I've never hated Apple, it's a computer and post pc manufacturing company, why would I hate it? But as an iphone user, I did for a while get annoyed at it. It was about this time last year that I got annoyed. I got annoyed at the fact that 64g was still the maximum storage space with the 5S. Was annoyed because I was almost at capacity and if I was going to lock myself into a 5S for 2 years when I was nearly at capacity, I didn't see the point. So I thought I would jump to android, in particular the Samsung Note 3. I was going to immerse myself in the new experience. I watched hours of reviews, tips and tricks, comparison battles on youtube and I was convinced that the Note 3 was the king of the smartphone/phablet market. I tested them in the stores and was impressed at what they could do.
So I locked myself in to a new 2 year contract with my new Note 3.
It started off great. New screen size, brand new phone feeling, new touchwiz, everything was great. My new toy. This lasted for about 3 days and then reality started to sink in.
Google Playstore - absolute bollocks. Sure it has all the popular apps like angry birds, candy crush etc etc. But it's those not so popular apps that make the iTunes store the best app market on the planet. I'm going to put it as honestly as I possibly can...once you look past the popular mainstream apps, the Google playstore is *****.
Camera - totally rubbish in very light or very dark conditions. And if you live in Australia like me, good luck turning the shudder off, you can't if you're with Optus. So no selfies if you're out in public. Whenever you take a photo, it makes the loudest double click noise you've ever heard. Samsung bowing to the wants of Optus.
Malware - The Note 3 would alert me that a particular app was trying to do some sort of dodgy stuff to the device. WTF.
Bloatware - the device came preinstalled with Optus crap that I could not get rid of. Again, Samsung bending over for Optus.
Facebook - the device came installed with a Facebook app, but once in that app, it recommends you get the Facebook app for android...WTF...so you follow the advice of the phone and you end up with two Facebook apps on the one device...totally WTF. Seriously? I mean seriously?
The alarm - what I rely on to wake myself up in the morning. 3 days a week it worked fine, on two random days a week it would beep for literally one second and switch off, a one syllable beep, the Note 3 alarm. Random random random, welcome to Samsung.
Data hungry - I got an sms from Optus saying that I was nearly at my 2 gig data limit after just 2 weeks. I have wifi at home and rarely use my device when I'm at work. The Note 3, or the apps on the Note 3, were sucking 200mbs a day on my data plan, and this factors in that I have wifi at home, again, WTF. I ended up deleting most of my apps and still it was chewing data like no tomorrow.
Music player - plain and simply, it would jump, randomly, from one song to the next, before the song was finished. Sometimes it wouldn't, but sometimes it would. Again, random random random.
Photos - took some photos with my disused 4S because as said above, the Note 3 camera sucked. Uploaded the photos onto my pc and from my pc I uploaded them onto the Note 3. The photos I uploaded onto the Note 3 overwrote all my other photos on my Note 3. So the new photos replaced my existing photos. To this day I have never been able to recover my old photos, mainly of my kids at one of their birthday parties, and I am devastated. Thanks Samsung. And again, dodgy dodgy dodgy.
The stylus/note function - did not work as fluently as shown on youtube videos. In the end I did not find it useful.
Unpleasant user experience - the phone lagged and would freeze a couple of times a day.
Finally, I would read or see on a video how there would be subtle variances of the same gen Note 3, depending on what carrier you were with and in which country. Some using different software, some with more features, some with less. It was like a zoo. You end up with 10 different variances of the Note 3. I was left wondering how lesser was my device compared to others.
The Note 3 was not all that bad, loved the multitasking function and I liked the refund policy on the Google playstore if you returned the app within 15 minutes...mind you given that it is the Google play store, the refund policy is probably out of necessity. Also liked that you could customise but really, that too gets boring. But all in all, the Samsung Note 3 was just too unreliable, too dodgy and too unstable. I guess if you are a long time Samsung/android user you would be used to it but coming from an iphone I definitely noticed the difference and it was material enough.
So I put my sim card back in my 4S after 3 weeks and sold the Note 3. And it was like a breath of fresh air, not having to worry why something would not work, whether I would sleep in, whether I would lose more photos and everything else. And in spite of all of this, I still don't hate Samsung, why would I, it's an electronics company.
Now just looking forward to the 6 Plus when the supply of it eventually starts to overtake its demand.
