How reliable is Windows Phone backup?

[simplylogan93]

Hello -- I have a Nokia Lumia 620 running Windows Phone 8.1 (Lumia Denim), and I have been thinking about doing a hard reset on it because I would love to clear some space (in the "Other" category mainly), and prepare for Windows 10 Mobile this December. I've also been having trouble downloading apps from the store (I keep getting error 800703f8 for like everything I try to download).

However I am a little hesitant to do so, since I've never performed a hard reset on my phone before in the year and a half that I've owned it. I'm not sure how reliable my phone backups are. Will my SIM card settings stay the same if I backup my settings? I don't want to have to reactivate my SIM card or something...

The only data I want to keep on the internal memory are my text messages.

 

[gpobernardo]

I think that the SIM Card activation is independent of the device the SIM card is in - it depends on the card itself and the mobile service provider (at least that's how it works where I'm in). Hence, even if you change phones, as long as you use the same SIM Card it should still work. Please correct me if I got this wrong.

As for the backup, based on experience not all of the SMS messages are immediately backed up. Sometimes, the messages within the past few days don't get automatically backed up - this is even if you back up your phone now through the settings. All your Contacts are backed up, as well as your app list and phone settings. You may lose some (if not most) of your app data, especially for apps that don't support accounts or cloud-based synchronization. Lastly, I don't think the tile layout will be backed up as well.