Cathy has an old Samsung Android phone and she's ready to upgrade. She wants to know if getting a previous model from eBay a good idea. Leo says that she can get a good deal on one, but chances are it won't be updated. So she'd have to have it updated. Leo advises going to XDA Developers to learn how to root the phone to put a new version of Android on it.
Rick has an Outlook account on his HTC smartphone, but when he updated the phone, it stopped syncing and erased all the contacts on his phone and his Outlook account! Leo says it sounds like the sync went the other way and wiped out his contacts. This is why Leo always recommends not only backing up your contacts before doing this, but also relying on Google's Contacts in the cloud.
Corey wants to be able to transfer his data from his old Android phone to his new one. Leo says that in current Android phones, he can bump them together and transfer the data via Bluetooth. It's really easy.
Clarence is moving to an iPhone because he just can't get good coverage in his area with an Android phone. Leo says that's not really what's going on here. All phones are pretty much the same when it comes to connectivity. If he's losing his connection, it may be that his carrier doesn't have good coverage in his area.
Ted bought an old Nokia cell phone but he can't hear anyone when he calls. He's going to get a new one, but he needs to go from Windows Phone to Android. How can he do that? Leo says that Google is his friend! He should sync his phone with Gmail and Google Contacts and then when he logs into his new phone, it'll all be there. Even the email will be there because it's IMAP, and it'll still be on his old IMAP servers as well.
Bonnie has lost her address book through Verizon. Leo says that's why everyone needs to backup their contacts and why Leo recommends having contacts saved through a Google account. Verizon has moved all users to AOL for email, and it could be that her contacts got lost in the transfer. Leo says that Verizon has to have a backup of the contacts. And since they are doing a pilot program of migrating this over, they are likely to be very receptive with helping her. She might also try logging into mail.yahoo.com with her Verizon account. Then back it up and move it to Google!
Larry wants to help a friend using his mobile phone, but he has iOS and his friend uses Android. Leo says the good news is that they're both computers. It'll be similar, but he'll have to spend a little time getting the lay of the land to learn the unique ins and outs of Android. But it's all minor stuff. The really good news is that the issues that Larry's friend has is with setting appointments and reminders, and going through Google makes it really easy. He'll just enter his Google credentials once and Google will take care of the rest.
John has trouble searching his Gmail via Google on his phone and he ends up with everything other than his contacts. Leo says that it's likely that the feature John is using is an out of date Google Labs feature that no longer works. But it sounds like this is a bug in Google Plus. Google Circles are now in Contacts and that's a flaw that Google has to fix.
Rock On recently had a contact mysteriously show up in her contacts list on her new Android phone. Leo suspects that it's through Google Contacts. If she deletes them from Google contacts, it'll be synced and deleted from her phone as well. It could also be Facebook that's populating her contacts as well. Once that's deleted, it shouldn't come back. She also may want to check with her carrier to see if they're syncing her contacts as well.
Jim wants to know if he can create a database of all his phone numbers and print it out into a written guide. Leo says that every computer comes with the ability to do that. In Windows 7, Windows has an address book built in and once he inputs all the data, he'll be able to print it out.
