've had about every other type of smart phone, from Palm, to Blackberry, to iPhone, and Windows Phone. I actually liked Windows Phone 8.1 the most. When I first got a Windows Phone, it was very helpful b/c I regularly needed to access MS Office docs on the go, and Windows Phone was the best platform for that. That's no longer the case since MS has pushed out better apps to Android and iOS for their services. Nagging littel issues with Windows 10 is what pushed me to finally move to Android. W10, while it has some very nice stuff that I wish Android had, is still not ready for market.

Anyway, my wife was complaining about her iPhone 5 (typical power button issues, plus the small size was beginning to bug her), and my son and I were frustrated with the direction and function of Windows, so I ordered 3 Nexus 5x 32gb phones through Project Fi for $250 each. Not bad at all when I can get three decent phones for less than the price of one iPhone. Too bad I still can't convince my daughter to give up her iPhone. I think she's mostly tied into iMessage, moreso than the phone itself.

Anyway, the three of us are most of the way through the conversion process. Some things in Android are great, and some are just annoying - like the lack of counters on icons (like unread messages and such); but, as I've found, there's usually an app for that.

So far, I like Marshmallow a good bit. The things I miss the most are being able to "pin" anything (like a mail folder or a contact group) to my start screen. I can make "groups" on Android, but there is no native functionality to the group. The best I found is using a different text app (currently playing with Textra) which allows you to access groups in your contact list to send group texts. I'm sure there are more tricks I haven't yet found with that. But in Windows, I created a group in my contacts, pinned the group to the start screen, and could then email or text everyone in the group from the group icon on the start screen. It was very handy. Same with email folders. I could pin any particular folder on my start screen. This was particularly helpful for work emails. I also just noticed Outlook on Android doesn't seem to access my company email directory like it did natively on Windows Phone. I guess you can't have everything.

OTOH, I do prefer having multiple screens side-t0-side, as with Android. In Windows, you get one long start screen and have to scroll vertically to access other apps or items you have pinned. It works, but I prefer the "page" separation on Android b/c it makes it easy to organize apps by groups or frequency of use. I also really like the use of widgets in Android. Windows had some "live tiles" which could sort of act the similar to basic widgets (like weather apps), but it couldn't replicate anything beyond simple info. And W10 really seemed to kill off a lot of the live tiles, anyway. I have one screen now on the Nexus dedicate as a full-screen calendar widget. In terms of customization, Windows offered a lot, but Android offers even more.

I loved Windows. I appreciate Android and am hoping to actual love it in the coming months. Feel free to share any tips or tricks.
 
Thanks; I've played around a little with the launchers a little but am currently using just what it came with. I'll check them out some more.

As for Outlook, what I mean is that I don't have a way to access the directory of company email addresses. I wonder if there's a permission setting I just haven't found.
 
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