Hi guys, I just picked up my first Android phone, I've been in the Apple world for the lat 3 and a half years. I've loved the iphone and it's been great to me, but it seems a little slower to me lately, and I've wanted a bigger screen for a while now, so I decided to take the plunge and jump ship from ios. I have been looking at lots of phones running android software for the last few years, but never found one I liked more than my jail broken 4. Something about them would be enough for me to not like them weather it was the way the screen looked, battery life, lag, or camera. I can honestly say this is the only android phone to me so far that I think is as good or better than the iphone with regards to things that matter to me as a "whole package". I do have several questions about this beast though that I'm hoping you android vets can help me out with.
Stupid red star notification: I have been getting this stupid red star on my status bar advertising some deal I couldn't care less about. Why is it there and how do I stop them from appearing. Super annoying.
Pop ups: I was using the stock browser and have been getting pop ups pretty often. Some of them are a pain to close. I just switched to chrome and went through the settings and saw that pop up blocker was enabled, I thought to myself "awesome" and then logged onto phandroid and instantly got a Verizon pop up. Is a pop up blocker really a must on these phones? Any other browser with a better built in blocker?
Lock screen information: when I had my jail broken iphone I had a tweak called lock info. Loved it. It let me display things like emails, texts, events and such right on the lock screen and I could either access them or answer back straight from the lock screen. Is there anything like that for android?
Battery: One of the main things I really liked about my iphone other than the camera was the battery life. When I first got this s3 I noticed the battery drained pretty fast, but after I adjusted some settings and the phones gone through a few charge cycles, it seems to be doing a lot better. So far the things I have done are, turned off nfc and s voice wake up command, dimmed the screen and turned off auto adjust, installed juice defender, switched my email sync to every 4 hours and turned on a setting that analyzes images and dims them if it thinks it could be dimmer. Is there anything else I could or should do to help preserve Battery? Should I turn on the auto adjust or will that hinder more than help?
Extended batteries: One of the cool things about androids that I liked was the expandable memory and the ability to switch batteries if you have to. I'd like to eventually get an extended battery, but oem to keep the quality the same and keep my nfc. How long until Samsung puts out oem extended batteries and how much more do they usually go up? I don't really want a bohemeth just a bit extra 2400-2600 mah or so. I can handle another mm or two, but don't want to have a giant back like on some of the 3800 mah ones.
Messaging: I've tried out hand cent, chompsms, and gosms. They all seemed decent, but I'm looking for one that has a good quick compose. One of them had a setting for it, but I couldn't get it to work right. Anyone know of an sms app that had a quick compose feature that can be accessed pretty much anywhere? Anyone know of one that you can quick reply from the pull down notifications Window? I had bitemsms on my iphone and I think that was the perfect messaging app. Chomp seems close, but doesn't seem as good to me.
Camera: Anyone know of a good camera app to replace the stock camera/camcorder?
Gps: I am extremely impressed my the navigation on this phone. It's very solid. I had Tom Tom on my iphone and was gonna put it on this galaxy but doesn't seem like I'd need to. My only complaint is that it will not work without a data connection. Not a big deal for 90 percent of what I do, but I ride my motorcycle through a lot of twisty back roads and it can be easy to get lost out there. Lots of the areas I ride don't have service. Are there any tweaks for the stock navigation app to get it to work without a connection? It appears as the maps are on the phone (from what I can tell, I could be wrong) It doesn't even look like I can buy a real solid gps app in the market place, probably because the stock one works for 99 percent of people.
I had more questions but that's all I can think of for right now. I know that's a lot for a first post! Anything else you guys think I should know I'd be happy to hear it. I had planned to use this phone until the next iphone came out, but I'm liking this phone more and more the more I use it and learn it. Has so much more tech in it than the iphone. Apple is really gonna need to step up their game this year. I'm having fun reading the thread talking about things they found out the phone could do. Been pretty informative so far, it's amazing what this thing can do. Thanks in advance for any info. TURBO.
Stupid red star notification: I have been getting this stupid red star on my status bar advertising some deal I couldn't care less about. Why is it there and how do I stop them from appearing. Super annoying.
Pop ups: I was using the stock browser and have been getting pop ups pretty often. Some of them are a pain to close. I just switched to chrome and went through the settings and saw that pop up blocker was enabled, I thought to myself "awesome" and then logged onto phandroid and instantly got a Verizon pop up. Is a pop up blocker really a must on these phones? Any other browser with a better built in blocker?
Lock screen information: when I had my jail broken iphone I had a tweak called lock info. Loved it. It let me display things like emails, texts, events and such right on the lock screen and I could either access them or answer back straight from the lock screen. Is there anything like that for android?
Battery: One of the main things I really liked about my iphone other than the camera was the battery life. When I first got this s3 I noticed the battery drained pretty fast, but after I adjusted some settings and the phones gone through a few charge cycles, it seems to be doing a lot better. So far the things I have done are, turned off nfc and s voice wake up command, dimmed the screen and turned off auto adjust, installed juice defender, switched my email sync to every 4 hours and turned on a setting that analyzes images and dims them if it thinks it could be dimmer. Is there anything else I could or should do to help preserve Battery? Should I turn on the auto adjust or will that hinder more than help?
Extended batteries: One of the cool things about androids that I liked was the expandable memory and the ability to switch batteries if you have to. I'd like to eventually get an extended battery, but oem to keep the quality the same and keep my nfc. How long until Samsung puts out oem extended batteries and how much more do they usually go up? I don't really want a bohemeth just a bit extra 2400-2600 mah or so. I can handle another mm or two, but don't want to have a giant back like on some of the 3800 mah ones.
Messaging: I've tried out hand cent, chompsms, and gosms. They all seemed decent, but I'm looking for one that has a good quick compose. One of them had a setting for it, but I couldn't get it to work right. Anyone know of an sms app that had a quick compose feature that can be accessed pretty much anywhere? Anyone know of one that you can quick reply from the pull down notifications Window? I had bitemsms on my iphone and I think that was the perfect messaging app. Chomp seems close, but doesn't seem as good to me.
Camera: Anyone know of a good camera app to replace the stock camera/camcorder?
Gps: I am extremely impressed my the navigation on this phone. It's very solid. I had Tom Tom on my iphone and was gonna put it on this galaxy but doesn't seem like I'd need to. My only complaint is that it will not work without a data connection. Not a big deal for 90 percent of what I do, but I ride my motorcycle through a lot of twisty back roads and it can be easy to get lost out there. Lots of the areas I ride don't have service. Are there any tweaks for the stock navigation app to get it to work without a connection? It appears as the maps are on the phone (from what I can tell, I could be wrong) It doesn't even look like I can buy a real solid gps app in the market place, probably because the stock one works for 99 percent of people.
I had more questions but that's all I can think of for right now. I know that's a lot for a first post! Anything else you guys think I should know I'd be happy to hear it. I had planned to use this phone until the next iphone came out, but I'm liking this phone more and more the more I use it and learn it. Has so much more tech in it than the iphone. Apple is really gonna need to step up their game this year. I'm having fun reading the thread talking about things they found out the phone could do. Been pretty informative so far, it's amazing what this thing can do. Thanks in advance for any info. TURBO.
