About to make the jump. Advice welcomed.

[andy2windy]

Hello WP'ers.....

First post.

I am an old man (59) needing some advice from the experts.

My first smartphone was the Moto Droid X, current phone is the S4, so I'm Android from way back. Like many others on here, I desire to cut Google off completely, as I'm not liking the privacy invasion. That's not to say MS isn't as bad, but at least they don't seem to be as blatant about it. Ignorance is bliss I suppose.

Anyway, I've been lurking here since Nov, following the Icon. Now that it's available, I want to make the switch. I've read countless posts on here and other sources, and I'm getting more confused by the minute. Maybe it's my old brain, but I can't seem to grasp the email thing. With android, the whole process involves the google account, and BAM, your email is set. I've read a lot about syncing and the problems associated with it. I'd like to save some of my gmail emails, transfer them to the WP email, and leave Google and gmail in the dust, but my world won't implode if I'm unable to do so; still, that's the whole purpose of changing to WP. My confusion lies with getting the Icon and setting up email. I may already have a MS account as I have a Surface RT. Is the username and password that I use to log in to my RT - is that my MS account? Will my WP email be Outlook, 365, Exchange, or what? Sorry, don't understand.

Another thing that I haven't seen fully addressed in the forums is this: I've always wanted my phone(s) to be seen and not heard to the outside world. In other words, I have never used ringtones or notification sounds - I always use the vibrate only. I wear a Blueant Q2 earpiece at all times. I receive and make calls, as well as have my texts read to me and respond to them, thru the earpiece so I have no need for ringtones or audible notifications....at least when it's working right, which is another reason I want to switch to WP. I had the S3, and everything was fine with the Bluetooth functions I stated above. Then there was a software update and it killed some of the functions. I complained to VZ until they finally sent me the S4 as a replacement. S4 worked great like the S3 used to. Then, here comes another update, and once again, it killed some of the BT functions. Now, the BT text readout is sporadic...sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I've had enough. Done. If any of you uses your phone "silently" like I do, please let me know - I'd like to make sure the WP is capable.

I've spent about 30 minutes in the VZ store playing with the Icon, and it sure is smooth, but I am hesitant to pull the trigger until I find out more about these two issues. I've actually "bing"ed setting up email on WP for dummies, but didn't get a hit.

Thanks for your patience and any advice.

Andy (android) 2 Windy (Windows)

 

[hope4wp]

Hello and welcome to WPC
First of all you need patience! you might not like WP at first but you'll get used to it eventually
And yes your wp id would be your microsoft account, it would sync everything that is attached with it....like your notes, contacts, calendar, etc
and my phone is always on silent but wp does have the capability of mobile accessibility....and you'd have to download an extra app for it....but! I'd not recommend it if you have security on your phone......because it lags a lot

 

[Mr Hyde]

Hi there old timer. I'm 52 so maybe we talk a similar language.

I've had WP for a while. since WP 7 and the HTC Trophy actually. I'm not a real expert but I know how to do quite a few of the 'normal' functions. I'll try to answer most of your questions the best I can.

Mail:
First since you already have a Microsoft account with your Surface RT you already have a Microsoft Account for your phone too. Its the same. So you can sign into your Windows Phone with the same account. If you created an outlook.com account for your Surface, or you used a Hotmail.com account you also have a Microsoft email too. I still have a gmail account that I use mostly for work. I created an outlook.com account for personal email. to move my contacts I just used Gmail to export my contacts to a .csv file I believe (sorry, I really don't remember 100%) and then used that exported file and imported it into my outlook.com contacts. Contacts moved. Simple.
But if you just want to sign in with your MS account and use Gmail for your email you can do that if you'd like. When you open the "Email & Accounts" setting you can add many different types of accounts. Of course one of them is Gmail. So just enter your email addr and PW and you're done. There is also a pay Gmail client in the store if you want/need more flexibility. I think its about $2. Of course you can add other accounts too like Facebook, Twitter Linked In, Yahoo... whatever.
Your WP email will wind up being whatever email accounts you add to your phone. Each mail account will have a separate mailbox but you have the option to consolidate as many of your inboxes into one central inbox as you want so if you have 4 different email addresses, 3 personal and one for work, you can consolidate the 3 personal ones into one inbox and keep the work mail separate. Or you could dump them all into one inbox. Whatever works for you. When you reply to email, it replies from the address you received the mail from.

Seen & Not Heard:
I really don't use my phone the way you describe but when I'm in my car and the Phone is connected to the Car's Blue Tooth it works the same as you describe. When the phone rings it really doesn't ring. The car's ringtone plays on the car's speaker, so you'll just hear whatever notification you hear in your BT device. Text messages are also silent. I have my phone set to read incoming Texts when connected via Bluetooth so they are read to me when I'm in the car. The sound comes through the cars speakers. when the message comes in it says "message from (insert contact name here)" and I'm given the choice to either "Read it" or "Ignore". Choosing read it will have the phone read the message to you. You can then either say "Reply", "Call", or "I'm Done". If you choose "reply" ti will prompt you to "Say your message" and the phone will convert your speech to text and read it back to you for verification. if its wrong you can try again. The text to speech (reading you the message) always works. The only time the speech to text doesn't work is if I'm not in a good signal area. apparently it needs to communicate with some server to convert your message to text. Other than that it works flawlessly.

I hope that addressed your issues.