Question Getting a new phone - Smart switch back up, or start fresh?

[liberty610]

Hello everyone.

So I am upgrading from the Samsung Galaxy S21 ultra to the S24 Ultra this week; possibly today if the store gets the shipment in. Two main reasons I wanted to upgrade; the camera of course, and the internal storage. My current s21 only has 120gb and the new S24 ultra will have 512gb.

I am tech savvy with Windows PCs and I have all my photos, music, and important downloads on my phone already sorted and backed up to my desktop. I have just recently discovered the smart switch approach with android phones where you can backup your entire phone and move it t your new one so your icons, honescreens, call logs, text messages, ect are all copied over to the new device.

I don't plan on doing a this via cloud backup, but a flash drive back up. I'm wondering if this process is the best way to go about it. I know with Windows when your moving from say Windows 10 to Windows 11, a fresh install is always the way to go to avoid buggy issues. Does this same principal apply to Android OS and a new phone? Should I setup this new from phone up from scratch and copy just my media over instead of copying the entire back up from the old phone?

As I stated above, I have all my photos, videos, and music backed up. But I wanted to avoid taking the extra time to set up all the settings, home screen lay outs, etc on this new phone because it can take so much time to do it. But If it will potentially make the phone run better so it's not getting all the garbage files and cashe from my old device, I'd rather go that route. But I am not as tech savvy with phone OS versions as I am with Windows.

Anyone have some feedback on this for me?

 

[CParsons]

Like most backup systems, when they work they work great but when they fail.. they fail hard. SmartSwitch is the way to go if you're looking for ease of transfer but keep in mind, it can often be buggy. That said, since you have your important things backed up otherwise, starting fresh is never a bad way to go as you're not moving around a bunch of cached data and possibly just moving issues from device to device.

Really comes down to personal preference. In past years, I would say start fresh always. But transfer apps have gotten better these days. I just transferred from a Pixel 7 to a Pixel 8 Pro using Google's wireless transfer and all went fine as kind.

 

[liberty610]

Like most backup systems, when they work they work great but when they fail.. they fail hard. SmartSwitch is the way to go if you're looking for ease of transfer but keep in mind, it can often be buggy. That said, since you have your important things backed up otherwise, starting fresh is never a bad way to go as you're not moving around a bunch of cached data and possibly just moving issues from device to device.

Really comes down to personal preference. In past years, I would say start fresh always. But transfer apps have gotten better these days. I just transferred from a Pixel 7 to a Pixel 8 Pro using Google's wireless transfer and all went fine as kind.

Thanks for the reply man.

Ugh. You're point of it being a 50/50 chance of bug free operation is what I figured. Leaves me torn on what to do haha.

I have so many custom settings on my current phone that are not the default settings that I know it'll be a pain setting the new phone up from scratch trying to remember them all. But there's also so many positives about starting over. And I know there's a lot of new features in the new phones I should go through and explore anyways.


I think I'll take the time and do it from scratch, but I'll also do the smart switch backup just in case. Thanks for the reply!

 

[Video Editor]

The better option is that you just copy your images to your new phone and use it as new from the start.