Samsung Galaxy S3

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Jackolantern
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Samsung Galaxy S3

Post by Jackolantern »

So a few days back I got a Samsung Galaxy S3 online on Black Friday from AT&T. I have had an Android tablet (the Asus Eee Pad Transformer) for some time now, and have really come to like Android. I like how it is more like a PC than an electronics device, such as how you can simply plug it into your computer and move files to it like a flash drive rather than having to go through something like iTunes or Zune (iTunes was the bane of my existence for several months when I was struggling to make it work on a PC for my iPod Touch 4th Gen).

Anyway, this phone is simply amazing. Like many Android devices, it has a MicroSD slot so you can double or even quadruple its storage for much cheaper than buying the next highest storage model. $100 more for the 32gb instead of the 16, or buy a 64gb MicroSD for $55. Not much of a decision there lol. Internal memory is no faster or more privileged than a MicroSD in mobile devices since the internal memory basically is a MicroSD, so there is really no reason to buy the 32gb model.

All my tablet apps were already installed and waiting on my GS3, which is quite refreshing compared to many other platforms/devices which expect you to buy them again, or at least manually redownload them. The screen is crystal clear, audio is great through a good pair of headphones, and the multi-touch is fast and responsive. Speaking of fast, this has to be the fastest phone I have ever picked up. Everything just seems to happen instantly, including opening large video files. And speaking of video files, that is another thing I love about this device, and really Android more generally. No file conversions! It seems to be able to happily run essentially any major video or audio format without any conversion or additional applications. I have run both AVIs and MKVs on it, including MKVs with subtitles and it handles them all exactly how a PC would (actually, I don't know if even Windows or Mac handle subtitled MKVs without a codec installation).

My wife and I both upgraded essentially at the same time, but she went with a Windows Phone 8 Nokia Lumia 920. I have to keep most of the comments about my phone to myself, since she is quite jealous of mine lol :P She is having issues that plagued Windows Phone 7 devices, such as having only 1 unified volume control versus having separate app, ringer, notification, etc. volumes. It is still a great device, but I feel it has a long way to go before it can compete with the GS3. I am sure Windows Phone 8 will get better, since it is only a few weeks old, but I just can't express how happy I am with mine so far. About the only complaint I have is that the "S-Voice" component which was made to compete with iPhone's Siri is really not on Siri's level. You can basically pick up an iPhone and just talk normally to Siri and it seems to make sense of most of it, whereas S-Voice just gives you a long list of commands you can try. Most anything else will stump it, but what is there works well.

If you are in the market for a new smartphone, I wholeheartedly recommend it, and they are still probably in the ~$50 range over the holidays on most carriers! :cool:
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Cayle
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Re: Samsung Galaxy S3

Post by Cayle »

I am the owner of a non-carrier locked (I paid a pile of cash for it at the apple store) iPhone 4s and my experience with Android comes mainly from programming for it and the software emulator in the Android SDK. I think that the iOS device wins in some terms, when it comes to user experience, but there are some things that Android has that I wish iOS had; e.g. the services model where apps can advertise services to other apps. Apple never pushes the envelope, they just polish the heck out of things that others pioneered, so perhaps I’ll get it in iOS 7 or 8.
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Jackolantern
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Re: Samsung Galaxy S3

Post by Jackolantern »

iOS is an automatic turn-down for me due to my issues with iTunes. It would be working fine for a month or two, and then suddenly I plug it in and it doesn't recognize it. It was always a nightmare because I knew it would be a week of trying back-door hacks to make it work again, or simply format and essentially lose everything (my apps wouldn't come back because iTunes wouldn't recognize it was the same device). This happened over and over and over. But I have heard that iTunes works much, much better on Macs. Not much surprise there lol :roll:

iPhone is solid at what it does outside of my issues, and similar issues other PC iTunes users have reported. I have to say the GUI is getting a bit dated with its "nothing but apps" icon layout, but I have a sneaky feeling Apple may offer an update to it in a coming iOS update. But outside of that and iTunes, I had a pretty good time with it. But I have to look elsewhere for my smartphone choices :)
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hallsofvallhalla
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Re: Samsung Galaxy S3

Post by hallsofvallhalla »

I have a windows 7 phone and it is garbage, plain and simple. I want a S3!
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Jackolantern
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Re: Samsung Galaxy S3

Post by Jackolantern »

That is what I upgraded from (the older Samsung Focus WP7), and it is an amazing update. I have played around with the Nokia Lumia 920 (WP8), and I can pretty much say the only things that are upgraded so far from WP7 is the UI, increased resolution and finally the silly caps on RAM and CPU count are gone. Besides that, pretty much all the same old crap from WP7 is still there :(
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vitinho444
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Re: Samsung Galaxy S3

Post by vitinho444 »

I would like very much to have an S3.. but then i start thinking... what for? Just games and calls? Does it make calls? Does it text? .... Its a notepad with games basicly.. still i support samsung and not apple :lol:

I HATE APPLE... doesn't suprise me how they are the richest company in the world.. selling simple phones for 800$ computers at 2000$... wtf is dat?~


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