Note7 Recall Survival Tip(s)

[_BrianZ]

Since there's already a lot of speculation, complaints, & only limited helpful details about the Note7 recall, I thought I would offer something specific that Note7 users can do that might help them survive until replacement phones arrive.  Add another helpful tip if you have one, but here's mine...

How To Turn Off Fast Charging

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Go to Settings --> Battery, then select the 3-dot menu at upper right on the Battery page, then select "Advanced settings".  On the advanced battery settings page you'll see a switch for turning off Fast cable charging...

"Fast cable charging 

Charge your battery more quickly. Your device may become hot while using Fast cable charging. If Fast cable charging is turned off, standard charging will be used instead."

I would also suggest turning on the Battery saving mode to the "mid" setting on Battery page to avoid rapid power consumption, which also generates heat.  Heat is generally the enemy of electronics. 

I believe these two steps might just help buy you some extra time & decrease your chances of a meltdown before a replacement arrives.

[JAMM54]

I think this will work. I normally put the phone on the battery saver at night anyway. I  haven't had any problems with my Note 7 phone getting hot. I did have on my previous Galaxy S5. I guess I will probably turn in my Note 7 at the Verizon Store and wait for my replacement. I will use my GS5 in the interim because Verizon has never sent me the mailing box to send it in for the $200 credit.

[bearone21]

a $200 credit on an s5?????, they offered less than $20 when i upgraded to the note5 in december.

[JAMM54]

Yes it was available the weekend I bought my Note 7. You could get up to  $300. You should look online for it.

[_BrianZ]

How to Backup Galaxy Note7 to a PC

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I have read a number of articles about how to backup your Galaxy Note7 in preparation for the recall exchange for one with a new battery that won't have a meltdown.  Most of them were wrong, but I will share below a backup method that worked for me.

First, what did not/may not work...

1.  Samsung Cloud:

Many articles suggested using the new "Samsung Cloud" Service with up to 15 gigabytes free storage available to Note7 users, because it's built right in to the phone settings, just turn it on.  Unfortunately for us Verizon customers, Samsung says right on their support site that Samsung Cloud is not available on Verizon devices, and they're right - the menus just don't have the same choices available.  I presume Verizon chose to remove a valuable free service from the manufacturer, so they could sell you their own cloud service.  As others have noted, you may still be able to create a new icon & get the cloud service to work. 

2.  Samsung Keis:

Others suggested that if you do not get the opportunity to cable the old phone to the new phone for directly transferring everything over using Samsung's "SmartSwitch" app (which worked beautifully, by the way, moving from my old Note 3 to Note7), then use the Samsung Kies backup program for PC (which we had used successfully with our Notes 3 & 4 in the past).  But that did not work, due to "Your device is not compatible" with Keis.  But, it did suggest using SmartSwitch for PC instead.

What worked:  SmartSwitch for PC:

http://www.samsung.com/us/support/owners/app/smart-switch

"Samsung Smart Switch for PC/Mac: Smart Switch for PC/Mac lets you back up the data and apps list from your old Samsung device to a PC or Mac and transfer virtually all of them to your new Samsung device. If you have backed up your iPhone data to your PC or Mac using iTunes, you can use the Smart Switch for PC/Mac app to transfer the content to your new Samsung device."

I also first uninstalled the old Kies program & downloaded & installed an updated USB driver from Samsung's support site for my Note7 model...

http://www.samsung.com/us/support/owners/product/SM-N930VZKAVZW

USB (Driver) ver. 1.5.45.00 - Win XP/2003/2008/2012/Vista/Win 7/Win 8/Win 8.1/Win 10(32,64bit) (ENGLISH,15.27 MB) ?
Feb 18, 2016

The app worked great, and was willing to backup Both internal memory plus the entire SD card.  However, since it would take over an hour to backup just the 20+ gigs in phone storage (cabled to PC via USB), and I also had another 90+ gigs of mostly photos, videos & music files on the SD card, I chose to backup just the internal phone contents.  You do need to set the phone's USB connection setting from the notifications dropdown to "File transfer" mode instead of "USB Charging".  What's beautiful about this program (besides free), is that it lets you choose exactly which types of data to backup from either location.

Then, because my SD card is configured as "portable storage" and not encrypted, I turned the phone off, removed the SD card from the card tray (comes with a special tool for opening the tray, due to waterproofing), put it in a fast USB3 card reader, plugged into my PC, and used the Windows file explorer to drag & drop all contents onto one of my hard drive's backup folder.  That only took about an hour maybe, but it could have taken 3 or 4 times longer if I had gone through the program & phone connection.

Now I'll be ready, hopefully, for a minimally painful migration, but I know there are apps that may require extra effort to export & import their data/settings, and at least one paid app required reinstalling from the Play store, so I'm not looking forward to another ordeal after having just migrated from the Note 3.  I've probably still got apps for which I need to do the export/import routine or reconfigure manually. It's a pain, but between using Samsung's Smart Switch app for a cable migration from old to new phone, and the Smart Switch for PC backup program, migration should be less painfull (once you get a new phone anyway).