Android Hardware

How Hard Can It Be? Setting Up a Samsung Galaxy A37

Introduction

I have been using a Xiaomi Redmi Note 12 for about two years. It hasn't been a stellar performer, but has been adequate for my needs — that is until recently. The Xiaomi version of Android is extraordinarily aggressive with memory management. It would unload an app from active memory as soon as it lost focus, even when there should have been more than enough RAM to keep it running. This became a problem when I tried to purchase electricity via my banking app. Although the app normally supports this function, it was not working, so I tried to complete the purchase through a secondary app (Vodapay). The process required handing over from Vodapay to the banking app for approval, but Vodapay was unloaded from memory as soon as focus went to the banking app. When control came back, Vodapay had to reload and the transaction data was lost.

That experience was enough to persuade me that it was time for a replacement. Before looking at specific models, I drew up a short list of requirements and ran them past both Gemini and ChatGPT. Some were non-negotiable: the phone had to support two SIM cards and a microSD card, and I wanted at least 6GB of RAM.

Although a microSD card slot had originally been one of my requirements, support for expandable storage is disappearing from many modern phones. I therefore began paying closer attention to models with generous internal storage. After considering several options, the Samsung Galaxy A37 emerged as the most suitable candidate — the chosen model had 8GB of RAM, 256GB of storage and was available at a very good price. It also happened to be a newly released model.

With any new phone, the challenge is rarely transferring the applications themselves. The real problem is transferring the years of accumulated settings and personalisation that make the device feel familiar.

In the days when I rooted my phones, Titanium Backup was my preferred way of moving to a new device. More recently, Samsung's Smart Switch has generally served me well when upgrading from one Samsung tablet to another. Setting up the Galaxy A37 therefore seemed likely to be a routine exercise — install Samsung Smart Switch on to the old device and let it do the transfer. As it turned out, the process was a little more involved than expected.

(20 June 2026)

Setting Up the Galaxy A37

Samsung Smart Switch and Samsung Account

The process started as expected: start Smart Switch on the Note 12, switch on the A37 and follow the prompts. This worked easily enough up until a point where the A37 asked me to log in to my Samsung account where a single line message said a notification had been sent to SM-N950F which I had to accept in order for the process to proceed. The SM-N950F (Samsung Note 8) was evidently the last device that I had used to access my Samsung account and it had died from battery failure. A workaround suggested by Gemini (Google Search) was to use the "Forgot password" option - the screen following had a miniscule "Skip" option, which then alowed the process to proceed.

My Google account information was transferred by Smart Switch and all associated applications, such as the Play Store and Gmail, worked out of the box. The primary Wi-Fi network password was also copied across, so reconnecting to my network required no intervention.

It quickly became apparent that the transfer was only the first step. Although Smart Switch copied most of the applications successfully, restoring a fully personalised phone proved to be a much more involved process. The following sections describe some of the more interesting experiences.

Banking App

As one of the reasons for upgrading to a new phone was the inabilty to purchase electricity from a mobile device, the first app that I set up was the banking app.

Banking apps do not transfer settings for security reasons, so this had to be set up manually. Fortunately, the authentication process used by the bank restored my full (and familiar) interface. Seeing this gave me confidence that the rest of the migration process would go smoothly.

Vodapay

Like the banking app, Vodapay only required a simple login. My stored SIMs, Vodapay wallet, and linked cards were all exactly as they had been on the Note 12 — right down to pointing to the last SIM I had viewed.

I then proceeded to purchase airtime for one of the SIMs, as this was also a transaction that failed during the handover between the banking app and Vodapay. This time the transaction completed without any problems.

Lynx Launcher

Since I began my efforts to improve the performance of the Note 12, I have been using the Lynx Launcher and have become accustomed to (and really like) the interface. None of its settings were transferred, but Lynx includes a useful Backup and Restore option in the settings. I ran a backup on the Note 12 and restored it on the A37, and it worked like a dream — everything was exactly as I had left it, including the recently used apps. As an added bonus, Lynx includes a Change Launcher App option that jumps directly to the Android setting for selecting the default launcher, avoiding a trip through One UI's menus.

WhatsApp

WhatsApp, somewhat unexpectedly, turned out to be a non-issue. No meaningful data was carried over as part of the migration, but in this case that was not a problem. It was actually something of a relief to start with a clean installation, free from years of accumulated media, group clutter and archived conversations. The account setup itself was straightforward and required little intervention. The settings, however, required a little more thought, as I could not remember which ones I had changed. Unfortunately, I could no longer check the Note 12 because WhatsApp was disconnected as soon as the primary SIM was activated in the A37. Unfortunately, setting up WhatsApp on the new phone also meant repeating the process on both my tablet and the browser-based PC version, as these devices are linked to the phone rather than directly to my account.

Gboard

Smart Switch did not transfer Gboard to the A37, so I had to install it manually from the Play Store. Once installed, none of its settings were restored and I had to configure it from scratch. What was especially irritating was the loss of my regularly used acronyms and abbreviations. I would have thought these would have been stored in a dictionary somewhere in the Google cloud, but they appear to be device-based. Recreating them is not difficult, but it takes time and relies on remembering entries that may have been accumulated over several years.

File Managers

I use two third-party file managers in addition to the standard Android offerings: Total Commander and FX File Explorer. Both provide a split-screen view, making it easy to copy files between directories, devices and network shares.

As with several other applications, Smart Switch transferred the programs themselves but not all of their associated settings and supporting files.

Total Commander uses a plugin architecture . Of the plugins I use regularly, the LAN (SMB) was tranferred succesfully, while the FTP plugin had to be reinstalled manually.

FX File Explorer uses a separate application, FX Plus License Key to unlock its paid features. This license application was not transferred and had to be reinstalled manually. Interestingly, the same thing happened during my previous Samsung tablet-to-tablet migration, despite that transfer being considerably more successful overall.

Mi Fitness

As I have mentioned elsewhere, I have a Mi Smart Band 8 Active. To function properly, the watch requires the Mi Fitness app, which was not copied to the A37. Installing the app presented no problems, but linking the watch to the phone proved more difficult. I eventually resorted to uninstalling the app on the Note 12 and performing a factory reset on the watch, after which the app detected it without any difficulty.

Linking the app to my Xiaomi account presented another hurdle. For some reason, my email provider had blacklisted Xiaomi, preventing me from receiving the verification email. I therefore created a new Xiaomi account using a Gmail address, but that meant starting fitness statistics from scratch.

Despite these setbacks, Mi Fitness has worked flawlessly ever since — even the camera remote works.

Ringtones and Notifications

Over the years I have built up a collection of ringtones and notification sounds that I copy to each new device. Where possible, I assign different sounds to different applications so that I know immediately which app is trying to attract my attention.

With each new device (and corresponding release of One UI), Samsung seems to revise its collection of ringtones and notification sounds. To my ears, many of the newer sounds lack the character of some of the older ones. From my days of using Titanium Backup, I have kept copies of Samsung's Whistle and Bottle Opener notification sounds — they still appeal to my sense of humour.

Fortunately, Smart Switch copied my ringtone and notification sound files across to the A37, making it easy to restore my preferred sounds. One notification sound that I do miss, however, is the frog sound from the Note 12.

Other Applications

Apart from the applications already mentioned, most of the remaining software followed a similar pattern. Smart Switch copied the applications themselves, after which I simply had to sign in to the relevant accounts. In most cases, settings and historical data were then restored automatically from cloud storage or the application's own servers. These applications generally required little more than a few minutes of attention.

(28 June 2026)

Concluding Remarks

The A37 has been an excellent replacement for the Note 12. The migration, however, was considerably more involved than Samsung's marketing for Smart Switch would lead one to expect, especially when moving from a non-Samsung device.

Smart Switch clearly has the ability to transfer sensitive information. My Google account details, Wi-Fi passwords and much of my personal data were restored without any intervention. It therefore seems reasonable to ask why the same process could not restore more of the application settings and personalisation that ultimately took far longer to recreate.

At the time of writing, I am still trying to regain access to my Samsung account. Once that has been resolved, I may return to update this page with anything else I discover.

Addendum