When was the last time you moved into a new phone, and how'd it go?

General
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This weekend I fired up a new phone (Pixel 11 Pro), moving two numbers and several accounts from a Pixel 8 Pro. The experience was far easier than it used to be, and I was surprised at how much information moved to the new phone. It still managed to take me the better part of a Saturday and a support call to Boost with escalation to a higher tier of support to get everything done. (I’ll share the solution and save you that trouble when I post again!)

Next up, I will be moving a family member from a Samsung to my Pixel 8 Pro hand-me-down. It’ll be interesting to see if there’s a lot of difference moving Pixel-to-Pixel and Samsung-to-Pixel.

I’ll add some details later, but first, I’d like to hear from others. How has moving into a new phone changed over the years? What’s easier than it used to be, what’s harder, and what’s left that could make it even more seamless? Are you hesitant to buy a new phone because of the effort involved? Maybe hearing from some others who’ve recently changed phones will ease some nerves!

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I have two Tello lines: one for me and one for my son. A couple of weeks ago, my son got a new IPhone 16e for his birthday, replacing an older iPhone with a broken screen. The older phone had a Tello SIM card. To activate the new phone, which I bought from Tello, we went through Tello’s eSIM activation procedure (https://tello.com/help_center/esim-install-activate/how-can-i-activate-my-tello-esim). It was a little confusing since this was our first time dealing with an eSIM. But we eventually got it to work. It took us about an hour to figure it out. At one point we tried calling Support but couldn’t get through (my first less-than-positive experience with Tello’s customer service), but we ultimately were able to get the new phone up and running without a support call.

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Do you remember what trick finally got it working? Maybe you can save others the agony of that support call, as well!

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I don’t remember exactly. I think we might have tried to activate the eSIM before physically removing the SIM card from the old phone.

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Thanks for the (as always) helpful post and request @southpaw !

It so happens that just a couple days ago I replaced one of our aging Pixel 7’s with a Pixel 10 (which seems like quite the bargain - now available refurbished for about $450). As you noted, the Pixel-to-Pixel transfer was impressively smooth. Even the app icons or shortcuts and widgets on the Home screens were carried over to the same positions on the new Pixel!

There are still numerous choices which Android Setup wants my wife to go through. And Android wants her to take a few tutorials to show how helpful Android and Google’s AI wish to be. But she is a firm believer that AI is too nosey, and that most technology should just know what she wants to do, and do it her way. So the tweaking to make things more “how they should be” will take a while.

We also use Tello there and the necessity to switch her number from the physical SIM card with her phone number in the Pixel 7 to the eSIM-only Pixel 10 needed to happen without brick-and-mortar handholding. Not every step was intuitive, and I felt some trepidation while making the move, going to the Tello web page for her number and choosing to switch the number from a physical SIM to the new handset with eSIM happened right away, probably within two minutes. I did shut down the old Pixel 7 handset to avoid potential confusion about which handset should pick up the new eSIM while the switch happened. But it happened without trauma.

I will be interested in how similar the transfer from a Samsung to Pixel might work! Good luck with that @southpaw.

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I switched from my Pixel 4xl to a Samsung this January.

It was simple, as far as I recall. Well, I had to do something to avoid being forced to make a Samsung account, but I can’t remember what. My Pixel was dead and there were a couple of apps I lost messages on but that was ok. I had checked most of my backup settings etc when I was worried my Pixel was about to die last year. It’s even easier when your original device isn’t dead, based on what I’ve seen in my household, but my original device is always dead :joy:

Physical SIM user here, so can’t speak to Boost’s eSIM process.

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I’ve had the same phone for the past 4.5 years, an Apple iPhone SE (2020) that Dish sold new-in-box for about $100. I moved that phone over to MobileX without issue a few years ago. Still in good shape, still receives updates from Apple. Battery down to about 75%. When it can’t hold a charge past lunchtime, I will review my options. Probably go with a used iPhone 13 mini, because I very much like the size of this phone. That said, since the Dish-affiliated folks just bought out MobileX, maybe they will have another $100 phone deal!

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I moved my Google Fi number from the old phone to the new phone, and that went seamlessly. The Pixel 11 Pro is eSIM only, and my number on my Pixel 8 Pro was also on an eSIM.

My former RW number was on a RW-by-Dish physical SIM card, now on a Boost account.
When I tried to download Boost’s eSIM, it told me to wait for a notification, and then install it. I waited, but nothing happened.
Next I tried navigating to the eSIM installation settings and manually installing, but it kept failing.

When I called Boost, the original support person I talked to tried to send me the eSIM. I got an email saying a physical SIM card was on its way to me, but the support person assured me that was in error. Nevertheless, the eSIM never appeared. The support person also had me try to manually install the eSIM, but we ended up with the same failure. So he escalated my call.

The second person I talked to said she saw what the problem was and she had fixed it, but nothing changed on my end. We tried a few rounds of turning phones (both old and new) off and on. She asked if I had removed the physical SIM card from the old phone, I had not, and she did not tell me to.

She ended up telling me to turn the Fi SIM card off. That worried me, because I had bought the Pixel Pro 11 (at my employer’s expense) with a rebate option from Fi that requires me to keep the phone on my service line with no disruption for several months. I did some quick online searching to see if her assurance that simply turning the card off briefly would not affect my account standing with Fi, and then did so. On the next try, the eSIM notification popped up and the eSIM installed without any problem. I turned my Fi SIM back on and have not been billed the rebate amount by Fi.

So, if you’re having the same trouble getting a second eSIM moved to your phone and the eSIM notification never arrives, trying turning off the first one. Don’t delete it, don’t erase it, just toggle the button by “Use this SIM” to temporarily turn it off.

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I still haven’t made the Samsung to Pixel 8 Pro transition, that’ll be next.