How can a Windows user switch to a Google Phone?

[Bigsteelguy]

Download and install Computer Launcher, it's like a full Windows desktop on your Android phone. With all kinds of amazing good stuff.

 

[Martin Plamondon]

I went on Android for two weeks with an LG G6 and then put my Sim card back in my Lumia 950xl.

Love my Live Tiles too much... Can't get used again to a grid of icons that don't show meaningful info except a little number telling how notifications the app has...

 

[feereless]

Some things which will ease the transition. Edge is coming to both iOS and Android & MS has at least one launcher that works very well on Android, Arrow. https://blogs.windows.com/windowsex...-edge-for-ios-and-android-microsoft-launcher/

Lol edge sucked on their own operating system so why would it work well on Android? Edge is the main reason I left. Horrid browser and hardly ever worked. I am much happier with Android because I have a phone that actually works...

Switched to a Mate 9

 

[Adventurer64]

I went on Android for two weeks with an LG G6 and then put my Sim card back in my Lumia 950xl.

Love my Live Tiles too much... Can't get used again to a grid of icons that don't show meaningful info except a little number telling how notifications the app has...

Same here!! Looked at Android phones yesterday and was disappointed.

 

[Geoff Nolan]

After having Windows Phone 7, 7.8, 8 & 10, I switched to Android back in June. Should have done it years ago. All the apps are at least as good as those on Window Mobile and, if course there are far more to choose from. My Android phone has also taken over from my Windows tablet and, because it is dual SIM, I only need the one phone unlike the two I had to have with WP. Forget flagship phones too, I have a Ulefone Power 2 (What?) which cost around £160 and does everything brilliantly, with a massive battery to boot. Perfect...

 

[nlsclint]

I have also made the switch to android and I have it for sale right now. I want WM10 back. The UI on android just sucks its menu navigation is a nightmare. Not sure how windows ever lost he phone wars to android and IOS other then their lack of advertising and ability to keep up. they just need to make phones a priority and stomp the competition.

 

[Fuzzy John]

I have been with Windows ever since the inception of Windows CE and followed thru all its iterations.
Two weeks ago I decided that Microsoft has let me down and switched to a Samsung Galaxy S8+. This was before Joe Belfiore made his Twitter posts.
My transition is now almost complete. It has been rough at times and very frustrating.
I am setup with outlook.com for Contacts, Calendars and Tasks. I have a Google account but I did not want to switch mainly since my computers are all configured for outlook.com.
I am using Microsoft Outlook for Android mainly because I couldn't find any Calendar apps that fully support my calendars on outlook.com. They all see to want to combine my calendars into a single calendar. But even the Calendar in Microsoft Outlook lacks some features:

• No support for "Free, Busy, Tentative, Out of Office" and so on.
• The event reminder alerts seem to have a mind of their own. Sometimes they show, most of the time they don't. And I have yet to see the ability to snooze an alert.

Mail is almost OK. I have turned of the Focused Inbox and I am using threaded messages. This is where things can get confusing when you have a thread with many replies.
The built-in Samsung Contacts seems to work but it did give me a lot of aggravations before I got it to where it is now.
For Tasks I am using Tasks & Notes for MS Exchange. This app works surprisingly well. Maybe Microsoft should learn from it. With Windows 10 Mobile I used 2Day.
The built-in Messages app (from Samsung) seems to work OK but I found that when I attach videos to messages they are squished from 16:9 to 4:3. I switched to Android Messages which so far works OK, but at least for now Bixby only supports the Samsung Messages app.
I feel that the Android versions of Word and Excel work somewhat better in Android than they did in Windows 10 Mobile.
There is only one thing that I still miss from Windows Phone: Cortana reading the text messages and allowing me to reply to them over the Bluetooth radio in my car. I sorely miss this and I am still looking for alternatives.

 

[Adventurer64]

So I tried again today. Saw we got a bunch of S8 units. I pulled rank and grabbed one to swap out my crappy S6. The S8 is just as bad only with a horrid aspect ratio.

Here it is between my 950xl and my son's V20.

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I agree 100% on aspect ratio. I was looking at androids yesterday and all are tall and skinny. Yuck. Even the Note 8 is same width as my Idol 4S. Now I'm considering switching to Att so I can have a properly functioning elite X3. Love the aspect ratio and screen size on x3. And the boat, it seems to be worse than my previous droids, Note 4, S4, Motorola, etc.

 

[breaker119]

I don't understand what account I will need and how my contacts will work. My google account - which I hate - has a mess of contacts b/c of their auto-add BS. My Outlook.com contacts are clean and curated. What's the approach to prevent a huge charlie foxtrot?

 

[jeffgeno]

It's sad to see I'm going to have to switch platforms. It's clear major apps will drop support at some point soon and the phone will be useless. I haven't yet found a phone or OS that will work for all my requirements, but what will get closest?

1. Camera at least as good as a 950
2. Camera button
3. Expandable storage
4. Wireless charging
5. Sync Facebook contact photos
6. Read and reply to texts over Bluetooth
7. Not huge

Seems like I can get
1, 4, and 7 with an iPhone (maybe 6, does Siri read texts over Bluetooth?)
2, 3 and 7 with a Sony
1, 3, 4, and 7 with an S8
1, 3, and 4 with a V30

iPhones used to sync Facebook contacts, but that has been dropped with iOS 11. So 5 seems like a total dead end.

Whatever I end up with, it's going to involve a lot of compromises.

 

[Adventurer64]

I don't understand what account I will need and how my contacts will work. My google account - which I hate - has a mess of contacts b/c of their auto-add BS. My Outlook.com contacts are clean and curated. What's the approach to prevent a huge charlie foxtrot?

When I switched from Android to Windows 10 Mobile 8 months ago, it was fairly easy as far as contacts. I already had an outlook account and everything was synced no problems to my Idol 4S. Just like any other Windows 10 device for that matter. I gave up on Gmail years ago. I believe it will be just as easy other way around. I did sync my Gmail contacts to outlook when I made switch and don't recall that being a problem. All MS services on Android worked well for me on Note 4 8 MThs ago. I'm assuming its even better now.

 

[ThxMAD]

I always have been a Windows Phone guy, made my girlfriend get one, my parents as well. I have a Hotmail account, no Gmail account (my Google account is my Hotmail email). I have an Office 365 subscription, use Onedrive and Groove.

I recently changed my 950XL to an S8, because I didn't see any immediate future for WP. That was a couple of weeks before Joe Belfiore announced WP was dead. Here are my conclusions:

Positives

• Lots of apps/apps update: The biggest positive for me. I now have access to many more apps that I use daily. For the apps that I already had on WP, they're the same or better on Android. Just the loading time of the Facebook and Messenger apps are much faster. And they're updated more frequently as well.
• Chrome and Google search integration: On my PC, I was already using Chrome and Google as my search engine, so not having to use Edge and Bing is a plus for me.
• Stability: My 950XL used to crash constantly, at least 2 to 3 times a day. I would take it out of my pocket to find it had turned off by itself. And don't tell me the battery was the problem, I tried 3 different ones with the same result. Apps used to crash frequently as well. How nice to now be able to use my phone normally!

Equivalent

• Hardware quality: I miss the good old Nokia hardware running Windows, but I must say that the S8 is nice in hand. I like the weight and the overall build quality. I also like the quality of the diplay.
• Camera: I certainly haven't played with the S8 camera as much as I have with my past 1020 and 950XL, but I must say that the S8 does take great pictures.
• Office integration
• Expandable storage

Negatives

• Integration of Groove/Onedrive/SD Card: That's probably my biggest problem with my current phone is that my entire music collection is on Onedrive and I used to download my music offline in Groove so I don't use all of my data while listening to music. Now, I can still download my music for offline use, but to store my music on my SD, I would have to install the app on my SD. However, you can't install Groove on the SD (yet). I hope that comes in a future update.
• No physical camera button: I wish I could just remap the Bixby button to the camera via the settings , but Samsung doesn't allow it so you have to use a 3rd party app which works so-so. Also, who cares about Bixby?
• No live tiles: I really don't like widgets compared to the live tiles. I can't really put my finger on why, but I think it's because of how well the information was conveyed through the live tiles. I also think the live tiles integrated much better with each other compared to the widgets.
• No Glance: Glance is better than the always on display. I liked having a full size picture always on with the clock and notifications but the closest I can get to this with the always on display is a mini picture with the clock and notifications.
• Misc.: I feel like I see more ads than before, no removable battery, no bluetooth text message reading in my car

Overall, I'm pleased with the change. I think the positives overweigh the negatives. However, I was quite disappointed when Joe's tweets came out. I was secretly hoping that I would be able to change my S8 for a WP in 2 or 3 years.

Conclusion; I think the switch is fairly smooth for a Windows Phone user.

 

[Mr-Black]

Like many others here, it looks like I will have to consider switching to Android soon.

Has anyone worked out how to transfer Whatsapp chats from Windows phone to Android or even iOS for that matter.

A Google search comes up with a few possibilities but nothing certain about Windows Phone > Android

 

[ThxMAD]

5. Sync Facebook contact photos
6. Read and reply to texts over Bluetooth
7. Not huge

Seems like I can get
1, 4, and 7 with an iPhone (maybe 6, does Siri read texts over Bluetooth?)
2, 3 and 7 with a Sony
1, 3, 4, and 7 with an S8
1, 3, and 4 with a V30

Just FYI, I know it's a 3rd party app, but you can use the Sync.Me app on Android to sync Facebook contact pictures.

 

[ThxMAD]

Has anyone worked out how to transfer Whatsapp chats from Windows phone to Android or even iOS for that matter.

I didn't have any problem with Whatsapp on Android. I simply downloaded the app and entered my phone number as you normally do when you log in and it transferred my chat windows automatically.

 

[Blue Steel]

A year ago I was forced to move to either iOS or Android because of the App gap. At the time, the Galaxy S7 was a premium option and seemed to offer a lot of flexibility. The phones specs were great and the hardware has truly been fantastic. However, that is where the fun stops. The actually operating system is simply painful. Sometimes I have to tap the screen two or three times before I can make a simple phone call. I've lost contact information a number of times because I tried to use Outlook as my default mail app. It's user interface is clunky to use and has no consistency. It lacks a ton of features I grew to love on WM10. Simple stuff like Cortana reading my texts to me while in the car and allowing me to respond by voice. The social media integration with my contacts. The beautiful live tiles that told me everything I needed to know without scrolling through pages of icons. The Glance screen that showed me my important information without having to turn the phone on. I could go on and on.

I had hoped, since MS was supporting iOS and Android better than their own mobile OS, that I would end up using all of their apps and I'd be content with Android. After a year, the only MS app I use is Outlook. I've uninstalled everything else and Outlook is next. In fact, at this point, I no longer have interest in supporting MS on any level. A year ago I had an HP touch screen PC in my kitchen, two small Samsung tablets running Win 10, a Surface Pro 3, two Xbox Ones, two MS Bands, Xbox Live and Groove memberships, and 3 Windows phones.

One by one Microsoft has dismantled what was becoming an incredible echo system. Yes, Microsoft's reputation has been tarnished for years, so many people were hesitant to invest. I thought with the Surface division, MS was finally turning the ship around. Clearly, they now realize they are no longer a player in the consumer market and have decided to throw in the towel. MS has ruined their own reputation by constantly pulling the rug from under us. I've had enough.

 

[Adventurer64]

I have also made the switch to android and I have it for sale right now. I want WM10 back. The UI on android just sucks its menu navigation is a nightmare. Not sure how windows ever lost he phone wars to android and IOS other then their lack of advertising and ability to keep up. they just need to make phones a priority and stomp the competition.

I feel your pain. I struggled with android issues and bloat for years and finally switched from Sprint to TMO and was able to purchase an Idol 4S on sale. I looked at androids on Monday and was not impressed, so I'm in no hurry to leave. When did the aspect ratio for phablets change, I hate tall and skinny. Is that aspect ratio better for social media or something? My United app still works, Fitbit Ionic will eventually replace my Band 2 and pinning mobile websites makes up for the app gap. Android is still loaded with bloat and BS. Yuck.

 

[Mr-Black]

Really?! I didn't think this was the way it worked.

Even according to Whatsapp this is not possible..... Account info transfers, but not messages.

Which is why I was wondering if there is a 3rd party alternative available to do this.

Changing your phone

Different types of phone

If you are moving from one type of phone to another, such as from an iPhone to an Android, and preserving your number, you will keep your account info. This information is tied to the phone number. Simply download WhatsApp on the new phone and verify your number.

Note: You cannot migrate your messages across different types of phone.

 

[tre10]

Download and install Computer Launcher, it's like a full Windows desktop on your Android phone. With all kinds of amazing good stuff.

This right here. It looks good indeed.

 

[TennisGuy45]

I'm using a GS8+, switched over about 2 months ago.

So far I'm loving it. Enjoy having access to so many apps I was missing on Windows.

The hardware is beautiful, fast, and leagues higher quality than my 950xl.

I miss the live tiles, lock screen notificaitons, and a few other things from my Windows phone.

Still learning and tinkering with Android. The customization capabilities are endless.