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Will I Be Sorry Coming from iPhone?

C

consultant

Well-Known Member
I'm no Apple Fanboy. I'm a huge fan of Google Apps/Services and see them as the future. So I read Android Reviews. Was going to get HTC One X for better screen in bright line and Sense got better reviews for interface but come to find AT&T only offers 16GB model! I need 32GB! So it appears S3 is only other choice. I read a review on Best Buy that sounded like they knew what they were talking about and recommended S2 (I don't play games and don't need the absolute latest/fastest CPU or largest screen.) So would S2 be good or still go with S3?

See comments by: ryko4887

Samsung - Galaxy S III 4G Mobile Phone - Marble White (AT&T) - SGH-i747

Secondly, I'm coming from the iOS jailbreak world so I'm comfortable modding the phone, but at the same time I don't want to spend a bunch of time ironing out any kinks. Is there a "Quick Start" sort of guide anywhere for the S3 (or S2) - like - "get THIS ROM as it is the best and most stable" ... "install THESE apps" do this, don't do this, etc. Something to save me some time.

Thanks in advance.

-- edit --
Scratch S2. Only 800x480 display, that's too big of a step down I think.
 
consultant said:
I'm no Apple Fanboy. I'm a huge fan of Google Apps/Services and see them as the future. So I read Android Reviews. Was going to get HTC One X for better screen in bright line and Sense got better reviews for interface but come to find AT&T only offers 16GB model! I need 32GB! So it appears S3 is only other choice. I read a review on Best Buy that sounded like they knew what they were talking about and recommended S2 (I don't play games and don't need the absolute latest/fastest CPU or largest screen.) So would S2 be good or still go with S3?

See comments by: ryko4887

Samsung - Galaxy S III 4G Mobile Phone - Marble White (AT&T) - SGH-i747

Secondly, I'm coming from the iOS jailbreak world so I'm comfortable modding the phone, but at the same time I don't want to spend a bunch of time ironing out any kinks. Is there a "Quick Start" sort of guide anywhere for the S3 (or S2) - like - "get THIS ROM as it is the best and most stable" ... "install THESE apps" do this, don't do this, etc. Something to save me some time.

Thanks in advance.

-- edit --
Scratch S2. Only 800x480 display, that's too big of a step down I think.
Click to expand...

Depending on how much you really want to customise your phone, you may or may not need to root it. An Android phone will have a lot of customisation options available for you without needing to root.
 
I've been participating in these forums for over a year and have only seen 2 people go back to apple after trying Android in that time.
 
Stuntman said:
Depending on how much you really want to customise your phone, you may or may not need to root it. An Android phone will have a lot of customisation options available for you without needing to root.
Click to expand...

Good point. I'm seeing posts that seem to indicate apply the "standard" updates from AT&T/HTC can be problematic if you have customized the phone's OS??

On the other hand, my gut is telling me I want "Jelly Bean" and the XDA forum seems to recommend CM10 the most. Bottom line is I don't want the least number of headaches but I want the best user experience.

So then the question becomes what are the most significant "real world" benefits of a custom ROM like CM10? I know the big allure is to get more control over the phone - but unless it runs a lot better than the stock OS it seems its main benefit is for those that just love to spend time tinkering?
 
I switched to an S3 about a month ago. I had iPhones for 5 years. You will not be sorry. I am continually impressed by this phone. Out of the box it's better than a jail broken iPhone. I do like the iPhone camera quality better but not it's features. Also the Droid seems to be a battery hog. I can easily live with the cons. No regrets.
 
spent years jailbreaking ios2.1.1 all the way up to my hacked out iphone 4 ios 5.1.1 and i promise you, it was hard for me to make the jump but once i did to the s3 i couldnt have been happier. been on it for 3 weeks and ICS with the google store/open market is awesome. it doesnt even come close to anything cydia.
 
consultant said:
I'm no Apple Fanboy. I'm a huge fan of Google Apps/Services and see them as the future. So I read Android Reviews. Was going to get HTC One X for better screen in bright line and Sense got better reviews for interface but come to find AT&T only offers 16GB model! I need 32GB! So it appears S3 is only other choice. I read a review on Best Buy that sounded like they knew what they were talking about and recommended S2 (I don't play games and don't need the absolute latest/fastest CPU or largest screen.) So would S2 be good or still go with S3?

See comments by: ryko4887

Samsung - Galaxy S III 4G Mobile Phone - Marble White (AT&T) - SGH-i747

Secondly, I'm coming from the iOS jailbreak world so I'm comfortable modding the phone, but at the same time I don't want to spend a bunch of time ironing out any kinks. Is there a "Quick Start" sort of guide anywhere for the S3 (or S2) - like - "get THIS ROM as it is the best and most stable" ... "install THESE apps" do this, don't do this, etc. Something to save me some time.

Thanks in advance.

-- edit --
Scratch S2. Only 800x480 display, that's too big of a step down I think.
Click to expand...
i second this as a new s3 user
 
It largely depends how you use the phone. For me, moving from an iPhone 4 to the S3 was the biggest mistake I have made this year (and will be rectified once the IP5 is out).

Initial impressions were good, I like the screen, the build seems fine to me and TouchWiz on first play, was pleasant enough.

However, my multiple issues started soon after...

1. The stock S3 email client is poor. It has real issues connecting to certain Exchange servers (unfortunately including my client's) so I had to purchase and install a separate app (and Touchdown was not cheap). I prefer having all my mail accounts in one app but the options for that on Android don't appear as clear cut as the native iPhone mail app.

2. Audio - a real bugbear for me.. again, the stock music app is junk, no support for some features supported in the basic music app in iOS (e.g. gapless audio). You can, of course, purchase a separate music app - I bought Power Amp and tried Rocket Player and a few others but none seem to be as polished (Power Amp for example seems not to use the album artist tag). I also had issues with audio apps conflicting.. on iOs, when I plug a headset in, i press the play button and it plays whatever I was last listening to in the music app. In Android, it appears to just play (or try to play) whatever the last audio app was - e.g. TuneIn radio.

On top of that, my car just refused to play ball with the S3 at all. I can connect them via bluetooth and use it for calls but when I tried syncing it as an audio source too, it just failed - everytime I use the phone part, the media BT connection does not re-pair. And the icing on the cake was that when plugging the S3 into the USB port of the car, it just reports an error. This could just be the fault of Lexus but again, the iPhone was flawless when used as both a bluetooth or USB media device (and I've had to substitute it with an iPod for now).

I rooted the S3 after a week (tbh, jailbreak process is a lot quicker and easier IMO) and tried some custom roms - settled with Omega ROM and I'm still using that but, overall, I now realise that, while Android is far more customizable than iOS, I found myself spending a lot of time (and money) to try and get it as functionally perfect as my iPhone was.

One of the aspects of the S3 that appealed to me after the iPhone was the ability to use SD cards to essentially increase available storage space to more than the supplied 16gb (I've always had 32Gb iPhones). Unfortunately, even after rooting, moving apps to the SD card is a painful and often fruitless task.

Don't get me wrong though... despite the above, the S3 is a great phone. It's flexible enough (especially if rooted) that you can do almost anything with it, it's just not for me.
 
You might be sorry for not waiting to at least check out the new iPhone in September and see whether or not it stands up to the hype. If you're a Mac guy like me getting iPhone makes sense. I got the S3 not cause I hate Apple and all but because it was/still is THE best atm but might sell it IF the new iPhone is better and better is different from person to person. Right now Samsung is the best maker of android phones (mostly because it mass produces 1000 models yearly while Apple only does 1 each year) BUT since Google bought Motorola...that might change...who knows... but on the other hand without a shadow of a doubt as far as reliability, ease of use, it just works the Mac blows away any other PC and the iPad dominates. All other tablets are just cheap clones. Of course ppl will try and tell you otherwise but like I always say...life's too short to argue. To each his own opinion :) I love Samsung Galaxy S3 and the Note but Apple will always have a special place for me since in my school back in the 80's we had Macs and I have very fond memories of that time.
 
people have to realise the differences of ios and android.
ios is proprietary. its made to work with its own phone only and nothing else.
theyve had years of getting it wrong and making patches to give the device the same functionality as a normal phone (original iphone couldnt send sms or mms without a patch and needed to be jailbroken for mms)

where ios excels is uniform. as every iphone is the same its easier for external people like MS and google to develop for it as there will be no discrepancies.

Androis is a base level phone/tablet operating system. out of the box its pretty naked and its up to the manufacturers/oems to modify it and implement extra features that make it their own.
unfortunately this means there is no uniform, not one android model is the same as the next.
Email is an example, samsungs stock email client is based on the same code as htc's however with various tweeks they make to integrate it into their UI it makes it behave differently and sometimes depending on how a company manages email connections (mobile device management like maas360, zenprise, Soti) it can cause compatibility issues.
This is not so much dont to the manufacturer/OEM but the 3rd party that has/has not also made modifications to their system to integrate with other mail clients other than the generic ones which are majority apple based.

people expect android to do what ios does, it does not. you have to be far more open minded with andoid and look at a bigger picture. the moment you start comparing the two is the moment you are looking for reasons to go to IOS
most of those reasons are because its what youve got used to and changing makes things more awkward than its worth.
its like moving from windows to linux, most people just cba even though linux is clearly a better OS ( at base )
people tend to be more inclined to re learn everything on an system theyve paid a heavy premium for (mac/ios) as they need to justify their purchase and give it the best shot they can.
This is in no way bad as it means you actually make the change for whatever reason, there is more incentive when you have spent large money on it.

Use which ever you want, i personally prefer the android environment over ios for my own personal reasons however ive given ios a chance and use it at work for many things.
i find battery on iphone4 and 4s dire, when investigating people who claim long battery life you find most of the time they dont even realise theyve plugged it in to the pc to sync and left it connected a couple of hours giving it a mini charge.

my s3 lasts me 2 days
 
I'd say that the battery on the iPhone 4 and S3 last me about the same, normally about 1 day. I've gone from a Jailbroken IPhone 4 to S3 and I couldn't be happier. I awlays hated iTunes and why the F**k couldn't you just drag and drop files from my PC to the iPhone really annoyed me. Custom Kernel and ROM are right up my street, I love tinkering with settings.
 
It depends. On how much you have invested in apps and iTunes music. And on how easy you can adopt to a new platform. Things that you're used to on ios will be different and you may find ios does certain things better than android.

I say try it out. I switched and for the most part I love much s3. No regrets.
 
Rastaman-FB said:
people have to realise the differences of ios and android.
ios is proprietary. its made to work with its own phone only and nothing else.
theyve had years of getting it wrong and making patches to give the device the same functionality as a normal phone (original iphone couldnt send sms or mms without a patch and needed to be jailbroken for mms)

where ios excels is uniform. as every iphone is the same its easier for external people like MS and google to develop for it as there will be no discrepancies.

Androis is a base level phone/tablet operating system. out of the box its pretty naked and its up to the manufacturers/oems to modify it and implement extra features that make it their own.
unfortunately this means there is no uniform, not one android model is the same as the next.
Email is an example, samsungs stock email client is based on the same code as htc's however with various tweeks they make to integrate it into their UI it makes it behave differently and sometimes depending on how a company manages email connections (mobile device management like maas360, zenprise, Soti) it can cause compatibility issues.
This is not so much dont to the manufacturer/OEM but the 3rd party that has/has not also made modifications to their system to integrate with other mail clients other than the generic ones which are majority apple based.

people expect android to do what ios does, it does not. you have to be far more open minded with andoid and look at a bigger picture. the moment you start comparing the two is the moment you are looking for reasons to go to IOS
most of those reasons are because its what youve got used to and changing makes things more awkward than its worth.
its like moving from windows to linux, most people just cba even though linux is clearly a better OS ( at base )
people tend to be more inclined to re learn everything on an system theyve paid a heavy premium for (mac/ios) as they need to justify their purchase and give it the best shot they can.
This is in no way bad as it means you actually make the change for whatever reason, there is more incentive when you have spent large money on it.

Use which ever you want, i personally prefer the android environment over ios for my own personal reasons however ive given ios a chance and use it at work for many things.
i find battery on iphone4 and 4s dire, when investigating people who claim long battery life you find most of the time they dont even realise theyve plugged it in to the pc to sync and left it connected a couple of hours giving it a mini charge.

my s3 lasts me 2 days
Click to expand...

Wise words (so I'm quoting it all in hopes someone in the future reads it).
 
I love my Galaxy S3, you wont be sorry but i'll tell you something, the OS might give you more freedom but there are things that just plain annoying ! Especially when you know the next update could be months away and it probably wont even fix the issue you have.

iOS is definitely more refined and works how it is intended.
 
i switched about a month ago and dont necessarily regret it. but, it is a different experience. as stated above, the music situation is horrible. my car stereo has a usb port on it and i used my 4s as a music player. cant do that with my s3 and that REALLY bums me out.

the overall user experience is fine and the apps are pretty much 1 for 1. the app store is ok, not very well organized, but neither is the ios app store.

i think the mail app works good. it gets my mail, it sends my mail. if you use icloud there are apps that will sync your contacts and calendar with your phone.

as far as jailbreak goes, i have no experience with that and wont until a good jellybean rom comes out. and even then, if samsung does a good job with touchwiz jb i might not even bother.

just be prepared for an experience that is similar but very different. ive really enjoyed learning a new os and finding out what i can do that i couldnt do with ios or visa versa.
 
I just bought the S3 for myself and a iPhone 4S for my kid. One thing I will say is the the iPhone feels like a brick compared to the S3. It may not actually be heavier, but the feel is very square and heavy.
 
I have an S3 and a 4s. I am getting about the same amount battery out of the S3 as the iPhone, but I find myself using the S3 a lot more than I ever used the iPhone. Mainly because the screen is bigger. That being said if Verizon had the Note I would get that tomorrow. I have not found anything I cannot do with the S3 that I do with my iPhone.
 
if your not a gamer then S3, if you are a gamer then the iphone(iphone 5) all the way, iphones always have the best gpu, even the iphone 4s gpu stomps the adreno 225 in the US S3, you can hold off for the new iphone 5 next month, big jump in cpu and gpu and 4 inch screen, looks the same, if my US S3 was quad core/mali like the international version then i would def keep it.
 
I love the phone,love the screen.I'm having the copy/paste issue but that's not a huge deal but if You have all your stuff linked to itunes it's a pain.I've tried every option out there and they all have their glitches. With a Macbook Pro,2 ipads and 6 iphones in our family I'll probably be going back to a iphone 5.
 
Thanks for the input. Actually a bit more unbiased than I expected, posting on an Android forum. In short, "I get it." I don't play games, but I'm a huge Music/Audiophile person with a 16GB high quality MP3/M4A collection. As I may have mentioned I did interface an aftermarket iOS interface to my Infiniti, but it crapped out and I found the analog Aux RCA input sounded WAY better anyway. I may go back to the native interface though so I can have Bluetooth.

The other big consideration is, I really don't have the spare time to be spending hours monkeying with another device. I learn quickly and love to tinker, but it sounds like Droid may not be quite "ripe" yet for me?

The dealbreakers for me are as follows:

1) Can't use headphone out and my bluetooth headset in the car at the same time on S3. Can't believe it. Need a USB dock with audio out to do that.

2) Poor music player. I don't use iTunes on the PC, MediaMonkey is WAY better and it syncs with S3. But I use my phone to play music all the time and a crappy player on the phone will drive me batty.

3) I really would rather have the HTC One X as screen visibility outside in bright light is important and I've seen YouTube demos showing the AmoLED screen on the S3 pails in comparison to the SuperLCD under those conditions. But AT&T only has the 16GB HOX. I'd have to go by an International version and give up 4G LTE. Sounds like a lot of hassle and expense just to play with a Droid device.

4) I just found out my contract still has 6 months. Have 3 phones on the plan and thought at least one of them was due for upgrade. Not. But at least they all expire at about the same time so I can switch to Sprint if I want as sounds like Sprint has better plan setups for Smartphones if you want Unlimited Data. *** Actually the HTV EVO would be my top pick phone. An HTC One X with SD Card slot, 2000 mah battery instead of 1800mah and a couple other improvements. Wonder if I can just buy one of those, unlock it, pop my AT&T sim card from my iPhone in and give it a whirl. If I like it, I could recoup a big chunk of the costs by selling my iPhone.

I think for now, the advice to wait for iPhone 5 is probably the best. Wait 6 months until my contracts are up then see where things are. But to be honest, my gut says if I could find a music player that worked well, I'd probably be happiest with the power and flexibiity on an HTC EVO running Jelly Bean. A Jailbroken iPhone is a great compromise for now, but I really want to move to Google products and step away from the high price and strict control of the Apple World.

So the question is, can I wait? I suppose I could buy the HTC EVO outrightfrom Best Buy and return it if I didn't like it?

-- edit --
I guess not possible as EVO is CDMA and AT&T is GSM? Guess I WILL be waiting then for iPhone 5 or HTC One X with SD card slot.
 
consultant said:
Thanks for the input. Actually a bit more unbiased than I expected, posting on an Android forum. In short, "I get it." I don't play games, but I'm a huge Music/Audiophile person with a 16GB high quality MP3/M4A collection. As I may have mentioned I did interface an aftermarket iOS interface to my Infiniti, but it crapped out and I found the analog Aux RCA input sounded WAY better anyway. I may go back to the native interface though so I can have Bluetooth.

The other big consideration is, I really don't have the spare time to be spending hours monkeying with another device. I learn quickly and love to tinker, but it sounds like Droid may not be quite "ripe" yet for me?

The dealbreakers for me are as follows:

1) Can't use headphone out and my bluetooth headset in the car at the same time on S3. Can't believe it. Need a USB dock with audio out to do that.
Click to expand...

Amazon.com: iKross Metallic Black In-Ear 3.5mm Noise-Isolation Stereo Earphones With Handsfree Microphone Headset + USB 2.0 to 3.5mm Female Audio Stereo Microphone Adapter for Laptop, PC, Netbook, Skype, MSN, internet: Cell Phones & Accessories

Inexpensive and not that much of a hassle, although certainly not as clean as just using headphone jack.

2) Poor music player. I don't use iTunes on the PC, MediaMonkey is WAY better and it syncs with S3. But I use my phone to play music all the time and a crappy player on the phone will drive me batty.
Click to expand...

7 Music Player Apps for Android That Rock [UPDATED] | Tech Drive-in

3) I really would rather have the HTC One X as screen visibility outside in bright light is important and I've seen YouTube demos showing the AmoLED screen on the S3 pails in comparison to the SuperLCD under those conditions. But AT&T only has the 16GB HOX. I'd have to go by an International version and give up 4G LTE. Sounds like a lot of hassle and expense just to play with a Droid device.
Click to expand...

I tried both. Yes the HOX screen is brighter, but I can see the S3 screen just fine in the sun if I adjust the brightness manually.

4) I just found out my contract still has 6 months. Have 3 phones on the plan and thought at least one of them was due for upgrade. Not. But at least they all expire at about the same time so I can switch to Sprint if I want as sounds like Sprint has better plan setups for Smartphones if you want Unlimited Data. *** Actually the HTV EVO would be my top pick phone. An HTC One X with SD Card slot, 2000 mah battery instead of 1800mah and a couple other improvements. Wonder if I can just buy one of those, unlock it, pop my AT&T sim card from my iPhone in and give it a whirl. If I like it, I could recoup a big chunk of the costs by selling my iPhone.
Click to expand...

I do like it over the HOX

I think for now, the advice to wait for iPhone 5 is probably the best. Wait 6 months until my contracts are up then see where things are. But to be honest, my gut says if I could find a music player that worked well, I'd probably be happiest with the power and flexibiity on an HTC EVO running Jelly Bean. A Jailbroken iPhone is a great compromise for now, but I really want to move to Google products and step away from the high price and strict control of the Apple World.
Click to expand...

So do it. Worse case scenario return/exchange the phone prior to the 14 day return (bestbuy; don't know about other store policies)

So the question is, can I wait? I suppose I could buy the HTC EVO outrightfrom Best Buy and return it if I didn't like it?
Click to expand...

See above.
 
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