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SPRINT GSIII owners, considering a switch from LTEvo

B

bupolo

Android Enthusiast
Any GSIII owners in the Santa Monica area? I recently upgraded to the LTEvo (which is of course on SPRINT), but am unhappy with the battery life & network connectivity of the phone (in that I can only get about 4 or 5 hours of use before it begins to die) and I can "barely" get internet near the beach, on 3rd street, etc. I am on my second LTEvo (first one had weird pink spots on the screen that Best Buy replaced, and the one I have no appears to have even worse battery life) which I exchanged on Monday, and have about another week (45 silver Best Buy member return policy) to return the LTEvo and possibly exchange for a GSIII?

Any of you guys who live in SM having the same connectivity issues or battery issues possibly being caused by searching for or hoping between towers?

Also, for those not living in Santa Monica (thanks treb1797!) anyone strongly suggest I make the switch OR think I should stick it out with the LTEvo?

Thanks Guys.
 
Would love to answer your question, but I don't live in Santa Monica.
 
JayC said:
I wish i lived in the Santa Monica area near the beach.
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+ 1 amigo. Nice update to your signature !! Thought you were getting all soft on us for a minute. Guess I was wrong. :boxing:

O.k. Santa Monica people where you at ? :smokin:
 
I would edit the title of this thread too as non Santa Monica folks will never open it.
 
JayC said:
My area has yet to get LTE but a few weeks ago I was in the LA area (Alhambra to be exact) I was able to get 9 mbps down and about 11 up. Best that I seen so far (HTC One X).
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Lte has always worked well for me in LA. My thunderbolt use to give me about 10 down and 3 up but since the upgrade to GS3 my levels have sky rocketed
 
Geeze, my bad guys, I should have mentioned I am on Sprint (that's the only one offering the HTC Evo LTE).
 
I'm not in your area but I just traded my evo lte for a galaxy 3. My evo would lose connection to Wi-Fi and mobile internet all the time, my gs3 never does. The only thing the evo did better was call quality. Beats audio was ok but honestly I can't really tell the difference.the speaker is way better on the gs3 and it is also more responsive. Battery life is also better on the galaxy, but I had a custom rom on the evo that helped a ton in that department.
 
How much better was call quality on the LTEvo? Mine is not that great, and I can only imagine if it gets worse. Is the SIII supposed to get HD Voice when that capability rolls out?

Beats Audio is "meh," just makes the base a bit louder, much ado about nothing.

But connectivity & data speeds (or lack thereof) and poor battery are my main (and serious) complaints.
 
Your LTEvo is not sleeping and syncing constantly, probably due to the way Exchange is set up, and that's what's killing your battery.

Suggest folks here also mention their Exchange experiences (and especially successful setups for that) so that the experience doesn't follow from one phone to the next. ;)
 
Thanks Early Mon, after switching the Exchange settings around and stopping the facebook syncing my phone doesn't really burn battery during the night anymore. But it's still bad during the day when I'm using it. I think my battery is bunk, probably being caused by it having absolutely 0 juice when I first got it.

Anyways, the thing cannot stay connected to the internet anywhere (Wifi, 3g, etc) even with the most recent OTA fix. I'm about 90% sure I'm going to be making the switch to the GS3.
 
So I made the switch on day 44 of 45 at Best Buy and have been using the GS3 for a few hours last night/this morning. So far it seems speedier for sure, though not sure about apps and how solid voice calling is because Best Buy tried to sell me a lost or f'ing stolen phone from another active account, so when I tried to activate it, it gave me a different phone number. I called Sprint to help me activate it, and the Sprint rep alerted me to the problem, and then called the Best Buy that I purchased the phone from to find out why they'd do that. Unbelieveable. Each phone I've gotten from Best Buy (2 LTEvo's and 1 GS3) have been jacked up in some way. Last time I buy any phones from Best Buy.

Unbelievable. I just want a phone that's not jacked up with a battery that lasts more than 4 hours if I use it frequently.
 
And in my thus short lived comparison, I find the following:

GS3: Good placement of the power button since the phone is so big, and good job on putting the charging port at the bottom of the phone instead of the side (LTEvo was stupid to put it on the side, but probably had to make room for camera button or something).

LTEvo: I like the kickstand (don't know what you've got til it's gone), I like the dedicated camera button. Not sure if I prefer the volume rockers on the left or right side. I also like the dedicated buttons, and I find the placement of the invisible/dedicated buttons on the GS3 a bit difficult since they're right on the corners. Maybe that's an issue I just have to get used to.

LTEvo's screen is better, much clearer resolution reading the internet. Maybe it's good on apps and games, but that doesn't matter as much to me, LTEvo is hands down winner on the screen.

GS3 has snappier responsiveness when opening websites and You Tube, very noticeable. Also, Navigation popped open quicker, and GPS seemed more responsive. Also, BlueTooth seems more powerful on the GS3 (can push the signal through multiple doors versus losing reception), and it doesn't lose WiFi reception as easily. All of this would make me chose the GS3 over the LTEvo, but I'm not quite sure if my last Evo was bunk (my earlier one didn't have as great of connectivity issues with WiFi).

Camera? I don't know, I miss the dedicated camera button. Can you do the rapid shot picture taking with the GS3 and a third party app?

GS3 battery life is the clear winner thus far, though when I got my second LTEvo it came completely dead, no juice whatsoever, and I understand it's bad to let a battery sit that way for extended periods of time, as it causes it to degrade. Anyways, my LTEvo battery life was awful.

Calling? I don't know what the call clarity is like, I read some people said it wasn't as good as the LTEvo, which would be a bummer.

LTEvo, I like Sense. I'm used to it, and it seems more customizeable, though I really like the placement of the WiFi/BlueTooth/GPS/etc widgets when you swipe down. Makes it so I don't have to use a third party app which doesn't allow me to direct change the GPS with 1 click.

I think the GS3 has a slight advantage with what appears to be better battery life, more ram, and stronger radios?
 
Really glad you got this sorted out. :)

In the end, life is too short to sweat an expensive smartphone. If someone doesn't take care of you, I say vote with your wallet.

And mega kudos for the fair and balanced reporting of your experiences! I hope that coming from an LTEvo lover like me, that adds even more to the compliment. :)

Best luck with your new SGS3, and enjoy it in good health! :)

PS - processor is the same, I am guessing that the snappier performance is either the increased ram, or your LTEvo was really borked. I am going to guess that it's the bigger ram, I had to root mine before I was happy. Sense 4 memory management is ridiculously wrong. :D
 
I upgraded to the LT Evo 4G since I was a big fan of my Evo 4G, it was a logical choice to get it. After about a week I noticed the phone would get extremely hot while I was talking on it. So I swapped it out for a new one and a discovered that when I was streaming Pandora or music off my SD card via bluetooth it would make these crackling and popping sounds (tried it on a couple of BT speakers and got the same result).

Swapped it out again and then everytime I would reboot the phone all my apps disappeared and had to redownload everything from the Play store and Amazons app store, plus the whole multi tasking issue was a pain. Well after that I really had it, so I swapped it out for a SIII and have had no problems with it and like it quite a bit (except for the fact you can't move apps to the SD card, but that's a whole other topic).

I really loved the look, feel and build of the Evo 4G LTE, but there were just too many issues with it. I hope HTC irons out these bugs because it's really a nice phone, but one that just I couldn't justify keeping for two years. Plus kudos to the BB mobile folks for being really cool and not hassling me everytime I brought the phone back.

Oh, one more thing. HTC announced that the 1x/xl/1S were getting Jellybean, and sadly nothing was mentioned of the Evo 4G LTE, which concerned me. I'm sure it'll get it but I really didn't feel like waiting 6 months for it.

Also the SIII does have burst mode and a cool panoramic mode. Just just have to go into the camera settings to enable it.
 
EarlyMon said:
Best luck with your new SGS3, and enjoy it in good health! :)

PS - processor is the same, I am guessing that the snappier performance is either the increased ram, or your LTEvo was really borked. I am going to guess that it's the bigger ram, I had to root mine before I was happy. Sense 4 memory management is ridiculously wrong. :D
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Thanks, thus far I'm really pleased with the battery life on the GS3, but it was tough giving up the LTEvo. While the GS3 is pretty, I guess, I liked the LTEvo 's overall look better. It just looks tougher, I dunno. And I loved my OGEvo.

Anyways, I installed Go Launcher so that my Sense withdrawals are lessened.

Some updates to the analysis:

Bluetooth doesn't auto connect when a paired devise is in range, I find that weird. Is there a setting to make it auto connect?

3G reception is almost the same as on my LTEvo (i.e. not good). I thought it was an LTEvo issue, or a radios issue, but I guess not. Come on Sprint, roll out your crap in Santa Monica already.

The screen doesn't bother me as much, I was afraid the pixelated screen was going to look like the Photon, but it's not as noticeable as that.

I finally made it to the gym to listen to some music while working out and oh boy did the phone get hot. That caused me a bit of concern. To top it off, all the music sounded better streaming off the LTEvo, I guess Beats Audio does do something. Does anyone have a recommendation on a good third party amp (as opposed to app)?

Phone still operates noticeably faster.
 
Bupolo, Bearballz, how has the switch been going? I have been having a few annoying problems with my 4g LTE, debating about switching as well. My orgEVO was a fortress, no problems.

If it weren't for the LTE screen I would have done it already.

So far my bluetooth refuses to stay connected to my earpiece, I have a strange mild, rolling static when listening to my Sirius and getting directions from the navigation. Stock browser is freezing when you go to the tabs.

Tried a reset tonight and nothing improved. I know it's possible to trade one set of problems for another, but this one is not working out well. Found your posts helpful.
 
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