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Need some feedback from owners of the S3

Bren S.

Bren S.

Android Expert
I have recommended this phone to friend of mine,she is not a member of this forum and so I thought I'd ask for her.
What have your experiences been with this phone. The good..the bad...and the gigantic pains in the arse. :)

What are somethings that you really dislike about the phone or that you wish it had that it doesn't?
Would you buy it again,?? Recommend it to someone who really matters to you??
Thanks
 
I would recommend it to anyone. The only thing i am not a fan of is the physical home button. But i have had no problems. No freezes, not stutters, no lag, no random shutdowns, stuff that older android phones may have had. Again would recommend it to anyone
 
defiantly the best phone ive had, the build quality is alright, but does not compare to HTC. This phone is fast and smooth for ICS, some stuttering here and there, but nothing like gingerbread.

Iv'e only just got this phone Wednesday, and the only 2 things i really dislike is:

1: the auto prediction is highly agressive, if its not in the dictionary, it wont let you spell it out.

2: There is no wifi toggle on the VZW version, instead there is a option in the notification tray to go to the wifi setting to turn it on. Why VZW did it this way is beyond me, think i heard they said they wanted people more aware of wifi availability. But im not an idiot, i know when to connect and when to turn it off. also if your at home on 3G or 4G or whatever, it keeps pushing you to go to wifi if its around, even if my router is off, it will try to force me to connect to my neighbors wifi which is unsecured.

other than that, its a great phone, think the software versions may differ based on what carrier your friend is going to.
 
CrimsonPride said:
I would recommend it to anyone. The only thing i am not a fan of is the physical home button. But i have had no problems. No freezes, not stutters, no lag, no random shutdowns, stuff that older android phones may have had. Again would recommend it to anyone
Click to expand...

No physical home button? Are you referring to the Galaxy Nexus?
 
I recommended it to my sister and I did buy it again. My first one got stolen. I suppose it would've been nice if it had come with Swype installed but no biggie as I've installed Swype beta.
 
Has anyone had both the SG3 and the Galaxy Nexus on Verizon? Went to the VZ store yesterday to look at the new Razr M and left admiring the SGIII.

I'd really like to know how the standard SG3 battery compares to the Nexus. I do have the Verizon extended battery (2100), but it's still terrible IMO. I may just wait for the HD Maxx to come out, unless I get a good deal on ebay for the SG3.
 
mattywalnuts said:
Has anyone had both the SG3 and the Galaxy Nexus on Verizon? Went to the VZ store yesterday to look at the new Razr M and left admiring the SGIII.

I'd really like to know how the standard SG3 battery compares to the Nexus. I do have the Verizon extended battery (2100), but it's still terrible IMO. I may just wait for the HD Maxx to come out, unless I get a good deal on ebay for the SG3.
Click to expand...

I came from the VZW Gnex, and boy what an upgrade!!! Sometimes i forget im on ICS, which was kinda bad on the Gnex, not terrible, but laggy. The battery is fantastic! will last all day for me, took it off charge yesterday morning at 7:30 am, and by the time i went to bed around 1 am, it was only at 40%. trust me, a worthy upgrade, might take a day or so to get used to, its nothing like stock android XD
 
kalaster said:
I came from the VZW Gnex, and boy what an upgrade!!! Sometimes i forget im on ICS, which was kinda bad on the Gnex, not terrible, but laggy. The battery is fantastic! will last all day for me, took it off charge yesterday morning at 7:30 am, and by the time i went to bed around 1 am, it was only at 40%. trust me, a worthy upgrade, might take a day or so to get used to, its nothing like stock android XD
Click to expand...

Thanks! I'm on Jelly Bean right now on GNex, but ultimately battery life is the biggest concern, a better camera would be nice too, which the SG3 has.

How heavy do you use your device to get that type of battery length?
 
There's really only one major bad thing about the phone and that's it's keyboard. swiftkey for 4 dollars will change that.

Battery life great, great camera, great screen and the phone itself feels great in your hand. it has a replaceable battery and memory expansion which most phones do not have now a days. This is a big plus for me.

I would buy this phone again in half a heart beat.
 
The only issue I am aware of, and the one that is keeping me from buying, is I am on T-mo which has wifi-calling and there seems to be serious issues with the new IMS wifi-calling on the G3 (as opposed to the former Kineto version). There was an update and has helped some phones but not all. Wifi-calling is a must for me.
 
CrimsonPride said:
I would recommend it to anyone. The only thing i am not a fan of is the physical home button. But i have had no problems. No freezes, not stutters, no lag, no random shutdowns, stuff that older android phones may have had. Again would recommend it to anyone
Click to expand...

+1 for me and I had the iPhone since te 3G.

I use it side by side with my 4S and only negative for me is the home button is small and sometimes not responsive and battery life on 4GLTE, but that is to be expected. I think it offers some much needed competition for the iPhone.

You get 30 Days to try it if you do not like it simply return it.
 
I had the GNEX on vzw, needed to switch to at&t due to connectivity issues. First had an HTC One X, since GS3 was not yet available. Since I was still in a low signal area, battery life was poor (otherwise a very nice phone). Finally went with the GS3 assuming that third party support would be better, and that a large replacement battery would soon be at hand. Got a 4000 mAh battery plus tpu case for about $30 shipped. There is another thread here on that. Essentially a GS3 Maxx. Had to replace the standard keyboard (SwiftKey 3), otherwise stock. Runs circles around the GNEX, many features that the HOX doesn't have. Only problem is that you will be six months discovering what this phone will do :-)

I would recommend it to anyone adventurous enough to have other than an iPhone, which definitely has it's place.
 
From what I have seen the main downsides to the S3 are either carrier related or arouse through a lack of understanding/technical literacy.

Having had an international S3 since release I've not really had any issues, but in that time I've come across many a topic where by the problem is solved my simply updating the firmware and possibly doing a factory reset.

If you have the opportunity to help an owner with the phone from the "out of the box" point, I'd make sure you get as upto date as possible on the firmware front and do (if needed) the factory reset before you get too far into the whole exploring the phone / apps / setting up personal preferences part. That imo should give the user a good foundation to work from with (potentially) less hassle.
 
I've had the Verizon S3 since launch date and still love the phone.

The good:
4.8" screen - Coming from the 4.2" Droid X screen it's bigger, brighter, and better.
Battery life - I'm getting 17.5 hours with 2.5 hours screen time daily! I have screen at full brightness and don't use any battery saving tips/apps.
4G - My 1st 4G phone. Still can't believe the difference of 3G vs 4G, WOW.
Thinness - Very thin, even with a gel case. Slides easily into pocket.
Durable - I had a six foot drop in July. No issues, thank goodness!

The bad:
Signal strength - The phones radio reception could be better. I have never had a dropped call, but a couple of garbled calls. My S3 averages 3 to 4 bars which is usually +100dB signal.
Slight lag - 1/2 second or less and only occasionally, but I blame using Apex for most of that. I still prefer Apex over TouchWiz.
Camera - IMO bad low light performance, grainy at 100% zoom. But I hated the DX camera too. That and my Canon T2i spoils me for any camera and cell cams are the worst.

The gigantic PItA:
GMail app - My biggest pet peeve about the S3 is you can't turn off the LED notification in GMail unless you disable all GMail notifications. Only an issue at night when my docked S3 flashes that bright LED while I try to sleep.

The motion controls and S Voice seem more of a novelty to me and I don't use any of them. I do use Smart Stay which seems to work when standing or sitting, but not lying down. The eye level is below the phone when lying down so I believe that's why the phone can't "see" my eyes.

Yes I'd buy it again, especially now since it's so much cheaper than what I paid as an early adopter / pre order. And I have recommended the phone to coworkers, one of which just bought the S3. I'd recommend it to my daughter, but she's an Apple fangirl. But I can't wait to show it to her next time I see her.
 
Shotgun84 said:
I recommended it to my sister and I did buy it again. My first one got stolen. I suppose it would've been nice if it had come with Swype installed but no biggie as I've installed Swype beta.
Click to expand...

Either Swype or Swype-like features are built into the stock keyboard. I can glide my finger over the keys and it will figure out the word. Not quite sure what you didn't catch there?
 
Bren S. said:
Actually my thread is not the same....but thanks
Click to expand...

There is still not another phone out there I'd prefer. This phone rocks, esp coming from a Motorola Droid 3 (major POS).

Maybe if I had to be *really picky* the predictive keyboard could be a little nicer on things you want to spell differently. I remember on some other device I had that if you had a "unique" word, you could easily long press on it and add it to the dictionary. Haven't figured that out on the S3 yet. Other than that, this phone is awesome and most likely will be over the top when Jelly Bean comes to it!
 
MicroNix said:
Either Swype or Swype-like features are built into the stock keyboard. I can glide my finger over the keys and it will figure out the word. Not quite sure what you didn't catch there?
Click to expand...

Yeah I know you can swype with the stock Samsung keyboard it just isn't as good as Swype
 
To the OP, has your sister had an android phone?

I made the mistake of recommending an android phone to my sister, who had never had a smart phone. - mistake! She did not appreciate the flexibility of the android and all the menus, setups, and options available to her. She has little interests in apps or replacing stock features such as weather, keyboards, messaging, memo pads or much anything else. For her an iPhone would have been a better choice.

I'm not saying an Android phone is hard to use or setup, just that she had no interest in that or in learning how to navigate to any of our top shelf features. For her, an out-of the-box, ready to go iPhone would be better. We need to remember that not everyone has our discriminating tastes, and that's okay.

Please everyone, you don't need to tell me that this phone is so simple and so great - I know that! :)
 
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