Backing up phone options and insurance question

[gazmix]

Hi
My z3 compact contract is up on April 1St and am wanting to back my phone up.
My pc is too old to install pc companion and won't even accept my phone being plugged in despite trying to install drivers and all public pc's won't let me do this.
Can I backup to Google drive? Photos, videos, calendar, texts etc?

Also if I go sim only can I still have my phone insured in a sim only contract?

Many thanks

[hrym]

You do need the Google Photos app to enable automatic backup, though.   I use Dropbox as well as it preserves the full resolution (for trabsfer to a PC), but you do have to clear it out occasionally as the basic free allowance is only 2gb.

When you get your new phone, go into Settings and look for Transfer My Phone, which may be under Backup & Reset.   You can use this to transfer content, including contacts, photos, music and SMS either via wifi or the cloud.   Note that a lot of large files will (of course) take longer.

I've used it twice, though on both occasions it was to phones of the same make (which may enable more to be copied).  It's a very handy utility and talks you through the process as you go.

When you log in to Google on the new phone, it will also offer the opportunity to restore from another device.  That'll install all your apps and those settings that Google backs up.   That used to include wifi passwords, but doesn't seem to now.

[jeffkinn]

Much better to use OneDrive than Dropbox I would say. Open a Microsoft Live email account (Hotmail, Outlook.com etc) and you get 5 GB of OneDrive for nothing and the OneDrive app will backup full res photos just like Google Photos.

[gazmix]

Will apps like photo and drive be still on phone after it comes back from repair? I backed up my apps but not all backed up and stayed in internal storage like all Google apps and ones that came preinstalled when got phone

[hrym]

When you get your phone back, it'll have been reset and will be as it came out of the box, although it should have the latest available version of Android.   When you sign in, tick the Restore box and your apps will be re-loaded and those settings that Google backs up will be restored.   You'll need to re-do any changes you had to the default settings of 3rd party apps.  Data for those apps will be lost.  Any content you added yourself (music, photos etc) will be lost and you'll need to restore it from where it was backed up.   You'll probably also need to sign in to wifi networks again, although the list may still be there.

You can restore apps manually, if you need to, by going into Google Play and looking at My Apps & Games.  There are two tabs: Installed and All.  Tap on All and you'll see the full list.

I don't use One Drive, but it's another possibility.