Anyone else disappointed in the Samsung Galaxy S3?

Pretty meh phone for all the hype they made leading up to it.

 

They pretty much 4S'd it. I have yet to buy a smartphone and was really thinking that they were finally good enough to be worth carrying around. I had pretty high expectations for Samsung since they are essentially the Android equivalent of Apple. Seems they've run out of idea for the time being. I'm guessing Apple's next phone is also going to be pretty minor in terms of design changes.

 

I'm thinking about getting an HTC One X now, but can't seem to find the one I want. It's pretty annoying how fragmented mobile devices are getting. Back when it was just GSM and CDMA, that was great. Now you all these different technologies and certain phones only working on certain types of networks -- 3G here, HSPA+ there, LTE here but a different version of LTE over there.

 

Add to the fact that you can't just buy unlocked models of anything, and it gets even more annoying. I want the ATT version of the One X with LTE support and 28nm SoC, but you can't buy that version unlocked.

 

Huge PITA. You'd think we'd have world wide wireless standards by now.

Did you really start a new thread telling us you are dissapointed with something? Can't be?

What Slutpoke said. Brian, we would be disappointed if you were not disappointed.

Did you really start a new thread telling us you are dissapointed with something? Can't be?

 

I'd say my disappointment is on par with your ravings when you buy old car models and everyone and their mother knows the facelift is out in 2 weeks.

I'd say my disappointment is on par with your ravings when you buy old car models and everyone and their mother knows the facelift is out in 2 weeks.

 

First, stop using the same comeback year after year. Second, bite me.

Pretty meh phone for all the hype they made leading up to it.

 

They pretty much 4S'd it. I have yet to buy a smartphone and was really thinking that they were finally good enough to be worth carrying around. I had pretty high expectations for Samsung since they are essentially the Android equivalent of Apple. Seems they've run out of idea for the time being. I'm guessing Apple's next phone is also going to be pretty minor in terms of design changes.

 

I'm thinking about getting an HTC One X now, but can't seem to find the one I want. It's pretty annoying how fragmented mobile devices are getting. Back when it was just GSM and CDMA, that was great. Now you all these different technologies and certain phones only working on certain types of networks -- 3G here, HSPA+ there, LTE here but a different version of LTE over there.

 

Add to the fact that you can't just buy unlocked models of anything, and it gets even more annoying. I want the ATT version of the One X with LTE support and 28nm SoC, but you can't buy that version unlocked.

 

Huge PITA. You'd think we'd have world wide wireless standards by now.

 

I am not disappointed and actually think the phone is great. When I heard the specs, I was convinced it was worth buying. It's the first Quad Core phone, it has 1 GB of RAM, thinner, 4.8 inch screen, what's not to like? What kind of changes were you looking for? The form factor is here to stay for all mobile phones, and all that can get better is hardware and software. That's true for iOS and android.

 

There are significant hardware improvements and ICS blows iOS out of the water if your focused around on Google's ecosystem. Samsung's touchwiz if the worst thing about the phone, and usually comes off the moment I unbox one of their phones. If your looking to for a good alternative to the iPhone than the nexus line is the true android alternative.

 

I understand that phones have even less compatibility across networks but that's not anything new, that's been the problem since the 3G days. A lot of these newer GSM phones can support all 3G bands. There was a software 'mod' that allowed the ATT Skyrocket to work on T-Mobiles AWS 3G bands. The Galaxy Nexus is quad band and works on all 3G networks. I know your tech savvy, but what is the use case for this?

 

ou want an unlocked phone ATT One X? , The One X is not going to be a quad core in the US.

 

Did I read that right above, your saying you have never had a smartphone before?

Looks good to me. I just got a Nexus so no need to change my mold phone.

 

 

I bought the galaxy nexus for verizon back in Dec. when it first came out, didnt like it at all,, gave it back.. got the droid razor .... much better phone, but of course a month later they came out with droid razor max.. with a huge battery..

I am not disappointed and actually think the phone is great. When I heard the specs, I was convinced it was worth buying. It's the first Quad Core phone, it has 1 GB of RAM, thinner, 4.8 inch screen, what's not to like? What kind of changes were you looking for? The form factor is here to stay for all mobile phones, and all that can get better is hardware and software. That's true for iOS and android.

 

There are significant hardware improvements and ICS blows iOS out of the water if your focused around on Google's ecosystem. Samsung's touchwiz if the worst thing about the phone, and usually comes off the moment I unbox one of their phones. If your looking to for a good alternative to the iPhone than the nexus line is the true android alternative.

 

I understand that phones have even less compatibility across networks but that's not anything new, that's been the problem since the 3G days. A lot of these newer GSM phones can support all 3G bands. There was a software 'mod' that allowed the ATT Skyrocket to work on T-Mobiles AWS 3G bands. The Galaxy Nexus is quad band and works on all 3G networks. I know your tech savvy, but what is the use case for this?

 

ou want an unlocked phone ATT One X? , The One X is not going to be a quad core in the US.

 

Did I read that right above, your saying you have never had a smartphone before?

 

It doesn't really seem any better other than in hardware, which wasn't a bottleneck to begin with. I've used my friend's phone and it worked lag-free as far as I could tell. I could have had a Galaxy Nexus 6 months ago and had more or less the same phone and usage with ICS. I was hoping for something worthy of all the hype leading up to it. I expected the leader in display technology to have perhaps an edge-to-edge display or something cool and unique to set it apart from the rest since I can get the ICS experience just about anywhere. A lot of bark leading up to the unveiling, little bite. I think Nokia's Lumia design is an example of a design that is really nice and unique. It was the first phone I actually went to the store just to actually check it out. I'd be all over it if it came with Android (as would millions of others is Nokia didn't make a retarded MSFT decision.) Might just wait to see what Apollo has to offer.

 

My problem with compatibility is that I live in Shanghai, but spend a lot of time in Europe and the US. China uses funky homegrown standards that aren't always compatible, especially when you go the prepaid route and I really don't want to change my number. Also, LTE seems like it will have little to no compatibility anywhere, yet it's all anyone talks about these days. I expected that we'd have global network compatibility before we had quad core devices with 1GB of RAM running at speeds not far off a laptop (architecture aside.) I don't understand the logic/priorities here. You'd think it would be cheaper to manufacture devices with universal internals and also be better for world-wide launches. Guess not.

 

I know the One X isn't quadcore, but it's 28nm vs 40nm of the Tegra and from what I've read more efficient and offers longer battery life. In fact it seems like Krait is one of the highest performance chips around right now, even if it's only dual core. I couldn't care less about the potential graphical prowess of the Tegra since I don't play games. I have a dual core PC, so I think dual core phone will be just fine. Are most things even optimized for quadcore? Benchmarks are one thing, but real-world usage is what I really care about.

 

Yup, I never bought a smartphone because they all sucked with respect to battery life. Seeing people bringing chargers to the bar and carrying extra batteries with them was ridiculous. It seems like every time I'm using someone's smartphone the battery is low. The other night at the bar my gf's phone had low battery so we had to be quick about it. Last night I asked my friend to look something up on his iPhone but it was dead (though fortunately he had this ridiculous looking external battery thing.) If I have to curb my usage just to ration my battery in hopes of preserving the core functionality -- talking on the phone -- I'm not thrilled.

 

I can go days without charging my Samsung flip phone and it used to be able to go nearly a week when it was new 4 years ago. Smartphone are still nowhere near that level and may never be, but it's getting a bit more tolerable. Can't wait until 10nm heh.

I'll backup what others have said, Touchwiz just ruins it for me. I have had every Nexus as soon as they came out and the pure Android experience has always proven to be the most trouble free for me. I currently have a Galaxy Nexus and the S3 simply wasn't enough of a jump to move . As for the HTC One X, THANK YOU for dropping the pentile display, it simply sucks for phones as high end as we are talking about these days. Samsung is resting on its accomplishments and the current speakers and cameras in their lineup are lacking and it's starting to show.

 

You guys are pretty tech-savvy about these phones!

It doesn't really seem any better other than in hardware, which wasn't a bottleneck to begin with. I've used my friend's phone and it worked lag-free as far as I could tell. I could have had a Galaxy Nexus 6 months ago and had more or less the same phone and usage with ICS. I was hoping for something worthy of all the hype leading up to it. I expected the leader in display technology to have perhaps an edge-to-edge display or something cool and unique to set it apart from the rest since I can get the ICS experience just about anywhere. A lot of bark leading up to the unveiling, little bite. I think Nokia's Lumia design is an example of a design that is really nice and unique. It was the first phone I actually went to the store just to actually check it out. I'd be all over it if it came with Android (as would millions of others is Nokia didn't make a retarded MSFT decision.) Might just wait to see what Apollo has to offer.

 

My problem with compatibility is that I live in Shanghai, but spend a lot of time in Europe and the US. China uses funky homegrown standards that aren't always compatible, especially when you go the prepaid route and I really don't want to change my number. Also, LTE seems like it will have little to no compatibility anywhere, yet it's all anyone talks about these days. I expected that we'd have global network compatibility before we had quad core devices with 1GB of RAM running at speeds not far off a laptop (architecture aside.) I don't understand the logic/priorities here. You'd think it would be cheaper to manufacture devices with universal internals and also be better for world-wide launches. Guess not.

 

I know the One X isn't quadcore, but it's 28nm vs 40nm of the Tegra and from what I've read more efficient and offers longer battery life. In fact it seems like Krait is one of the highest performance chips around right now, even if it's only dual core. I couldn't care less about the potential graphical prowess of the Tegra since I don't play games. I have a dual core PC, so I think dual core phone will be just fine. Are most things even optimized for quadcore? Benchmarks are one thing, but real-world usage is what I really care about.

 

Yup, I never bought a smartphone because they all sucked with respect to battery life. Seeing people bringing chargers to the bar and carrying extra batteries with them was ridiculous. It seems like every time I'm using someone's smartphone the battery is low. The other night at the bar my gf's phone had low battery so we had to be quick about it. Last night I asked my friend to look something up on his iPhone but it was dead (though fortunately he had this ridiculous looking external battery thing.) If I have to curb my usage just to ration my battery in hopes of preserving the core functionality -- talking on the phone -- I'm not thrilled.

 

I can go days without charging my Samsung flip phone and it used to be able to go nearly a week when it was new 4 years ago. Smartphone are still nowhere near that level and may never be, but it's getting a bit more tolerable. Can't wait until 10nm heh.

 

The hardware has never been a bottleneck but improvements keep coming and people will take advantage of them. March 2011 was the start of the first dual core smartphone and they were all on Froyo which couldn't take advantage of it. I related it to running Windows 98 on a the latest i7 desktop processor, its the fastest Win98 has ever run, but its still Win98. The thing is the definition of lag changes based on what your used too. I can't go back to a single core phone because its laggy compared to what I am used to. Now with ICS I wouldn't want to be on a single core. Nokia has design and a glass camera lens but they couldn't compete in the android market, where your differentiated by hardware because there phones have crap hardware.

 

As someone who hasn't had a feature phone since 2006, I am somewhat shocked to hear you have never had a smart phone. But given that you live in Shanghai, where the uses of the mobile internet is not a necessity in mobile life, I can see how you could get by. People have bad battery life because they are checking facebook and twitter every other second and they have the screen set to the highest brightness setting.

If you turn off mobile data and just use a smart phone as a phone, and dim the screen a little it will last for a week on a single charge. Feature phones last for a week because they don't do anything.

 

I am still shocked you know as much as you do about this stuff and have never had a smart phone.

I have a Droid Razr and at 4.3 inches its JUST on the edge of being too big. A 4.8 inch screen is useless. Quad core is impressive though!

Not to hijack the thread, but is it possible to use a Galaxy 2 for video output?

 

I hope I am asking the question correctly. I am certainly challenged with technology

 

Is there a cable that will allow you to take the micro usb port and convert it to composite video output? (not rgb, but the red, white, and yellow)

 

My old Ipod finally died.

Not to hijack the thread, but is it possible to use a Galaxy 2 for video output?

 

I hope I am asking the question correctly. I am certainly challenged with technology

 

Is there a cable that will allow you to take the micro usb port and convert it to composite video output? (not rgb, but the red, white, and yellow)

 

My old Ipod finally died.

 

I believe so, its called an MHL adapter and it will go from micro usb to HDMI. Which galaxy S2 do you have?

Would never rock android without being a nexus device, personally.

 

Wtf Brian, how do you survive without a smart phone ? They bring so much value IMO. Great tools on the go

The Galaxy s3 has a Exynos 4 Quad which will easily outperform the Tegra cpus. Yes, it would be cool if it came with 2 gig ram, a 12 megapixel back camera, and a nicer case/design/material. But it has a very good screen (HD Super AMOLED, not plus, though, that would be nice for 1080p screen) and likely best processor out there right now and features like wireless recharging, and tons of new software features that seem to be useful (buddy photo share, S-Voice, smart stay). I agree that network standards are greatly needed and that the Touchwiz is a love it or hate it interface (no experience with it, so won't comment). But faster and better hardware helps with the increase in screen resolution and with responsiveness. My friend who is an expert on these says that this IS a weakpoint for Android. So the more computing and graphics power the better. The battery is huge anyways

 

There might be a new Android OS (Jelly Bean) coming later this year and I won't be surprised to see a powerhouse Super AMOLED HD+ 1.5 Ghz Quad core phone on the new architecture later in 2012 with an attractive design. It won't be the Galaxy S3 (which will adapt to the new OS but won't have the upgraded screen and camera), but I'm thinking maybe Motorola. An improvement in hardware AND software/OS would greatly help Android phones beat back the Iphone 5. I'm thinking it will happen as it is necessary

Would never rock android without being a nexus device, personally.

 

Wtf Brian, how do you survive without a smart phone ? They bring so much value IMO. Great tools on the go

 

The nexus phones never employ the best hardware but rather the best software package. That's the huge compromise with them. Android as a platform's huge advantage is the ability get cutting edge hardware while apple doesn't have a 4G phone yet. I love it when people bust out their iPhone like its a trump card only to find it doesn't have features that debuted in 2010.

 

 

The Galaxy s3 has a Exynos 4 Quad which will easily outperform the Tegra cpus. Yes, it would be cool if it came with 2 gig ram, a 12 megapixel back camera, and a nicer case/design/material. But it has a very good screen (HD Super AMOLED, not plus, though, that would be nice for 1080p screen) and likely best processor out there right now and features like wireless recharging, and tons of new software features that seem to be useful (buddy photo share, S-Voice, smart stay). I agree that network standards are greatly needed and that the Touchwiz is a love it or hate it interface (no experience with it, so won't comment). But faster and better hardware helps with the increase in screen resolution and with responsiveness. My friend who is an expert on these says that this IS a weakpoint for Android. So the more computing and graphics power the better. The battery is huge anyways

 

There might be a new Android OS (Jelly Bean) coming later this year and I won't be surprised to see a powerhouse Super AMOLED HD+ 1.5 Ghz Quad core phone on the new architecture later in 2012 with an attractive design. It won't be the Galaxy S3 (which will adapt to the new OS but won't have the upgraded screen and camera), but I'm thinking maybe Motorola. An improvement in hardware AND software/OS would greatly help Android phones beat back the Iphone 5. I'm thinking it will happen as it is necessary

 

While samsung is delivering features on a software front, I dont think anyone really cares. They want to buy a GS3 because they want phenomenal hardware and some are saying this release isn't phenomenal enough on the hardware improvements.

 

With the Qualcomm Krait cpu, doesn't that create a uniform standard across all the bands and between 3g/4g now that its all integrated into one SoC?

 

Android comes out with a new version of android every six months and jelly bean should be here by july but given the revolution that ICS was, I doubt it will be anything more than a polish. What's crap about google is that they dont have a website setup where you can download the stock rom directly from them, specifically tailored for your phone, so you can get it home and enjoy it bloatware free. I wonder if they discreetly are responsible for cyanogenmod.

I never had a smartphone because I don't find them that useful. I don't have any social network accounts and don't play mobile games/use apps. Most mobile Internet usage is just looking up addresses, phone numbers, and maps, though maps I rarely use because I know the city like the back of my hand.

 

I just figured I'd might as well get one since the battery in my flip phone is kinda losing it's ability to hold charge as long.

I never had a smartphone because I don't find them that useful. I don't have any social network accounts and don't play mobile games/use apps. Most mobile Internet usage is just looking up addresses, phone numbers, and maps, though maps I rarely use because I know the city like the back of my hand.

 

I just figured I'd might as well get one since the battery in my flip phone is kinda losing it's ability to hold charge as long.

 

Your disppointment with the S3 is exactly what I described in the iPad thread a few months ago, when I mentioned that hardware returns are going to be far less impressive with less actual impact than in recent previous years simply because there aren't many big frontiers left to conquer.

 

Smaller, lighter, faster, with longer battery life, are the only features that can be improved moving forward from this point for the most part.

 

The real improvements that will occur will mainly software-based, as I pointed out with Apple's SIRI and other similar experiences, which are more impactful to the masses than slight hardware improvements.

 

Software is where the 'wow' factor will occur from here, not the hardware.

I don’t think battery life is every going to be a strong point of smart phones. They keep making them smaller, thinner, and lighter.

 

I have the iPhone with all the battery sucking features turned on. Brightness set to max. Location feature on. 3G radio and Wife radio on, Bluetooth on. I don’t have the push feature for email turned on and I do have it set to lock. The lock is more for security then for batter.

 

And I do have to charge the phone often. I have a charger at home, in the office and in the car.

 

At home/night I leave it on the charger overnight. At the office I put it on the charger when it’s below 50% or about an hour before I’m leaving the office again.

 

Basically 90% of the time I’m near a charger and I use them often. So far my battery life hasnt diminished.

 

Plenty of ways to make the battery last much longer than out of the box. Wakelocks and such are major drainers, as well as having the AMOLED set to full brightness. The app Better Battery will chart out what is systematically draining the battery and you can adjust accordingly. When I got mine in I was no joke getting 4h33min of battery life from fully charged to less than 5%. Downloaded Better Battery and set my screen to automatic adjusting and have gotten 1d8hr42min from full charge to less that 10%. It's a different phone now. That number is with moderate/high use.

 

Best

but given the revolution that ICS was

 

really? i was pretty pissed when samsung announced that Galaxy S won't be getting the upgrade, but when i tried ICS on my brother's S2 i didn't really notice any major differences.

really? i was pretty pissed when samsung announced that Galaxy S won't be getting the upgrade, but when i tried ICS on my brother's S2 i didn't really notice any major differences.

 

maybe because your brother had touchwiz? ICS is not just the OS improvement as much as the apps that have improved with it. Gmail\Youtube\gTalk\gVoice, then the launcher and apps drawer, the settings menu look nicer.

 

All of these manufacturer skins (Samsung's touchwiz, HTC sense, Moto blur) are supposed to enhance the experience and except for HTC sense, most ruin it. Long live the stock software.

Any of you guys using the HTC One-X? My atrix met an untimely death yesterday and I'm forced into an immediate replacement.