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S3 sucks

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Hello and welcome aboard. Sorry to hear that you are having a hard time liking this phone, maybe getting to know more about it and its features might give you a different perspective of it.

Here's where you can find the other users of this phone hangout: Samsung Galaxy S3 - Android Forums. Sharing tips and information among each other.

Hopefully this might help. :)
 
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OH MY GOD! Mine sucks too >=O I really don't kow what the big deal about it is. What sort of issues are you having? My issues are "minor" I guess, but when they happen as often as they do, the little nuisances add up enough to really piss a person off.

1. Wifi seems to dis- and re-connect on its own, so I don't know when it's using my data plan or wifi. I'll be watching movies on Netflix on wifi thinking it won't use up any of my data plan, but nope -- ate up almost 0.2g.
2. The SWYPE on this phone is HORRENDOUS. I had the Droid Bionic before thsi phone and the SWYPE was great -- probably got the right word 95% of the time. With this new Galaxy S3, it's like 50-50. And the suggestions it comes up with are ridiculous and NOWHERE NEAR what the letters I actually hit. For example, I'm trying to SWYPE 'day' and I get 'rayban'. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?! And 'tho' turns into 'the', 'him' turns into 'Yoon' (a Korean last name), 'weird' turns into 'were' which is closer but i'm still HITTING THE D that it just won't recognize, and last but not least 'very' turns into 've'...wtf, cuts off two whole letters.
3. A new issue, I've left my phone idle by itself in the car for about two hours now and the screen hasn't turned off. WTF. I changed no settings prior to this starting to happen; the screen just won't turn off anymore.
4. I have many of my apps in folders to organize them, and I'll have them arranged in a certain order. The damn phone likes to randomly REORGANIZE them! STOP IT! JUST STOP IT!

You can see how these little annoyances really add up. UGH.
 
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I can relate to the first one, even thought i dont have your phone, i own a Galaxy Nexus, but it's known for connection related issues, so , but it sounds like you should just get another Galaxy S3 :S


Also, in other news, Welcome to the forums ian143 and ckim07. Glad to have you both on board, hopefully you can get your phones in working condition with a talk with your carriers about possibly getting new ones.

Hope this helps :)
 
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I've had my 4G version S3 for just two months now and its pretty gone to the dogs already. Its an expensive phone so I've pretty much had it in bubble wrap, but I really don't see the value in it as a phone.

Here are some of the problems I've experienced:

  • Phone has no sound in call 50% of the time despite the volume being turned full way up and the bar reflecting this. After a while I just get a "Phone has stopped working" message
  • Camera works about 50% of the time. Rest of the time I get a nice black screen and "Camera has stopped working" message
  • Alarm simply will no longer go off (no sound or vibrate) no message, just no alarm
  • Pulling outrageous data. After the latest factory reset with no data syncing, somehow according to my provider its consumed 1GB data in a week. Yet the phones logs show just 250 KB of usage ... :thinking: I haven't even been web browsing with it. Completely baffled.
Worst of all, its not like these are smartphone problems, they are all BASIC phone functions that you'd expect on any communications device. :(



Restarting the phone sometimes fixes these issues temporarily.

When I do a factory reset the issues keep coming back.


Samsung have released no firmware updates or fixes since I bought it.



I contacted Samsung support and they say I have to hard reset the device. I'm not really sure how this is different from a factory reset, but I'll give it a try. Hopefully it makes the phone functional again ... fingers crossed but I'm not holding my breath.


I've been an Android user for many years now and I've owned other phones in the Galaxy series, but its specifically been my experience to date with the S3 that makes me feel like going back to a prepaid dumb phone or maybe turning to the dark side and iPhone 5.
 
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I've had my 4G version S3 for just two months now and its pretty gone to the dogs already. Its an expensive phone so I've pretty much had it in bubble wrap, but I really don't see the value in it as a phone.

Here are some of the problems I've experienced:

  • Phone has no sound in call 50% of the time despite the volume being turned full way up and the bar reflecting this. After a while I just get a "Phone has stopped working" message
  • Camera works about 50% of the time. Rest of the time I get a nice black screen and "Camera has stopped working" message
  • Alarm simply will no longer go off (no sound or vibrate) no message, just no alarm
  • Pulling outrageous data. After the latest factory reset with no data syncing, somehow according to my provider its consumed 1GB data in a week. Yet the phones logs show just 250 KB of usage ... :thinking: I haven't even been web browsing with it. Completely baffled.
Worst of all, its not like these are smartphone problems, they are all BASIC phone functions that you'd expect on any communications device. :(



Restarting the phone sometimes fixes these issues temporarily.

When I do a factory reset the issues keep coming back.


Samsung have released no firmware updates or fixes since I bought it.



I contacted Samsung support and they say I have to hard reset the device. I'm not really sure how this is different from a factory reset, but I'll give it a try. Hopefully it makes the phone functional again ... fingers crossed but I'm not holding my breath.


I've been an Android user for many years now and I've owned other phones in the Galaxy series, but its specifically been my experience to date with the S3 that makes me feel like going back to a prepaid dumb phone or maybe turning to the dark side and iPhone 5.

Sounds like you got a defective device.

It happens, with any device. Even iphones. Return it for a new one
 
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I've had my 4G version S3 for just two months now and its pretty gone to the dogs already. Its an expensive phone so I've pretty much had it in bubble wrap, but I really don't see the value in it as a phone.

Here are some of the problems I've experienced:

  • Phone has no sound in call 50% of the time despite the volume being turned full way up and the bar reflecting this. After a while I just get a "Phone has stopped working" message
  • Camera works about 50% of the time. Rest of the time I get a nice black screen and "Camera has stopped working" message
  • Alarm simply will no longer go off (no sound or vibrate) no message, just no alarm
  • Pulling outrageous data. After the latest factory reset with no data syncing, somehow according to my provider its consumed 1GB data in a week. Yet the phones logs show just 250 KB of usage ... :thinking: I haven't even been web browsing with it. Completely baffled.
Worst of all, its not like these are smartphone problems, they are all BASIC phone functions that you'd expect on any communications device. :(



Restarting the phone sometimes fixes these issues temporarily.

When I do a factory reset the issues keep coming back.


Samsung have released no firmware updates or fixes since I bought it.



I contacted Samsung support and they say I have to hard reset the device. I'm not really sure how this is different from a factory reset, but I'll give it a try. Hopefully it makes the phone functional again ... fingers crossed but I'm not holding my breath.


I've been an Android user for many years now and I've owned other phones in the Galaxy series, but its specifically been my experience to date with the S3 that makes me feel like going back to a prepaid dumb phone or maybe turning to the dark side and iPhone 5.

Welcome to AF fishs:) I have to agree with Rxpert83 that you received a defective phone. I would contact Verizon and ask for a replacement.
 
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I
  • Pulling outrageous data. After the latest factory reset with no data syncing, somehow according to my provider its consumed 1GB data in a week. Yet the phones logs show just 250 KB of usage ... :thinking: I haven't even been web browsing with it. Completely baffled.
Hey fishs, this bullet point stuck out to me, what are you using to monitor the carrier used data? Is it a provided service (I know Verizon offers a data monitor and even sends you text messages...)

Also, did you do your factory wipe *after* your monthly cycle? If not, your carrier would still know that you've used the other data before the wipe... that could be an explanation of the 1GB vs. 250KB

The other issues I'm not so sure about. My S3 seems to only have an issue with copying from within the web browser (which I'm sure a factory wipe would cure).
 
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Solution 1) long press on a trouble word once you edit it, and add it to the dictionary then the phone learns to guess better and soon enough your phone will be 90-99% accurate, everyone is different and this is a "design feature" so your phone customizes its learning of your common phrases and quips.. I agree simple words should be there but who cares its fixable.. If on the other hand swype is simply not recognizing the "d" key I would suggest getting the latest copy of swype from the store and re-installing to see if it fixes issues, if not return your phone and get one that works, mine is fine.

Solution2 the phone screen was not turning off is because it was plugged in to car charger and you have a setting to keep the screen on while charging... or your phone is broke and needs to be returned.. again not commonplace S3 is bad-ass phone! Just takes time to remove network carrier crap, return to factory then setup and optimize, its the difference between buying a pre made pc with bloatware or a custom one. Don't knock its customization perks, or Samsung will start making barely customizable zombie phones, with testicle wrenching cloud updates like Apple do.

The bigger picture..
Understand phones don't have to be like bodyparts (constantly requiring nourishment or repair) but the fact is phone company's want you to tend to your phones needs night and day, its a proven way to sociologically make you need your device more and use it for everything, its the best way to monitor a populations choices and ultimately the best source of free market research and census the government/google/apple/all network carriers has ever developed.

If i were to complain about my phone. i would complain that still to this day there is no phone with a decent battery life (yes we have the technology to develop cheaper human lifetime lasting battery's that hold a charge for a week, don't think we don't. it's just not a corporate level interest to sell efficient products when you can sell 10 over 1) or even more annying regardless of how amazing the hardware is dealing with an android operating system for phones that requires some serious editing to remove statistical collection and carrier ID / bloatware... before the phone is even ready to be "used".

in closing
This world is pretty sick when you actually get down to the nitty gritty of it!
 
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I've had 9 androids now - this is BY FAR the worst. All Apps crash. Need to reboot 4-10 x a day. Apps start by themselves. Phone dials on it's own. Typing lag of 1-5 seconds.

Even Widgets! They just suddenly appear on my home.

Hahahahahaha!

But it's not really funny. It's pitiful.

I don't even mind carrying a spare battery in my wallet - if this phone did anything - ANYTHING - as advertised.

I know. I know. "Smart phones" are for teeny-boppers to play their video games. Not designed for serious needs.
 
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Well you may have several apps that are memory hogs hence the lag your experiencing, but to me sounds like you got a defective unit.

Before I upgraded to my LG G2 I had the s3 and quite frankly I was very happy with it.

For the crashing etc you could try to wipe it clean via factory reset. Speaking of, did you FR when you updated to 4.3? That may be another reason the bugs are there.
 
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Per thread start - gallaxy 3 - stock. Using same Apps as I have installed on other androids. Bought this phone when GOOG stopped supporting Motorola Razr Droid.

My level of expectation is rock bottom. I now realize Android is for kids.

Hardly for kids. Anyway, not going to try to argue reason against irrational conclusions.

At any rate, I'd look into your apps, and/or a factory reset. Uninstall your apps and/or factory reset. Add them again one at a time, until the issue begins again. If it happens w/ no apps installed, call Samsung for a warranty repair.
 
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