Thoughts on the Samsung S III Galaxy?

tbgree00

I switched from the iPhone 4 to the S3 on Christmas Eve. I wish I had spent the extra 30 dollars and stayed in the walled garden of iOS. I've tried to figure this phone out but it crashes on me once a day, I only get 9 hours of battery life on power saver mode, and it's as slow and unresponsive as my OG Droid I had when VZW didn't have the iPhone. I'm stock and thinking of rooting just to put a different OS on it.

I use it for Exchange, I play Happy Street, log calories in Myfitnesspal, and I check Facebook and twitter. That's about all I do on it. The rest of the time it's sitting in my pocket or on the desk. I launch task manager constantly to make sure the apps are closed.

tpatt100

I rooted both of my Android phones pretty much to upgrade them since the carriers abandon them so quickly. I rooted my Razr originally to "freeze" apps Verizon and Motorola put on it like Sega Golf and NFL crap plus a bunch of other third party junk.

After reading the HTC-FTC legal issue I think many issues with Android and why one person's experience might be different than somebody else's with the same phone is more than likely due to terrible support and poor testing of third party carrier-phone manufacturer apps.

N2IT

I am surprised so many love the S3, but that's okay, I don't mind being in the minority. I'll be heading back to the iPhone - either way this has been a very informational post for me and hopefully others.

it_consultant

People that already know android love the SGSIII. If you are coming from the iPhone you will have the same learning curve. Some of the features, like S-Beam are really only good for showing off how cool it is. I use the google/amazon ecosystem religiously so the SGSIII is the perfect phone.

tpatt100

Update: Figured out "again" what was causing my massive battery drain. I should document when I notice these things and develop a troubleshooting/bug tracking document....

Anyways when I had a Nexus 7 I experienced a massive battery drain a few times. It was not always it was sporadic, I figured it was a bug rebooted the device and the problem went away for a bit. Come to find out it was Google Chrome Sync failing and rather than stopping and trying again later it would just continuously sync-fail until the battery would drain itself.

Well for some reason my Motorola Razr got this bug and before it was Chrome which I ended up just turning off every sync except email and calendar.

This time it was the stock browser. I went into Settings-Accounts-Google and saw a red sync icon next to "browser" in the list.

I got NO notification the sync was failing. No idea why sync was failing for the built in browser since I never used it but it defaults to sync on with all the other Google services.

Anyways for the past week and a half my phone would die as soon as I used data. I had to look up an address in Chrome took me about five minutes. The phone was at 100 percent since I had charged it all night. We got to our destination and checked the time and was greeted with a "please plug your phone in now". The battery was near dead.

I think it would be good practice to check all apps background data usage settings especially the sync options for browsers and cloud storage.

RouteMyPacket

t3ch_guru wrote: »

I'm happy with my Galaxy S3. I get about 2 days worth of battery life from it. Everything works fine on my phone. In my opinion, it's the best phone I've own to date.

I concur, by far the best I have had as well.

bdub

One thing to consider if you have Sprint is that Sprint has very limited LTE networks. In fact here in MN we have a grand total of 0 LTE towers in the entire state. So much to my surprise when I ordered the S3 for my wife I could not for the life of me figure out why we could not get a 4g connection until I did some research and discovered they are still in the process of upgrading their towers.

On top of this, the S3 apparently also has a terrible 3g/CDMA radio, so her connection is pretty much terrible wherever we go and calls are dropped constantly.

I am not sure if this is related to your issue. On the battery life issue, could be that your battery is being consumed by the phone continually looking for an LTE connection and never finding one.

Good ol Sprint.

Bokeh

Im sure once the S4 hits, the S3 is going to drop like a rock, and the S2 will be almost free. We looked at the S3, but decided to go with the Google Nexus 4. Haven't had a single issue in the first month, get over 15 hrs battery life, no dropped calls anywhere in the Twin Cities. If you dont have to have LTE and can work with HSPA and HSPA+42 it is an excellent phone.

linuxlover

I got my GS3 in August/September 2012 and I have nothing but superlatives to describe the phone but looks like I'll be upgrading to GS4 when it comes out.

tpatt100

I don't care for the plastic feel, it turned me off on the original iPhone. I saw the HTC One and that phone looks nice but Verizon is not getting it and HTC is losing money faster than the Titanic sinking so I am afraid to go with that brand. Like Bokeh said once the S4 comes out the S3 will drop in price so I might just get over the plastic feel of the phone for a good price.

Iristheangel

I have the SIII. It's not a bad phone. Better battery life than the Evo 3D I had. It's probably too much phone for me to be honest. I rarely use apps, hate sending texts, etc. Probably the only thing I really use my phone for is to take pics, make calls, check e-mail and check TE I honestly have no complaints

Mike-Mike

I have the Samsung Galaxy Note II and I love it an unhealthy amount

swild

This thread has perfect timing. I currently have a Samsung Galaxy S 4G through T-Mobile that my contract is finally up on. Ever since the T-Mobile merger fell through, I have had total crap for signal so I will be switching to Verizon, which has the best signal in my area. T-Mobile also cut off my free tethering ability sometime last year and I am seriously not paying another $15 a month for a service that used to be free.

As far as the phone goes, I have had mine rooted since the first week I got it. It's really a great phone and two years later I'm still happy with it. My personal philosophy on phones is that if there isn't an OtterBox for it, I won't buy it. I was seriously considering going for an iPhone next, just to try it out, but I have to say that after reading this thread, I will have to stick with Android. I'm with it_consultant: I use Google services religiously.