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S3 vs maxx hd

I'm due for an upgrade and I'm naturally trying to decide between 2 of the top phones on Verizon. It seems like there isn't a sure fire winner either way. Does anyone have any comments or help on which phone would be better? I like the rom ability of the gs3 a lot.
The main things I'm looking for are:
Battery ....I know the maxx wins here but how much difference is there in daily use?
Build quality... I've heard stories of glass braking on the gs3
I live in a good signal area if that matters. I use to have the OG droid and loved installing roms. Is that reason worth it alone to go to the gs3? I also use a MacBook and have heard of issues with the gs3 not syncing right with theses computers?

Any help would be great appreciated
 
I've had the S3 since launch, I have been looking for a reason to upgrade (was seriously considering the maxx hd too) but at this point I don't think there is a phone on the market that offers the same complete package.

Great screen, decent battery life, microsd, excellent camera. The S3 is the only one that offers it all, still with current hardware. It's hard to recommend anything else as most other phones are missing one or two things that S3 offers. Namely the strong camera and microsd
 
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I was going between these two phone as well and decided on the HD Maxx because of the battery life, here's why. I had a galaxy nexus with the extended 2100 mah battery, the same size battery thats in the GS3. I couldn't get through a day without having to throw it on the charger by 5pm and I could consider my use moderate over 3G (because I had to turn the 4g off) to save as much battery as I could. I'm a driver and the truck I drive doesn't have a place for a charger so I had to put it on the charger as soon as I got home. With the HD Maxx I haven't put it on the charger before I goto bed under 50% yet. This is with 4G on, screen brightness at 40%, GPS, sync, all of it on. Its great not to have to worry about battery life.

Of course there are some downsides to the phone, ROOT and ROMS are limited but I hope thats just because the phone is new, and the camera isn't the greatest are really the only things I miss from my Nuexus.
 
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I hear all these horror stories about the battery and the screen on the gs3. I see people saying they can't go a day on a charge and I see signs of people with random screens cracking. Any issues with yours?

You heard wrong then.

The battery life is one of the strong points of the SGS3.

In terms of the performance, the SGS3 will always beat Maxx HD. The SGS3 is the much smoother phone, has more developer support and has more software features.
 
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You heard wrong then.

The battery life is one of the strong points of the SGS3.

In terms of the performance, the SGS3 will always beat Maxx HD. The SGS3 is the much smoother phone, has more developer support and has more software features.

Two of my friends have the GS3 and they are always charging the phone. With a 4.8" screen and only a 2100mah battery I find it hard to say that its a strong point of the phone unless you have your brightness set to 0%, 4G off, as well as everything else set to a minimum.
 
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Two of my friends have the GS3 and they are always charging the phone. With a 4.8" screen and only a 2100mah battery I find it hard to say that its a strong point of the phone unless you have your brightness set to 0%, 4G off, as well as everything else set to a minimum.

Your friends' smartphones are not subjected to proper experimental methodology so you can't really use that as evidence.

galaxy-s3-video-playback.jpg


The Droid Razr Maxx has the best battery life while the SGS3 comes in at second place.

The fact is both smartphones shave excellent battery lives and you can't really say that the SGS3 is bad.
 
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Your friends' smartphones are not subjected to proper experimental methodology so you can't really use that as evidence.

galaxy-s3-video-playback.jpg


The Droid Razr Maxx has the best battery life while the SGS3 comes in at second place.

The fact is both smartphones shave excellent battery lives and you can't really say that the SGS3 is bad.

I never said the GS3 was a bad phone, I said the battery life was bad. Also, how old is that chart? It states the battery life of the original Razr Maxx, not the HD Maxx.
 
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The Razr Maxx HD will always have the best battery life because its fricking huge. Also the battery life on the way the phone was set up, and how you use it. Even the Maxx HD won't last through a day if you don't stop playing with it. My phone with a lowly 1200mah battery can get me through 6am to 8pm without issue and I already use Facebook, Twitter, calls, SMS and game on that.

Furthermore, the S3 uses AMOLED technology. With proper setting up, an AMOLED screen will use up up to 30-40% less power than a regular LCD screen. Even more if you keep a predominantly black theme.

Also has been said before, you need a proper standardized comparison to see how bad is the battery life of one phone against another. You can't compare one person's usage pattern against another person's. I have a classmate with the exact same phone as I am, but his battery lasts longer because he doesn't have a data plan and thus has his data off always, while I have mine always on. The data service is a battery killer. You need to get an SIII and a Razr HD and make the exact same setup on both and wait them out to get a fair comparison.

So far, I haven't seen a standardized test for the Razr Maxx HD for real life usage, so I won't really comment. But an SIII can last you 3-4 days with minimal usage though. My friend works as a paramedic, and had once left her SGS3 in her locker for 3 days on standby. When she came back it still has 30%.
 
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But an SIII can last you 3-4 days with minimal usage though. My friend works as a paramedic, and had once left her SGS3 in her locker for 3 days on standby. When she came back it still has 30%.


Yep, I can confirm that the standby battery life is amazing on the S3, barely losing 1-3% charge overnight usually so 4 days or more isnt a problem at all.
 
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Furthermore, the S3 uses AMOLED technology. With proper setting up, an AMOLED screen will use up up to 30-40% less power than a regular LCD screen. Even more if you keep a predominantly black theme.

This is my point, you have setup the phone to conserve battery. One of the huge downfalls of most android phones, there is so much android is capable of but you have to limit it because of the small batteries and large screens of most phone. The HD MAXX I'm not conserving anything. I'm running it wide open and don't worry about battery life.

The GS3 is a nice phone, great camera, nice screen but with a small battery. I have two friends that have the phone and its always being charged and I know they don't use it the same.

Its a matter of preference. Have a phone with a bigger screen, a nice camera and smaller battery get the GS3. If you want a phone with minimal smaller screen, decent camera but battery life where you actually use the phone to its capabilities and not have to set it up to conserve battery, get a HD MAXX.
 
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Yep, I can confirm that the standby battery life is amazing on the S3, barely losing 1-3% charge overnight usually so 4 days or more isnt a problem at all.

The standby on the HD Maxx is the same, the other night I went to bed, my battery was on 69% so I decided not to charge it, woke up and it was on 67%, I think most phones are like that once they get put into deep sleep.
 
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This is my point, you have setup the phone to conserve battery. One of the huge downfalls of most android phones, there is so much android is capable of but you have to limit it because of the small batteries and large screens of most phone. The HD MAXX I'm not conserving anything. I'm running it wide open and don't worry about battery life.

The GS3 is a nice phone, great camera, nice screen but with a small battery. I have two friends that have the phone and its always being charged and I know they don't use it the same.

Its a matter of preference. Have a phone with a bigger screen, a nice camera and smaller battery get the GS3. If you want a phone with minimal smaller screen, decent camera but battery life where you actually use the phone to its capabilities and not have to set it up to conserve battery, get a HD MAXX.


Small battery? The only ones with a larger battery than it does is the Razr Maxx, Maxx HD and Galaxy Notes 1 and 2. That being said, its got the 5th biggest battery in the Android world as far as I know. That means its gonna last longer than any other Android phone apart from those mentioned on stock settings.

As for setting up an AMOLED screen to conserve battery, its as simple as using a theme that's predominantly black. This is because an AMOLED pixel that is showing black will not be using any power at all. No actual "conservations" needed that impairs your usage.


EDIT: When I said proper setting up, I meant the screen alone. Talking in general about AMOLED screens, they tend to save up to 30% more power than a regular LCD screen because of what they are. AMOLED screens have darker areas using less power because most of the pixels there are turned off, while LCD screens have the entire screen using energy, plus powering backlights.
 
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This is my point, you have setup the phone to conserve battery. One of the huge downfalls of most android phones, there is so much android is capable of but you have to limit it because of the small batteries and large screens of most phone. The HD MAXX I'm not conserving anything. I'm running it wide open and don't worry about battery life.

The GS3 is a nice phone, great camera, nice screen but with a small battery. I have two friends that have the phone and its always being charged and I know they don't use it the same.

Its a matter of preference. Have a phone with a bigger screen, a nice camera and smaller battery get the GS3. If you want a phone with minimal smaller screen, decent camera but battery life where you actually use the phone to its capabilities and not have to set it up to conserve battery, get a HD MAXX.

This has not been my experience at all. I switched to the Razr Maxx HD from an S3 and while it's true that the Maxx HD offers much better battery life, the S3 always lasted me through an entire day without having to do anything to conserve battery life.

I don't consider myself a power user but I'm no slouch either. I typically use about 3 hours screen time daily watching high bit-rate encoded videos, playing games like Granny Smith, syncing gmail, facebook and corporate email. I'm also on 4G the majority of the day. Not once in the four months I had the S3 did my battery die before the end of the day.

To me, the Maxx HD's battery life is more of a luxury. It's a good luxury, but a luxury nonetheless. I never felt crippled by the S3's battery. The reason I got the Maxx HD was because the S3's signal strength was horrible at my apartment and I didn't care for the build quality. If I didn't have those two issues, I'd still have the phone.
 
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I guess i'm speaking for my 2 friends who have the S3 and are always charging them and then ask me to trade phones with them :). I'm also coming from a Galaxy Nexus with a 2100 battery and I couldn't make it though a day with, I always had to put it on the charger when I got home at 5pm because my battery was under 20%, this was with the phone setup for conversation and very minimal use.
 
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I guess i'm speaking for my 2 friends who have the S3 and are always charging them and then ask me to trade phones with them :). I'm also coming from a Galaxy Nexus with a 2100 battery and I couldn't make it though a day with, I always had to put it on the charger when I got home at 5pm because my battery was under 20%, this was with the phone setup for conversation and very minimal use.

I don't know how your friend's GS3 are used but I never saw my friend's GS3 being always charged. All of them are saying it's easy to go over a full day and some more with GS3. Just because it has the same 2100mAh as Galaxy Nexus doesn't mean that battery life would be similar. The processor/radio chipset in GS3 is 28nm Qualcomm Krait, which is far more efficient than 45nm OMAP4, CMC221 LTE in Gnex. GS3 easily outlasts Gnex by long shot due to more efficient chipset.

Maxx HD has the same chipset as GS3 and almost identical HD SAMOLED screen. So between GS3 and Maxx HD, battery life difference will be simply matter of size difference. Also there are extended battery with capacity greater than 4000mAh for GS3.
 
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I don't know how your friend's GS3 are used but I never saw my friend's GS3 being always charged. All of them are saying it's easy to go over a full day and some more with GS3. Just because it has the same 2100mAh as Galaxy Nexus doesn't mean that battery life would be similar. The processor/radio chipset in GS3 is 28nm Qualcomm Krait, which is far more efficient than 45nm OMAP4, CMC221 LTE in Gnex. GS3 easily outlasts Gnex by long shot due to more efficient chipset.

Maxx HD has the same chipset as GS3 and almost identical HD SAMOLED screen. So between GS3 and Maxx HD, battery life difference will be simply matter of size difference. Also there are extended battery with capacity greater than 4000mAh for GS3.

The SGS3 has a bigger HD Super AMOLED screen and higher PPI than the Maxx HD.
 
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The SGS3 has a bigger HD Super AMOLED screen and higher PPI than the Maxx HD.
They are both 720p, and the S3 is slightly larger, so that means it has lower ppi than the Maxx HD.

Now personally I don't think the difference between 306 ppi and 312 ppi matters at all in practice. But if we're going to quote spec points as if they mean something then let's get them right.
 
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