Well 2012 is rapidly coming to close, and imo another great year for the evolution of the smartphone as well as the Android OS.
Was just wondering based on mostly positive reviews, units sold and just great functionality. Was the Samsung Galaxy SIII the best Android based phone for 2012?
For the early adopters out there, do you regret your purchase or is the SIII still a great phone for your needs?
Anybody have another phone that in hindsight you may have rather gotten (G-Note 2. Nexus 4, any of the HTC phones for example)?
Last edited by bearballz; December 24th, 2012 at 09:13 AM.
Subjective... Being I'm an S3 owner, I will say my phone is the best because it fits MY needs. Are the other power units listed better, probably in their own right. Either way, you'll get the same arguments which are better that have been posted thru out this forum.
If you go by hardware, the S3 has been surpassed by many new phones that came out lately (Nexus 4, Optimus G, HTC J Butterfly, etc.). Feature-wise, though, it's still one of the leading smartphone as of yet, and it's only second to the Galaxy Note 2.
I'll say yes it is. The S3 is pretty decent step over the previous generation and actually available for a good portion of 2012. The devices that have specs that surpass them are at best incremental upgrades and have only just come available in the last month or so.
That said I probably would have gotten a Note 2 had it been available on my carrier 3 months ago but I quite happy with my S3.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by quickaudi
Whoever stated it is "what the Galaxy Nexus should have been" is quite correct, IMO
The differences are minimal to what the Nexus doesn't have compared to the S3. But what the Nexus HAS compared to what the S3 DOESN'T have is a little larger. You can look at what the devices shipped with and you can look at also what can be added via root.
SOFTWARE
Sooooo, when you look at software, the Nexus obviously is further ahead than the S3 due to the Nexus having 4.2.1 while the S3 is still on 4.1.2. With that also comes the largely updated 4.2 apps that the Nexus has; Camera w/ photosphere, Gallery, Gmail, Google Now, etc..... Not sure if the S3 has and can use Google Wallet or not but that's something I have actually been enjoying. I thought it would be dumb but I find it very convientent and I love the look on people's faces as if I'm a magician.
HARDWARE
Then there's hardware which the S3 DOES have an edge over the Nexus with. They both have the same Cortex A9 processor with the S3 being 200Mhz more. They both have the same amount of RAM at 1GB. They system chips differ though. The S3 has the Samsung Exynos 4 (4412) which has made news recently with the HUGE security issue while the Nexus has the TI OMAP4460. They both have SAmoled displays BUT the Nexus has 316ppi over the S3's 306ppi. Quite noticeable but maybe not to the unknowing user. They both have the same Camera with the S3 being 8mp over the Nexus's 5mp and they both record video in 1080p at 30fps.
DIFFERENCES
So, what should the Nexus have had the S3 has? Bigger camera? 200mhz more? Touchwiz..........I hear crickets at the thought of the Nexus having touchwiz. It makes me nauseous even thinking about it. The rest of Samsung's bloat? Sorry I'm reaching trying to find more that the S3 has. I can find more that the NEXUS has that the S3 NEEDS. So I think your statement "Whoever stated it is "what the Galaxy Nexus should have been" is quite correct, IMO" should be reversed. The S3 should have been an advanced version of what the Nexus is, being that the S3 came out 7 MONTHS AFTER the Nexus.
SO, the moral of the story is the S3 came out 7 MONTHS AFTER the Nexus and had very very very similar features with the Nexus having MORE being that it has the latest that Android has to offer. So i think it's safe to say that the S3 should have been MORE than what it is instead of saying the the Nexus should have been what the S3 is. Kind of a far fetched statement when EVERYTHING is laid out side by side isn't it?
This is simply a long drawn out reply to your comment with information that everyone already knows. In no way is this an argument nor am I trying to be an ass as that's not my intentions. I just wanted to point out that the differences are very minimal hardware wise with the S3 ahead and largely different software wise with the Nexus ahead.
I love both phones as they are BOTH ground breaking phones. The Nexus has obviously stood the test of time being a year old and is still the #1 development phone on the market today. Samsung took what the Nexus had and made it appealing to the masses. I mean look at the global sales, it's undeniable. With that being said, I am NOT discrediting the S3 for what it is. It's obviously a great phone, I mean it's basically a steroid infused Nexus Take away Samsung's garbage they added and you have a Nexus. Sorry, I don't care for Samsung's "skins" or their atrocious touchwiz. Gag!
I've rambled far too long. Please don't take offense to what I've said and don't get defensive. Once again, NOT my intentions at all.
Have a Merry Christmas to you, your family and everyone else on Android Forums. My home away from home while sometimes within my home. O_0
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Best phone of 2012? Too many variables. Global sales and the S3 is the best phone. Tech advancements and it's global sales and the Note 2 is the best. Innovation and demand goes to the Nexus 4 as the best.
I'll say that the Galaxy S3 - the Galaxy Note 2 - the Nexus 4 are all the best phones of 2012.
You can't choose one because of the variables involved, you just cant. If a gun was to my head and I was told to pick one..............Nexus 4.
nope mine is a huge dissappointment to say the least. No signal and no service more that I have a signal or service, cannot send emails 75% of the time they hang in outbox for hours or days before sending, drops a lot of calls because of the poor signal. Came from a T bolt that at lease I had service and signal with.
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I own a One X and I have to say that Samsung really stepped up touchwiz with all their features. So it'd say that the S3 was the best phone in 2012. I still like the design and beats of my One X though.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by racefan25
nope mine is a huge dissappointment to say the least. No signal and no service more that I have a signal or service, cannot send emails 75% of the time they hang in outbox for hours or days before sending, drops a lot of calls because of the poor signal. Came from a T bolt that at lease I had service and signal with.
Sounds like your service is to blame and NOT the S3.
i think so, its the first android phone that finally allowed me to get rid of my iPhone. I am a heavy smartphone user and it was a big step for me to get rid of my iPhone and move the the s3.
The S3 ticks more boxes than any other phone on the market IMO, big screen, nfc, sd card slot, removable battery, fast dual core cpu, LTE etc.
people seem me using this phone and they dont ask what phone is that, they say "is that the Samsung Galaxy?" that's huge IMO!,
i think so, its the first android phone that finally allowed me to get rid of my iPhone. I am a heavy smartphone user and it was a big step for me to get rid of my iPhone and move the the s3.
The S3 ticks more boxes than any other phone on the market IMO, big screen, nfc, sd card slot, removable battery, fast dual core cpu, LTE etc.
people seem me using this phone and they dont ask what phone is that, they say "is that the Samsung Galaxy?" that's huge IMO!,
It's funny that you would say that. The last 4 months I've see more friends, family and co-workers pick up an SIII or G-Note 2 than an Iphone.
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The GS3 is not only the best Android phone, but it is by far the best smart phone ever. And yes, I do have an iPhone 4S. Some of my friends have the iPhone 5 and it is not that much better than the 4S. Their panorama shot is inferior as compared to my GS3.
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I started the year using the htc g2, that phone crashed and died in september and I switch over to a Nokia x2, I checked out several phone models, including the mytouch, samsung galaxy s relay, several htc phones, even a Windows phone, what made me choice the Samsung galaxy s3 was the phone is user friendly , the camera, the screen is very responsive, of all three phones I used this year, the Samsung galaxy s3 has been the best
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I use cloud storage and still hoping a USB otg cable will come available for it.
Can't you use any old USB OTG cable? They're not manufacturer specific afaik.
I agree you can use cloud storage, but if you're in a situation where you don't have data you're screwed. Notice that Szadzik mentioned offline maps, so that you can use your mapping applications without data access. Offline maps take a large amount of storage space.
Also if you like to play high quality FLAC audio instead of average quality mp3 then you would need a very stable and high speed data connection in order to stream your music as those files have a much higher bitrate.
And you can't listen to your music on the Underground or Metro if you have no data connection, and this is where a lot of people listen to music on their daily commute. And also when you're in Airplane mode - i.e. when you're on an airplane...
Last edited by davoid; December 26th, 2012 at 05:43 AM.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by davoid
Can't you use any old USB OTG cable? They're not manufacturer specific afaik.
I agree you can use cloud storage, but if you're in a situation where you don't have data you're screwed. Notice that Szadzik mentioned offline maps, so that you can use your mapping applications without data access. Offline maps take a large amount of storage space.
Also if you like to play high quality FLAC audio instead of average quality mp3 then you would need a very stable and high speed data connection in order to stream your music as those files have a much higher bitrate.
And you can't listen to your music on the Underground or Metro if you have no data connection, and this is where a lot of people listen to music on their daily commute. And also when you're in Airplane mode - i.e. when you're on an airplane...
Gotta remember that not everyone uses their phone for the same reasons you do. Only up until I got the Nexus did I realize, I never used my SD card. The only thing I put on there was backups to apks, ROMs and kernels and I can easily do that cloud storage. 16gbs is more than enough for the average user. Hence why there is an 8Gb model for the N4.
I'm very happy with mine, although the Nexus 4 with it's plain vanilla Android, and up to date software is attractive. I'm not too crazy about the hardware home button. It's hard to press with my case. I think they shouldn't have messed with the UI. Other than that, I'm impressed. My previous two phones were iPhones.
Gotta remember that not everyone uses their phone for the same reasons you do. Only up until I got the Nexus did I realize, I never used my SD card. The only thing I put on there was backups to apks, ROMs and kernels and I can easily do that cloud storage. 16gbs is more than enough for the average user. Hence why there is an 8Gb model for the N4.
I agree and didn't forget that. Any reply to the OP is going to be subjective, because we all have our favoured usage that will make one phone the best of 2012 over all others. For me personally it is the GS3, and I can only explain why it is the best for me, not the objectively best phone.
But I do think that as the trend towards technological convergence increases, where one single device does everything, people will be using phones instead of ipods and other mp3 players so as not to carry two devices (just my speculation, by the way) and larger onboard storage will become more necessary (ipods are like 160GB aren't they?). Obviously Apple won't give their customers the option to store more music on their iPhones because they want them to buy additional iPods... but it seems to make sense to me for Android devices to compete with the iPod by greater convergence, meaning their providing the capacity to store large amounts of audio data.
But again, I understand that people who already own an iPod would most likely be happy with a phone with a fixed 16GB or 8GB internal memory. Or people with a fast unlimited data plan with good coverage who never travel underground or on aircraft. I see this thread as an invitation to discuss which phone is considered the best and why, and we will no doubt all benefit from the shared learning process.
But purely on the grounds of more advanced technology, I think I would tout the DROID DNA, even though it's not the best phone for me. And I also like the Nexus 4...
Any phone w/either or both quad-core or 2GB of RAM are worthy of best phone of 2012.
I myself have the SGS III on SPRINT & am very satisfied w/the overall experience.
W/that said, if the RAZR MAXX HD or the OG RAZR MAXX were available on SPRINT, I'd more than likely be in one of those right now. Lots to be said of the excellent radios & battery life that the RAZR MAXX/HD offer.
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The Samsung Galaxy S3 is the company's flagship device of 2012. As one of the most anticipated devices of the year, this device is the first to come with a Exynos 4 Quad processor. It also has Android 4.0, a 4.8-inch 720p Super AMOLED ... Read More
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Was the SIII the best Android phone of 2012?
I just wanted to point out that the differences are very minimal hardware wise with the S3 ahead and largely different software wise with the Nexus ahead. 
