Came from Iphone, comparison and questions

[alexchannell]

Questions:
1. I am using the stock email app and gmail app. One for Exchange, the other for google. The stock email app doesn't render gmail messages well for some reason, any way to fix?

2. When I get a notification I sometimes check the email on my computer or open the app on the phone. Once the email is read the notification doesn't disapear, any way to fix?

3. My navigation and music seem to be tied to the same volume control, this results in the nav voice being too quiet. Can this be fixed?

4. Haptic feedback isn't universal. Any way to make it activate when I touch anything on the screen? For instance opening an app, clicking a button inside an app.

5. Can I reduce the number of homescreens? I only need 2 or 3.

Comparison:
I had a 3G and 4 prior to this phone. Went with US Cellular as they are the only company that give service at my home.

Call quality is better than my ATT Iphone.

I miss the ability to take a full res picture and then send a smaller version. Seems I either need to edit the photo or take it in a lower res. If I want to send a picture to get a point across I don't want to try and email a 5mb file over spotty 3G.

Battery life is awesome, no complaints. Not sure if it's better than the Iphone but it lasts me 2 days easy.

Don't like how slippery the phone is. Got a case quickly.

I like the plastic construction. Feels lighter than the Iphone. I don't buy into the "oooo glass and metal is pretty" give me a lightweight phone that performes instead.

LOVE the notification light.

Button position I'm not a fan of, maybe I need to get used to it but when I hit the power button I often hit the volume rocker too.

Navigation kicks ass, love the ability to use offline maps.

Hate the samsung voice but love the google voice actions, just wish there were an easier way to activate it.

Camera takes a while to activate, wish I could have it on the lockscreen or open with a button. Iphone has it on the lockscreen. I have to have a lockscreen due to work and "fun" pictures.

Earphones are awesome since they work well under a helmet for motorcycling.

Still not as smooth as Iphone. It misses my presses sometimes.

File managing is sweet unlike the stupid locked down Iphone.

I miss visual voicemail.

 

[Ballymoss]

Battery life is awesome, no complaints. Not sure if it's better than the Iphone but it lasts me 2 days easy.

Samsung Galaxy S3 best for mobile battery life - July - 2012 - Which? News

 

[ghost0211]

Was your iphone jailbroken?

 

[Metfanant]

ill answer what i can..

2. When I get a notification I sometimes check the email on my computer or open the app on the phone. Once the email is read the notification doesn't disapear, any way to fix?

once the notification is there its there...not gonna go away..89

5. Can I reduce the number of homescreens? I only need 2 or 3.

i dont believe you can in TouchWiz...but if you install a 3rd party launcher (i suggest Apex or Nova) then you can do that...the 3rd party launchers will be better anyway...

Camera takes a while to activate, wish I could have it on the lockscreen or open with a button. Iphone has it on the lockscreen.

yes...

settings>>security>>lock screen options>>shortcuts

I have to have a lockscreen due to work and "fun" pictures.

easy fix for the "fun" pictures...put them all in their own folder...using a file management app change the name of the folder by adding a period "." at the beginning...for example ".private" and BAM those pictures will no longer show in the gallery and you just need to use your file browser to look at them...

 

[artman540]

From the home screen press menu, edit. Now delete the screens.

 

[stevej2001]

[I miss visual voicemail.[/QUOTE]

Verizon sells visual voicemail for $3/month.

 

[jkmasi]

Or use google voice for visual voicemail for free!

 

[Teris]

Google voice FTW!

Definitely get a launcher like Apex or Nova - you can do a lot more customization than with Touch Wiz. You may want to check out WidgetLocker, too - very cool app.

 

[jerofld]

Questions:
1. I am using the stock email app and gmail app. One for Exchange, the other for google. The stock email app doesn't render gmail messages well for some reason, any way to fix?

2. When I get a notification I sometimes check the email on my computer or open the app on the phone. Once the email is read the notification doesn't disapear, any way to fix?

3. My navigation and music seem to be tied to the same volume control, this results in the nav voice being too quiet. Can this be fixed?

4. Haptic feedback isn't universal. Any way to make it activate when I touch anything on the screen? For instance opening an app, clicking a button inside an app.

[deleted some stuff]

I miss visual voicemail.

1) I don't use the stock app, but there are alternative exchange email apps that may handle Gmail better. I hear Touchdown is a great email app.

2) Notifications stay up until cleared. You can swipe them away, hit clear, or just tap them.

3) Not that I know of.

4) Maybe the auto haptic feature will do this (in Settings > Sound), but it has other annoying side effects (like haptic during music).

And, as others said, there are free Visual VM apps, chief of which is Google Voice (IMO)

 

[Covart]

Questions:

2. When I get a notification I sometimes check the email on my computer or open the app on the phone. Once the email is read the notification doesn't disapear, any way to fix?

Slide your finger from the top of the screen down to open the notification center. Clear your email notifications. Done.

3. My navigation and music seem to be tied to the same volume control, this results in the nav voice being too quiet. Can this be fixed?

go to settings -> sound... Adjust as you see fit the various options

4. Haptic feedback isn't universal. Any way to make it activate when I touch anything on the screen? For instance opening an app, clicking a button inside an app.

Haptic feedback turning on every time you touch something will help eat the battery faster. That said, you can turn on haptic feedback for the keyboard and capacitive buttons.

5. Can I reduce the number of homescreens? I only need 2 or 3.

download a 3rd party launcher like 'Nova' and you can change peetty much anything you want, including icons and number of home pages.

 

[psybab]

Or use google voice for visual voicemail for free!

Google voice is great, especially because their visual voicemail translations are dead on. Just remember to set up call forwarding on voice.google.com first. You have to dial an extension with your google voice number.

 

[sergey]

And, as others said, there are free Visual VM apps, chief of which is Google Voice (IMO)

Wait a second, what?

You're telling me that Google & Verizon OK'd a free workaround for visual voicemail? How do you set this up???

 

[AndroidSD]

I'm also a Iphone to S3 user. I can't seem to get message previews to work as well. Whatsapp on Iphone doesn't show previews. The text messaging previews seem to show up and then disappear. The iphone previews would stick around until I unlocked the screen.

I miss the strong glass of the iphone. I have already scratched the plastic on the screen. I totally abused my iphone and I never had any problems with the screen scratching without a screen protector or anything.

I hate all of the bloatware crap I can't even delete. How can I get rid of Att navigator and all that crap I don't want? I try to uninstall but it won't let me. Iphone has a few irritating undeletable apps but there are like 30 apps I cant get rid of on my S3. It reminds me of buying a compaq computer or something.

The navigation application is a 1000x times better than anything stock on the iphone. That has been the biggest improvement. I also like the automatic upload of photos and video to google+.

The hardware and screen size is a huge improvement over my iphone 3GS, but the OS is kind of bugging me. I never had to use google to figure out issues with my iphone, but I can't even figure out how to take my phone out of silent mode.

 

[AndroidSD]

Questions:

5. Can I reduce the number of homescreens? I only need 2 or 3.
.

Swipe your fingers up and down like scissors and it is intuitive from there how to delete empty pages. Maybe I'm confusing pages from home screens

 

[Wisheezy]

I'm also a Iphone to S3 user. I can't seem to get message previews to work as well. Whatsapp on Iphone doesn't show previews. The text messaging previews seem to show up and then disappear. The iphone previews would stick around until I unlocked the screen.

I miss the strong glass of the iphone. I have already scratched the plastic on the screen. I totally abused my iphone and I never had any problems with the screen scratching without a screen protector or anything.

I hate all of the bloatware crap I can't even delete. How can I get rid of Att navigator and all that crap I don't want? I try to uninstall but it won't let me. Iphone has a few irritating undeletable apps but there are like 30 apps I cant get rid of on my S3. It reminds me of buying a compaq computer or something.

The navigation application is a 1000x times better than anything stock on the iphone. That has been the biggest improvement. I also like the automatic upload of photos and video to google+.

The hardware and screen size is a huge improvement over my iphone 3GS, but the OS is kind of bugging me. I never had to use google to figure out issues with my iphone, but I can't even figure out how to take my phone out of silent mode.

Have you gone to Settings > Application manager > select the app > DISABLE should do the trick for the annoying bloatware

also to get it out of mute..just press the + button on the side of the galaxy? goes to vibrate then loud.. i think.

 

[NYYFan]

Posted this review on another forum I visit (Yankees forum) in their iPhone thread:

Just ditched the iPhone after 5 years and picked up a Galaxy S3, I'll never go back to iPhone/iOS.

Pros: This phone is FAST! The 4G is faster than my Comcast cable service, and the overall speed of the phone blows the 4S out of the water, which really isn't surprising when you compare the specs. The "more fair" comparison would be to wait until the iPhone 5 comes out, however I doubt even that will match these specs. Love, love, love the customability of Android OS, it's really in a completely different stratosphere than iOS. I've literally spent days just messing with the different options with launchers, widgets, wallpapers, etc.

The screen is stunning, better than the Retina display imo. The blacks are much deeper and the colors are more vibrant/realistic. Bigger is definitely better, I can actually watch video and read articles without straining my eyes, I don't think I'd ever want a smaller screen than this now (4.8"), though I think it's right at the max of what's comfortable in my hands. I could see it being a slight problem for people with small hands. The phone is extremely light too.

I really don't use the "fancy" applications like S Beam, NFC, face recognition and the likes, but I've tried them and they seem to work well. S Voice (Siri rip-off) works pretty similar to Siri, it has more functionality (which iOS 6 is fixing apparently) but doesn't work as consistently. Doesn't really bother me either way because I find both to be more of a novelty. I only use it for navigation when I'm driving and it works great for that (btw, maps/navigation on Android is phenomenal, be interesting to see how it compares to the new maps in iOS 6). I actually just prefer to use the in built Google search bar widget for everything including composing texts, which the speech-to-text recognition is brilliant.

The Tec Tiles and the app "Tasker" rule all, (read about them if you want, but they essentially allow you to tell your phone what to do at certain times/locations/etc. i.e. When I arrive at work automatically go to silent, turn off wi-fi, launch my calendar and so on.) I can see NFC tags being implemented with the new iPhone (if they do indeed incorporate NFC) BUT, because iOS is so locked down there is no way it would be able to compete with the flexibility Android offers. That being said, Tasker is only possible because of the flexibility of the Android OS. I love plugging my headphones in and having my screen turn on and music app pop right up. I also have it set up to read my text messages to me when I'm in the car. It's options are literally endless.

Cons: If you don't disable certain bloatware, and you actually use all the inbuilt functions consistently like NFC, Face recognition, etc. your battery will suffer a bit. Android is definitely not as "simple" as iOS if you're looking for something as straight forward as possible, and if you don't feel like messing with anything when you get your phone (i.e. you're a lazy ass and don't care about actually making your phone more about "you" ), the it's probably not for you.

It's not fair to compare this to the 4S (which I don't even know why tech media is...), because it is definitely a generation above that phone and destroys it in literally every category, so I'll be interested to see what the iPhone 5 brings. One thing I know it wont beat is the open access that Android OS has, which is obviously more of a personal preference if you're really interested in making your phone your own instead of just using it the way Apple wants you to.

 

[Easilyamused]

I miss the strong glass of the iphone. I have already scratched the plastic on the screen. I totally abused my iphone and I never had any problems with the screen scratching without a screen protector or anything.

So remove the plastic. The Gorilla Glass 2 on the S3 is quite scratch resistant.

 

[Wisheezy]

Posted this review on another forum I visit (Yankees forum) in their iPhone thread:

Just ditched the iPhone after 5 years and picked up a Galaxy S3, I'll never go back to iPhone/iOS.

Pros: This phone is FAST! The 4G is faster than my Comcast cable service, and the overall speed of the phone blows the 4S out of the water, which really isn't surprising when you compare the specs. The "more fair" comparison would be to wait until the iPhone 5 comes out, however I doubt even that will match these specs. Love, love, love the customability of Android OS, it's really in a completely different stratosphere than iOS. I've literally spent days just messing with the different options with launchers, widgets, wallpapers, etc.

The screen is stunning, better than the Retina display imo. The blacks are much deeper and the colors are more vibrant/realistic. Bigger is definitely better, I can actually watch video and read articles without straining my eyes, I don't think I'd ever want a smaller screen than this now (4.8"), though I think it's right at the max of what's comfortable in my hands. I could see it being a slight problem for people with small hands. The phone is extremely light too.

I really don't use the "fancy" applications like S Beam, NFC, face recognition and the likes, but I've tried them and they seem to work well. S Voice (Siri rip-off) works pretty similar to Siri, it has more functionality (which iOS 6 is fixing apparently) but doesn't work as consistently. Doesn't really bother me either way because I find both to be more of a novelty. I only use it for navigation when I'm driving and it works great for that (btw, maps/navigation on Android is phenomenal, be interesting to see how it compares to the new maps in iOS 6). I actually just prefer to use the in built Google search bar widget for everything including composing texts, which the speech-to-text recognition is brilliant.

The Tec Tiles and the app "Tasker" rule all, (read about them if you want, but they essentially allow you to tell your phone what to do at certain times/locations/etc. i.e. When I arrive at work automatically go to silent, turn off wi-fi, launch my calendar and so on.) I can see NFC tags being implemented with the new iPhone (if they do indeed incorporate NFC) BUT, because iOS is so locked down there is no way it would be able to compete with the flexibility Android offers. That being said, Tasker is only possible because of the flexibility of the Android OS. I love plugging my headphones in and having my screen turn on and music app pop right up. I also have it set up to read my text messages to me when I'm in the car. It's options are literally endless.

Cons: If you don't disable certain bloatware, and you actually use all the inbuilt functions consistently like NFC, Face recognition, etc. your battery will suffer a bit. Android is definitely not as "simple" as iOS if you're looking for something as straight forward as possible, and if you don't feel like messing with anything when you get your phone (i.e. you're a lazy ass and don't care about actually making your phone more about "you" ), the it's probably not for you.

It's not fair to compare this to the 4S (which I don't even know why tech media is...), because it is definitely a generation above that phone and destroys it in literally every category, so I'll be interested to see what the iPhone 5 brings. One thing I know it wont beat is the open access that Android OS has, which is obviously more of a personal preference if you're really interested in making your phone your own instead of just using it the way Apple wants you to.

Great post. I love how you had such an unbias review on this being an iPhone user for so long. It's refreshing to see people noticing the power of other mobile phone makers and how much Android has to offer more iOS.