Android phones, apps and tablets

Pixel 7a users: how do you find the battery life?

Pretty much set I'm going for a budget phone & flashier Garmin watch. It's currently between the Pixel (possibly with Graphene) and that CMF phone, 4385 mAh Vs 5000. I'm not often away from the house for long periods these days but it'll happen occasionally. No social media apps.

New phone whatsapp saves all media received to phone gallery. my last phone didn't. I'd prefer this wasn't default. Nothing dodgy, just volume of memes/pictures/vids on group chats that fill up gallery view.

How do I stop this? I've tried all the settings except clearly the one I need.

If it can't be done my upgrade is a downgrade and whatsapp will get a zero star review on google play.

If theyre showing up in Photos then switch off Google Photos backup of your Whatsapp images folder, I think.

Samsung gallery, they don't get pushed to google photos thankfully.

Settings > Chat Settings > Media Visibility 'Off'

This! Thanks!

Got another Fire for one of the kids. But it's been so long since I did the Fire toolbox install (and I've only done it once to the other two) that I didn't think to read the guide online and I've already linked the tablet to my account.

Has anyone used the Fire Toolbox recently?

What I'm after is;

1. Confirmation of a safe place to download the most upto date version (mine is v32.2)
   
2. Whether it is that critical that I do the set up on a clean tablet
   
3. If yes to 2. How best to wipe it and start again?
   
4. What is the significance of OTA Updates and do I care?
   
   

Cheers

1 Attachment

Got Google Play to work by downloading and setting up Nova Launcher, then retrying Google Play.

Don't have the patience this time around to strip everything off the way I did with my eldest's. Which tbh was a bit of a faff. However, I think that one had the ads on the lock screen so I wanted it clear.

Annoyingly when you swipe up from the recent apps you can still see all the amazon shit they put on the home screen.
Irl it's so fucking jarring! I guess that's why they're so cheap. But fuck me using one with the default setup would be awful.

Contrary to all expectations,
my 2 1/2 year old Pixel 6a has just told me that Android 15 is available for download.

So what's good in Android 15?

Yeah, I installed that the other day. Why did you think it wouldn't be available? I've no idea what their support terms are these days but if a device runs it, makes sense to push it.

I'm used to the regular security updates, but assumed that a 6a would be ignored/purposefully excluded to encourage owners to upgrade to a more recent mobile, where Google have committed to x years of security and y years of operating system updates.