If you are planning on getting a Nexus 5, or have just received yours, this article is full of tips to get you on your way.
Being a regular Galaxy phone owner, it’s always been a cinch to migrate from one phone to another using the Samsung account back up and restore. When I’ve moved to another phone, like the Xperia Z, I use MyBackupPro, which does pretty much everything that the Samsung service does and more. However, after I used this app to transfer everything across the Nexus 5, the phone dialler app constantly force closed. So at this point in time looks like it’s not compatible.
Nexus 5 tips for messaging: Google contacts have come across from my Google account, which is fine, and instead I’ve gone with SMS backup and restore to at least get my messages moved over. However a word of warning, hangouts is now the default sms app, and you have to change the default to the sms backup and restore app in order to import your sms history. Remember to change the default back to hangouts again after you’ve loaded your SMS’s.
The other thing you should do is make sure your language setting is on English US, cos this is currently the only way to get the whole “okay google” voice activated search working.
Nexus 5 tips for installing apps: The next one is loading up your apps – if you’re restoring from an existing Google account you may end up with heaps of apps that you actually don’t want on your new Nexus 5. So what I do is install via a PC on a web browser from play.google.com. It’s quick and because you’ve just registered your Nexus 5, that unit will come up as the first smartphone – the play store will actually remotely install the app onto your phone as long as it’s online. This is actually one of the best features of the Google Play store, and you can install only the apps you want rather than using the Google restore option.
Nexus 5 tips for backup: Now, because the Nexus 5 doesn’t have external storage, I’ve set up my dropbox account to get all my photos uploaded as soon as I’m on a wifi connection. Even if I delete the pic from the phone, or reset the phone from scratch, the pics are protected. And by pics I do mean images and video content. You can also do that with the built-in Google Photos app, but I haven’t used it yet to go through it with you.
Nexus 5 tips for customised ringtones: If you want to personalise your ring tone, again not as easy as the galaxy, which just required a long press on an mp3 file and use the set as function. On the Nexus you are limited to the preset tones built-in. So I downloaded an app called “Rings extended” which adds another option in the set ring tone area, allowing you to use your own mp3 files.
Speaking of files, the Nexus 5 doesn’t come with its own file management app. So you should download your own if you like seeing what’s on your phone, and being able to delete or add through the file structure. The one I use is ES file explorer. It’s easy to use and free.
By the way, another download I’d do right away is one for a torch that uses the led, and get a widget, not an app, so that you can activate it right from a home screen.
Nexus 5 tips for using widgets: The other widget I’d put onto the home screen right away is the toggle widget. I’m always turning bluetooth and wifi on and off and it’s much better to just have a widget to do that. So while I’m here I’ll kill two birds with one stone and show you how to easily get widgets onto the home page. Just long press a home screen, press the widgets symbol, scroll through and find that toggle widget, and then long press again to choose where to place it. Now to add a new home screen, and you can add as many as you want, Google have removed that restriction, just slide it to the far right of the screen and it will add a screen once you’ve passed the last one.
By the way, if you want to change your main home page then just hold a screen and move it to the far left, it then becomes the page that is returned to when you press the home button.
Nexis 5 tips for shortcuts: And lastly, if you haven’t used a Nexus before you may not be aware of the one finger two finger drag down. One finger down shows you notifications, and two finger shows you common settings like wifi, battery charge and brightness. Now these aren’t widgets but shortcuts to the settings for each aspect. I use it to check percentage of battery left because as of yet, there is no method to put the percentage remaining in the top status bar.
There are just some of the things I found when putting my new nexus 5 to the daily grind, hopefully it’s been useful to you. If you have any other tips or even a better way than what I’ve shown please drop a comment in the area below.
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