Before giving them their first Samsung mobile phone ( which will most likely be your old Samsung phone ) there are a few things to check beforehand to make sure everything is set up correctly for them. Even if it’s a brand spanking new phone, it’ll most likely need an update.
Factory reset and set up as a new phone
The first job is to factory reset the phone – don’t hand it over with it logged into your Gmail account as you’ll soon regret it – handing over a phone that’s logged into your Gmail account gives the ability to erase all of your contacts and potentially access to spending on your credit card.
Settings > Backup and reset > Reset Device
When asked, don’t restore a back up – set up as a new phone and create a new Gmail account
Home or Roaming country?
Some Samsung Models have an unusual quirk of asking whether you want to call a home or roaming country on each call – if you are seeing this, there is one simple setting that needs changing to prevent this from being asked again.
From the dial screen look for the 3 dots menu > choose ‘roaming assistance’ > choose ‘always dial roaming country’ / ‘always dial the country the phone is in’
Update the phones operating system
Now onto updating the phones operating software; even if it is brand spanking new out of the box, connect it to Wifi and get it updated to the latest system version – outdated operating software only leads to trouble – and ‘update automatically’ does not update it automatically, so go ahead and do it manually.
NB. at the time of writing the current version is OS 12
Data Setup for Samsung
Not all phones pick up our APN automatically, so double check this first
From the home screen tap the menu button:
From the home screen, tap the Menu button
1) Tap Settings
2) Tap Mobile networks.
3) Tap Access Point Names
4) Tap New APN ( or click on the + symbol )
5) Enter dataconnect in both the Name and the APN fields
6) Ensure the field if the username and password are empty, then tap OK or the three dots menu and Save.
7) Tap Save and if presented with a list of APN make sure the dataconnect APN is selected.
8) Turn on Mobile Data and Mobile Roaming
Add some phone parental controls
Phones can connect to the internet by various methods, such as Wifi, VPN’s, personal hotspots etc, so it’s always advisable to add some phone parental controls on the phone too.
You can read our guide to setting up Google Family Link
Samsung battery health
Finally, it’s always best keeping an eye on the battery health, as a phone with poor battery health will mean it is far more likely to run low or showing an incorrect percentage of charge.
When a battery is low, the first thing this affects is mobile signal as it uses its resources to protect the basic phone functions.