Got a Samsung Galaxy S3 (ATT) 2 months ago after having my 32g iPhone 4S stolen in Chicago. I gave the S3 a serious shot but am going back to iPhone. FWIW, I am not going to iPhone5, because I don't care about latest and greatest really, and I have add-on devices that are 30 pin and may not work with the new lightning port (stupid idea).
Used the S3 exclusively for Aug-Sept. Was able to customize it fairly readily, and it worked OK for most typical functions (phone, web, email, music, pics ...) but it had some serious quirks that just made it frustrating for me.
So, I have just handed down my S3 to my father and have gone back to a 32gb iPhone 4S.
The good:
- true 4G/LTE - S3 data speeds were very good and much appreciated
- Google Maps Turn By Turn was very nice
- had a 16gb S3 and was able to add 64gb SDHx with no issues - very cool!
The medium/heh (?)
- bigger screen real estate was nice, but it was quite dim under most conditions
- OTOH, the larger screen made for a less portable feeling device for me.
- Camera was decent but the design of the S3 ( function buttons on the bottom left and right) made it very difficult to hold it to take decent pics.
- the customization of the S3 and Android was interesting, but I found the design metaphor of apps, shortcuts and widgets too cluttered for my taste.
- generally I found the S3 and Android to be reminiscent of my experience with Linux. All kinds of apps and functions could be found, and might even work ok, but they just had a somewhat unfinished feel to them - or in extreme cases, would just look and function poorly (Gibson Guitar tool set being a great example - the iOS version looks and works great - the Android version is just a very crude port).
The bad:
- very difficult to move my significant music collection (5k songs, high bit rate) which was about 60% iTunes (no fan of iTunes myself, but it works) 40% mp3.
- even after finding TuneClone solution, and getting the music library moved over to S3, it worked very badly. Songs that I know are good files were regularly truncated half way through.
- WiFi data rates were good, but the S3 would often drop it's connection with wifi routers and the only thing that seemed to restore it was a full restart. Very annoying.
- NO MUSIC over USB and all related apps or functions. For my iPhone I had/have several great devices for recording and doing studio quality tracks on the fly. Nothing of this kind exists for Android in general. I am told Jellybean will have Music over USB and enable ALSA (from Linux), but having had some poor experiences with ALSA on Linux in the past, I am not eager to work with that environment again.
I am sure that most of you who love your Android device will not care about my decision to go back to iPhone (the only apple device I own BTW), but I thought I would just put my experience out there for your consideration.
Used the S3 exclusively for Aug-Sept. Was able to customize it fairly readily, and it worked OK for most typical functions (phone, web, email, music, pics ...) but it had some serious quirks that just made it frustrating for me.
So, I have just handed down my S3 to my father and have gone back to a 32gb iPhone 4S.
The good:
- true 4G/LTE - S3 data speeds were very good and much appreciated
- Google Maps Turn By Turn was very nice
- had a 16gb S3 and was able to add 64gb SDHx with no issues - very cool!
The medium/heh (?)
- bigger screen real estate was nice, but it was quite dim under most conditions
- OTOH, the larger screen made for a less portable feeling device for me.
- Camera was decent but the design of the S3 ( function buttons on the bottom left and right) made it very difficult to hold it to take decent pics.
- the customization of the S3 and Android was interesting, but I found the design metaphor of apps, shortcuts and widgets too cluttered for my taste.
- generally I found the S3 and Android to be reminiscent of my experience with Linux. All kinds of apps and functions could be found, and might even work ok, but they just had a somewhat unfinished feel to them - or in extreme cases, would just look and function poorly (Gibson Guitar tool set being a great example - the iOS version looks and works great - the Android version is just a very crude port).
The bad:
- very difficult to move my significant music collection (5k songs, high bit rate) which was about 60% iTunes (no fan of iTunes myself, but it works) 40% mp3.
- even after finding TuneClone solution, and getting the music library moved over to S3, it worked very badly. Songs that I know are good files were regularly truncated half way through.
- WiFi data rates were good, but the S3 would often drop it's connection with wifi routers and the only thing that seemed to restore it was a full restart. Very annoying.
- NO MUSIC over USB and all related apps or functions. For my iPhone I had/have several great devices for recording and doing studio quality tracks on the fly. Nothing of this kind exists for Android in general. I am told Jellybean will have Music over USB and enable ALSA (from Linux), but having had some poor experiences with ALSA on Linux in the past, I am not eager to work with that environment again.
I am sure that most of you who love your Android device will not care about my decision to go back to iPhone (the only apple device I own BTW), but I thought I would just put my experience out there for your consideration.