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Phones anybody here switched from the 4S to the Samsung Galaxy S3?
- Thread starter imeth
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Please do. There really appears to be a lot of us now interested in this device.
I wonder if apple is taking any notice. Could it be the start of a downhill slide?
Probably not yet. Too many ready to upgrade without knowing anything about the new device is the definitive hint.
I'm not sure who you have as a carrier but with AT&T I was allowed 30 days to make a decision on whether I wanted to stick with the new phone or return it with no restocking fees and revert my contract to it's former expired status. Check into it. You may have similar options.
Hmm.. ok.. food for thought. I'm in Australia... so I'll need to check that out.
I'm due (contract out) in November... it will be interesting to say the least about what sort of comparisons come to light between the 2 handsets by that time.
This reminds me of the old G4 days when folks would get "bored and tired" of Moto not supplying processors and slow innovation in Apple hardware. They would come on here to tell us they were building a hackintosh or moving to Linux or Windows. Nothing wrong with it, just reminded me of those days.
The phone space is interesting in that most in the US are on two year contracts. So this means that Apple's one-phone-per-year works out for those who enjoy their iPhone and simply upgrade to the new iPhone every 2 years.
But for new users or switchers, Apple is at a disadvantage compared to the number of different Android phones released throughout the year. If you are elibile for upgrade in July and now the iPhone is pushed to Q4, some who are already curiours may decide to move to Android rather than wait the 3+ months for the new iPhone. Especially when there is no real idea what the new iPhone will and will not have.
Maybe it's time for Apple to pre-release info on iPhones in order to stop folks from jumping ship?
Or more realisticallly, Apple should stagger hardware and software releases. For example, if iOS 6 was released in 2Q it may be enough to satifisfy many users and keep them on iOS until the new phone is released in Oct/Nov.
Apple needs to fix these release cycles. I vote for iOS release in spring and hardware in Fall.
The phone space is interesting in that most in the US are on two year contracts. So this means that Apple's one-phone-per-year works out for those who enjoy their iPhone and simply upgrade to the new iPhone every 2 years.
But for new users or switchers, Apple is at a disadvantage compared to the number of different Android phones released throughout the year. If you are elibile for upgrade in July and now the iPhone is pushed to Q4, some who are already curiours may decide to move to Android rather than wait the 3+ months for the new iPhone. Especially when there is no real idea what the new iPhone will and will not have.
Maybe it's time for Apple to pre-release info on iPhones in order to stop folks from jumping ship?
Or more realisticallly, Apple should stagger hardware and software releases. For example, if iOS 6 was released in 2Q it may be enough to satifisfy many users and keep them on iOS until the new phone is released in Oct/Nov.
Apple needs to fix these release cycles. I vote for iOS release in spring and hardware in Fall.
Touchwiz is kind of laggy once you start running larger widgets. That being said, I can't decide if I want a new launcher. Tried Nova Launcher and it was cool but i still like the ripple effect and such.
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Clearly the S3 is to the point where it really is significantly better than the current iPhone model. Once the next gen iPhone comes out, we'll see which is better, but I'm willing to bet it's really close.
As far as "downfall" I doubt it. The iPhone 5 could be the 4S with LTE and the public would run out and buy one. At the end of the day, iOS is extremely powerful and intuitive.
Read the first 5 pages of this forum.
The GSIII has most of the things cited as "Wanted for next iPhone". NFC, bigger screen, LTE, powerful processor, widgets, social network integration all with a competitive batterly life. We're comparing to the current iPhone. If you like iOS, fine, I do too. I understand not going to something else. The post I was replying to asked why there was interest. That's why.
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Yes you have to download it. There are a bunch of different keyboards to choose from, SwiftKey just worked well for me so I kept it. Swype was cool, I just wasn't very fast at it and didn't really want to practice it. I like swift key because the auto correct is amazing. It will learn your style of texting and pretty much just know what you are trying to say. It's amazing. As I'm typing this on my S3 I've been completely butchering words and it's been 95 percent spot on.
I'm very happy with this phone. I thought I would miss my iphone a lot more than I do. There's a couple things that I liked on the iphone better, but at the moment I can't remember what they are! Lol. Watching videos, surfing the Web, texting, writing emails and adding attachments are so much better, easier, etc. The music player is ok, but I think I'm gonna try and find a different one in Google play. There are a few things I could critique about it, but over all, a very solid phone. Hell, one of the small things I've really enjoyed is the face recognition unlock of the phone. I never kept my iphone locked because I hated having to type a number in every time I wanted to open the phone. Now my phone is locked all the time and I can just swipe to unlock and look at it and it unlocks. Takes it less than a second to unlock, and if I'm in a dark room it just asks me to do a little pattern to unlock. Small, but very convenient feature.
I was not bored with iOS. Its a great OS. Thats not why I changed to Android and the SGS3.
I was tired of the constraints of iOS and not being able to do certain stuff that I could do even on my Symbian phone 3 years ago. After 2 years (iOS 4, iOS 5 and now iOS6) I got really tired of not seeing iOS improve as much as I expected. On the other hand, ICS really was the kind of stuff I always wanted (the virtual buttons with a dedica ted multitasking menu, the new Swype gestures all over the OS, etc).
Ios6 was the motive I decided to change. My contract ended on February and I waited until June to see iOS 6 because I wanted to stay considering that I already had an iMac, Mac mini and iPad. But when I saw iOS 6...
And then I saw the JB keynote and it brought even more interesting stuff: offline Voice dictation, the new search, Google Now, faster OS overall, offline maps, etc. They did a better job than iOS 6 no doubt.
Its that simple. If you give me a better product for even less money you win. I have no attachments to any company.
I was tired of the constraints of iOS and not being able to do certain stuff that I could do even on my Symbian phone 3 years ago. After 2 years (iOS 4, iOS 5 and now iOS6) I got really tired of not seeing iOS improve as much as I expected. On the other hand, ICS really was the kind of stuff I always wanted (the virtual buttons with a dedica ted multitasking menu, the new Swype gestures all over the OS, etc).
Ios6 was the motive I decided to change. My contract ended on February and I waited until June to see iOS 6 because I wanted to stay considering that I already had an iMac, Mac mini and iPad. But when I saw iOS 6...
And then I saw the JB keynote and it brought even more interesting stuff: offline Voice dictation, the new search, Google Now, faster OS overall, offline maps, etc. They did a better job than iOS 6 no doubt.
Its that simple. If you give me a better product for even less money you win. I have no attachments to any company.
I'm really interested in the SG3 but I wanted Jelly bean on it. Last month I tried to upgrade to a htc one x and after a day I got pissed cos its no way better than the 4S. I felt the camera on the 4s was better, tho I loved the screen.. typing text messages and emails was hard for me since I'm used to the iPhone. I had the 3gs,4 and 4s so it was hard for me to change to android, tho my first smartphone was a htc desire.. I still have love for android but Im waiting for that Android phone that would make me jump ship. Maybe the Galaxy Note 2 with jelly bean 
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Oh man, Apple had me hooked its the other way around for me. When I saw Mountain Lion and how it would sync and work with iOS, thats what sold me onto waiting for the next iPhone.
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Oh man, Apple had me hooked its the other way around for me. When I saw Mountain Lion and how it would sync and work with iOS, thats what sold me onto waiting for the next iPhone.
I'm really interested in the SG3 but I wanted Jelly bean on it. Last month I tried to upgrade to a htc one x and after a day I got pissed cos its no way better than the 4S. I felt the camera on the 4s was better, tho I loved the screen.. typing text messages and emails was hard for me since I'm used to the iPhone. I had the 3gs,4 and 4s so it was hard for me to change to android, tho my first smartphone was a htc desire.. I still have love for android but Im waiting for that Android phone that would make me jump ship. Maybe the Galaxy Note 2 with jelly bean
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Oh man, Apple had me hooked its the other way around for me. When I saw Mountain Lion and how it would sync and work with iOS, thats what sold me onto waiting for the next iPhone.
Apple makes the best desktop OS in the world by a large large margin. Windows 8 is the worst idea I have seen in a long time, and after trying it in Parallels I don't want to see it anymore.
I do love the integration between Mac OS X and iPhones, but the slow slow pace in which iOS is evolving was a deal breaker for me. I wanted a more powerful smartphone (software speaking).
For you, sure they do. I use both and each has its advantages.
Just like IOS and Android.
Yeah but sometimes I think having no ability to change batteries doesn't hurt that much (for me). Since I do have a USB wire where ever I go and the S3 has surprisingly good battery life. [I got the S3 recently, much better bat life compared to the S2, which wasn't bad either]
I made the switch a couple of weeks ago and don't regret it one bit, GS3 is by far the best smartphone that I've ever used(and I've used many phones). The screen is stunning, can't really tell that it's pentile and is much better than the Nexus(imo). Battery life is great, again much better than the Nexus(horrible battery life with LTE caused me to go back to the iphone). The locked bootloader is a bit of a bummer, but I'm running rooted stock rom with bloatware removed, and Nova launcher, which is super smooth. I can mostly use the phone with 1 hand as well so no problems there.
Thought I'd post my thoughts on the SGS3 as I just switched from iPhone 4S.
First thing is the screen. It is truly amazing. I always loved the retina on the iPhone 4 and 4S and thought I'd never find anything better, but I can say this screen really blew me away from when I first switched it on.
I also love the size of the screen. A bit of a jump up from the 4S but I am loving it. It's not for everyone but I find the extra room brilliant and just as managable as the 4S ie. I can use it with one hand easily.
The next thing is the OS. I had the S2 and I didn't like it. It was slow, I dreaded having to open my photo album but ICS is running very smoothly on the S3. I also love the customisation and the widgets. Really feels more like my own phone being able to organise it how I want.
The battery seems on par with the 4S only thing I am disliking is how long it takes to do a full charge. My iPhone would have charged in about an hour. I had to charge the S3 overnight last night to get it from 8% to 100%. It must have been charging for at least 6 hours. I have been reading up online and this may be a charger issue but I will look into that. Just thought I would point it out anyway.
Also, I cannot stand the stock keyboard on Galaxy S3, I hated it on the S2 also. So I downloaded SwiftKey and it is a dream. I love the autocorrect on the iPhone and this is definitely equal to if not better than the iPhone keyboard.
There are a lot of little quirks that just add to the 'wow factor' of this phone. Things like the 'Smart alarm' that you can set to go off 3, 5, 10 or 30 mins before you are due to wake up and it starts playing gentle music very quietly and gets louder and believe me, it is a much more pleasant waking up experience than an alarm sounding loudly. There are a lot of things I am still learning about the phone but so far I am in love with this phone and now it has caused uncertainty about getting the new iPhone when it is released. I will see what Apple has to offer with the new iPhone.
First thing is the screen. It is truly amazing. I always loved the retina on the iPhone 4 and 4S and thought I'd never find anything better, but I can say this screen really blew me away from when I first switched it on.
I also love the size of the screen. A bit of a jump up from the 4S but I am loving it. It's not for everyone but I find the extra room brilliant and just as managable as the 4S ie. I can use it with one hand easily.
The next thing is the OS. I had the S2 and I didn't like it. It was slow, I dreaded having to open my photo album but ICS is running very smoothly on the S3. I also love the customisation and the widgets. Really feels more like my own phone being able to organise it how I want.
The battery seems on par with the 4S only thing I am disliking is how long it takes to do a full charge. My iPhone would have charged in about an hour. I had to charge the S3 overnight last night to get it from 8% to 100%. It must have been charging for at least 6 hours. I have been reading up online and this may be a charger issue but I will look into that. Just thought I would point it out anyway.
Also, I cannot stand the stock keyboard on Galaxy S3, I hated it on the S2 also. So I downloaded SwiftKey and it is a dream. I love the autocorrect on the iPhone and this is definitely equal to if not better than the iPhone keyboard.
There are a lot of little quirks that just add to the 'wow factor' of this phone. Things like the 'Smart alarm' that you can set to go off 3, 5, 10 or 30 mins before you are due to wake up and it starts playing gentle music very quietly and gets louder and believe me, it is a much more pleasant waking up experience than an alarm sounding loudly. There are a lot of things I am still learning about the phone but so far I am in love with this phone and now it has caused uncertainty about getting the new iPhone when it is released. I will see what Apple has to offer with the new iPhone.
That's odd. It only took me about 2.5 hours last night to charge to 100 percent from a full discharge.
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Yeah, the stock keyboard is very disappointing. Some of the auto corrections it makes are mystifying. It auto corrects to words that I'm not even sure are actual words.
I'm going to check out SwiftKey. Did you get the paid or free version?
I actually just read online today that the first full charge can take longer so I think that's what it might have been. I've lasted all day today on 1 charge though so I'm impressed with the battery life so far.
I bought the full version of SwiftKey. Not too sure what features the free version is missing but I read reviews and just thought I would pay for it.
+1
Yeah, i use windows 7 mainly and mac os is a great os that is why i buy my laptops from apple. I even used linux for a while some months ago. Every os has their own huge advantages. For entertaiment and everyday use i use windows , for work i use mac os and linux to test or run codes...
for all the folks that are considering the S3, there are two types, the dual core (US models) & quad core (International i9300). Best place to read on these phones is xda-developers.com.
By going there you can read other peoples opinions & see development for that particular phone. Just like how MacRumors is one of the best places for Apple related, XDA-developers is one of the best places for Android.
By going there you can read other peoples opinions & see development for that particular phone. Just like how MacRumors is one of the best places for Apple related, XDA-developers is one of the best places for Android.
Thinking of jumping ship b/c I'm tired of the slow 3G speeds knowing I can get LTE for the same price I've been paying for unlimited data. That and the 3.5" screen feels so small compared to the many phones out there. Those are the two significant reasons I'm considering to switch back to Android.. and Jelly Bean seems great. There are things I'm kind of tied to - iTunes and iMessage but I've found some working alternatives..
SwiftKey FTW. I have the paid version (is there a free one?). Very satisfied. I've got it set for the large keyboard in portrait orientation and it's basically the same size as the iPhone's keyboard in landscape. Very nice. And medium size for landscape works well for me.
Hi - do you know whether the Galaxy S3 can sync with the calendar and contacts on snow leopard and mountain lion on the Mac? I'm researching a replacement for my blackberry bold - I can't decide if it's worth waiting for the iPhone 5. There's a public vote on whether the iPhone is better than the Galaxy S3 on eQuibbly (a dispute resolution site at bit.ly/MUCj90 ) - seems pretty close right now. But I'm not going to get the Galaxy if it can't sync well with a Mac. Thanks