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LG Spirit vs Samsung Galaxy S3

A

ABassLineLow

Newbie
Is there any compelling reason to buy the Galaxy S3 over the Spirit? As far as specs go, the only differences I see are ~.6GHz of processing power and twice the amount of RAM. Is there anything else that sets the two apart? Is there anything that justifies the $300 price difference?
 
ABassLineLow said:
Is there any compelling reason to buy the Galaxy S3 over the Spirit? As far as specs go, the only differences I see are ~.6GHz of processing power and twice the amount of RAM. Is there anything else that sets the two apart? Is there anything that justifies the $300 price difference?
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The Spirit and the S3 both have the same processor & graphics processor (msm8960 & adreno 225). So processing power is the same.

The S3 has the edge on the Spirit because of 5 things....
---bigger higher resolution screen
---8 mega pixel camera
---HDMI connection with MHL adapter
---2gb ram
---The huge Dev community

If you ask me that doesn't justify and extra $300 on the price tag.
I bought the S3 because at the time it was the only phone worth buying at Metro.

With that said the Spirit is a great phone that I'm really enjoying. For 200 bucks you can't go wrong.
 
Ya know, as much as I thought I needed an HDMI port (and, consequently, why I have an Esteem), I have never actually used it. *laugh* The higher resolution and crazy dev support are pretty big selling points for me though. Does the amount of RAM make a significant difference? Or will I, an Esteem owner, be so impressed with the speed of either of them that I probably won't notice the difference between much faster and much, much faster?
 
ABassLineLow said:
Ya know, as much as I thought I needed an HDMI port (and, consequently, why I have an Esteem), I have never actually used it. *laugh* The higher resolution and crazy dev support are pretty big selling points for me though. Does the amount of RAM make a significant difference? Or will I, an Esteem owner, be so impressed with the speed of either of them that I probably won't notice the difference between much faster and much, much faster?
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I had the esteem and It pales in comparison to these 2 phones. My spirit handles everything my S3 does with no lag at all (i.e. gaming & multitasking) so the ram hasn't made a difference for me.

The Spirit can connect to TV's, xBox 360, and PS3. Here's my guide to get you started.

Spirit DLNA

Oh and yes you will be impressed coming from the esteem to either phone.
 
That's pretty much all I needed to hear, I'll be picking one up in a couple of hours. The perks of the S3 exist, but they don't seem to be worth $300. Thanks for helping me make a (financially responsible!) decision.
 
I too came from an Esteem. Things I miss:
LED notification light
Ambient light sensor
HDMI port

Things I dont miss:
Lag
Screen size
Rebooting once a day

Cant say anything bad about either phone though, both are great and different. Spirit beats it in the speed department which is NICE.
 
If you don't miss a brazeelyun calls (battery drain) and keep the phone in your general vicinity, I've found NoLED helps a lot for the missing LED. If you aren't the most observant, you can also add a NoLED audio notification to the NoLED visual one.

The choice is pretty simple unfortunately. I did a fair amount of searching and NoLED was about the only thing I could find that came close to a LED notification. So, you fly Completely Blind or you use NoLED, those are about your choices. :rolleyes:

The good news is if you just miss a call for a short time and tend to glance at your phone now and then, the NoLED does what it's 'sposed to.

(And to think even my lowly DXs had an LED and I had an app for that would make the LED do everything but simulate the attack on Ft. McHenry. :p And all for a damn .09 LED. <Please note my correction from the aforementioned nickel.:D > )

Bruce in Ocala, FL
 
Awwww, I love the LED notification light! But not as much as I hate not having Chrome... or waiting 10 seconds for my camera app... or a clunky digital keyboard... the speed is really a big issue for me. Maybe I've just modded it to crap, but the Esteem seems so slow and unresponsive to me these days.
 
OcalaFLGuy: I'd never heard of NoLED before. Huh! That actually looks pretty cool. I'm going to check that out regardless of if I upgrade or not. (I'm in Fort Myers, by the way)

Shabby: Oh, I know that the S3 beats the Spirit, hands down. I don't think anyone could question that. $500 is a lot of money though - 2.5 times the amount of the Spirit, to be exact. I'm a college student on a pretty tight budget. Is the Spirit worth paying more than twice the amount of money for? And correct me if I'm wrong, but the LG Spirit is rooted, is it not? You're a developer, do you think there's a good chance of unlocking its bootloader sometime in the future?
 
not trying to be a debbie down, just not a fan of the feeling i got so far from both forums. that some how some way root/bootloader/roms/recovery will just happen because thats how its always been
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I literally know next to nothing about modding, and I apologize if my assumption is an incorrect one that a lot of people make - I know I absolutely hate that kind of thing in my area of expertise, so I understand how frustrating that is. Thanks for letting me know so I don't make the same mistake in the future. Oh, and you're not a debbie downer at all, you're just telling me how it is. I appreciate the frankness.

That being said, what exactly are the benefits of installing a custom ROM? I know the custom I have loaded into my Esteem seemingly changed very little with the exception of reboot times and little things like changing fonts and load graphics. If I'm not a developer, does being able to load ROMs onto my phone offer any clear advantages?
 
It kind of sounds like, unless I'm a developer (which I am, ironically, just not with mobile devices), there's not a significant advantage to custom ROMs... and heck, if I were a developer, I think I'd be more interested in rooting and unlocking bootloaders for new phones than anything else! ;) Which I am, by the way; and if I do end up getting a Spirit, I'll be more than willing to contribute however I can. However, I know relatively little about Linux, so I get a feeling I'd be pretty useless. Am I about right, or are there good resources to learn the kind of things I need to know?
 
I'm surprised no one has mentioned this.

IMO Wirefly pretty much answered this question earlier today when they Dropped the Spirit price to $229 and you still have today, tomorrow and Sunday for the rebate deal. With rebate, that get's you down to $159 total for the Spirit. That's crazy talk. (Good!)

Even if you want an S3 get the Spirit NOW. Use the insurance money you Would Spend on the S3 for 2 years to pay for the Spirit and wait til they drop the price on the S3 for the S4. Then keep your Spirit as a Back-up (instead of insurance).

Bruce in Ocala, FL
 
Yessir, I just bought it tonight! I've only had it for about an hour, but I'm already so happy I got it. It's ridiculously fast compared to the Esteem! And from what I've seen on Craigslist, I can sell my Esteem and pretty much make my money back.

So now that I'm officially an LG Spirit owner... use me as you will, devs! Or if you have an abundance of free time to waste, learn me up on a few things so I can be helpful for real.
 
In response to what shabby has said. Unlike the s3 that desperately needs to be modded to get rid of lag.. The spirit doesn't need custom ROMs. LG has done a really good job on the speed/smoothness and the ability to customize a lot. Like I always say. You're best bet is to go to a store and try the two phones out for your self. It's the only way you really know what you like. For me when I tried both phones I felt the Spirit performed better. Now don't get me wrong, I think the s3 is a really great phone just not worth paying out the same price as a laptop/pc...

Benchmarks for the Spirit kills metro's version of the s3, just saying.:boxing:

As much as I loved my Esteem. The Spirit is a huge improvement. I never really used the HDMI out, and Never really paid attention to the LED, so not really missing it. The Spirit does good at letting you know by sounds and vibration when something is going on.
 
This thread has been one sided in favor of the S3. If one didn't read the title they would think they're in the S3 forum.

In fairness to the Spirit it's a great device with premium phone performance at an affordable price.

Screen resolutions in pixels:
S3 - 921,600
Spirit - 518,400
Motion - 153,600

I also thought the Spirit scored higher than the S3 because of the lower screen resolution in the Spirit, but since the spirit also scores higher than the motion, now I'm not so sure about that theory. Perhaps there's a different reason.

I'm sure there will be and explanation for that too.
 
GameTheory said:
This thread has been one sided in favor of the S3. If one didn't read the title they would think they're in the S3 forum.

In fairness to the Spirit it's a great device with premium phone performance at an affordable price.

Screen resolutions in pixels:
S3 - 921,600
Spirit - 518,400
Motion - 153,600

I also thought the Spirit scored higher than the S3 because of the lower screen resolution in the Spirit, but since the spirit also scores higher than the motion, now I'm not so sure about that theory. Perhaps there's a different reason.

I'm sure there will be and explanation for that too.
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wasnt unaware teh spirit was qhd, figured it was hdpi.

i dont understand? he wanted a comparison, he only posted in teh spirit forum (luckily for you guys i happen to visit many), when i looked there was nothing but people telling him to get the spirit. i offered my opinions and my knowledge as someone with a sgs3.

as far as a samsung fanboy? caught me red handed, they make things simple, update their devices, provide good clean kernel source, and so far ive yet to own a locked down samsung...

i understand teh price is steep, i pointed that out in my first post when i compared them. i didnt realize me posting multiple times in a thread would have been taken as turning this into a sgs3 thread. ill remove my posts and leave you guys alone, sorry to be such a bother...
 
For the record Shabby, I'm the OP and I thought your posts were both on target and insightful. You gave me the information I asked for, and along with GameTheory's advice, it was more than sufficient to make a well-informed decision. I appreciate your responses, sincerely. The fact that you took the time out of your day to answer questions like mine makes you pretty awesome in my book.
 
@Shabby

Your input is appreciated and respected Shabby... My apologies if you didn't think so.

We all pointed out the S3's advantages, and we all agree that it's the better phone.

I guess I made my post because I was a little bothered by the comment you made about "crappy lg phones" because of locked bootloaders. I don't think that makes a phone "crappy". Being that you're a developer, I can see your frustration with locked OEM's, so I wouldn't hold it against you... I'd probably feel the same if I were a dev.

p.s.
That 4.1.2 update is not available to me yet. :(
 
GameTheory said:
I guess I made my post because I was a little bothered by the comment you made about "crappy lg phones" because of locked bootloaders.
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This is why I made my post. It came off as you saying that the Spirit is inferior because its not a Samsung. This is the exact behavior that gets many isheep made fun of, hence the fanboi comment.

I'm going back to what i was doing now.. :smokingsomb:
 
shabby I don't think anyone wants you to leave, you helped us out with root. We all really appreciate it.

I think everyone was just giving their opinions of the phones as asked in the thread.

I didn't mean anything I said as knocking you. Like I said In my comments, the s3 is a great phone, just not for $500.

If it had been more like $300 I probably would have bought it long time ago.

Apparently we offended you and I'm sorry for that. I don't think anyone wanted to do that.
 
I like both phones. If I had the jack, I would have gotten the S3. The price difference was my reason..
 
Well i can tell you this. There are several factors of why the S3 is better than the spirit.
1. Screen Size
2. Dev
3. Memory
4. Options
And most importantly Battery Life.

I am not sure what the heck LG has running or the way they have it running, but my S3 can easily go for a full 24hrs with WIFI/4G turned on, playing games a little and making plenty of calls and text messages. The Spirit is lucky to last 5 hours doing the exact same thing.

Both phones are rooted with bloatware removed.

So to me its all about my battery life, and Dev community. So to me its worth the extra money for the S3 over the Spirit.
 
There sure is a lot of info here :). I see us Spirit users seem offended :D, but there is good reason.

There are really just a few factors people look into buying a phone. Hardware, Software, and Price.

The s3 wins in Hardware and currently now in software.
The Spirit wins in price.

But a forth factor that doesn't apply to everyone but applies to all of us here in the forums is development. In my opinion I find it hard to see the spirit ever reaching the same development as the s3.

Mainly because LG doesn't care about us, just about selling their products. If my refund had come earlier with the s3 at $399(at the time), I probably would have been over with the sam fans :).

I own a Spirit, but if we are comparing, My opinion is the s3 is better. Like I said in the past, If LG dosen't change their locking business, this will be my last LG phone. and you can qoute me on that :cool:
 
Oh for sure, the S3 is definitely superior to the Spirit in every way besides price. There's a reason it's $300 more, and it'd be hard to deny that. But it's probably the most popular and well known Android phone, so you're also paying a premium for brand name. That's just how these things work.

I think it's unfair to say the Spirit is unlikely to have a community like the S3 because LG doesn't care about us though - I think it's unlikely because the S3 is available on nearly all carriers and is advertised to an insane degree. Last time I checked, LG didn't hire Seth Rogan and Paul Rudd to do a two minute ad spot during the Superbowl for the Spirit. ;)
 
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