Anyone else gonna ditch the Mercury for the Galaxy S3?

[nimoxp]

I will be getting the S3 friday if the phone does indeed arrive to the store by then. Do I have half a grand to pay for it?...No, but a little credit card debt will be worth it. Yes the price is just crazy, but I gotta have! I'm very curious to see how the 4g will be with Cricket as well.

The Mercury is a great phone (the perfect size) and served me well, but I gotta move on lol. I'm not even a fan of big phones, but I hear you get used to it. I also always wanted a very sharp screen, as I never had one, and I believe this phone will fulfill that need.

Anyway, just wondering if any of you others plan on switching to this phone, or one of the other 4g phones Cricket is offering.

 

[Gmash]

I just can't see paying that much for a phone. You can buy a decent laptop for that much. I doubt I'll see 4g where I live anytime soon anyway. If I was going to get a new phone I'd be tempted to get the Nexus 4 for $350, and get a Tmobile prepaid Sim card, even though I absolutely hate that it has no removable memory or battery. I think I'll stick with the Mercury for awhile and get a Nexus 7 tablet this year. Maybe I'll get the GS3 if we get 4G around here or the price drops a little.

I definitely wouldn't be tempted by any of the other 4G phones Cricket is offering.

 

[nimoxp]

I see where your coming from with the price. It's funny cause the first thing I also thought was that I could by a laptop for that, haha. I however just went through a laptop phase where I bought 3 more laptops then I needed (cause they were cool) and ended up giving them away to family members.

The way I'm justifying this purchase is that I really need something to cheer me up right now and buying gadgets does that for me. I've had my eye on this phone for awhile so I'm thrilled Cricket is getting it, and now me. hehe.

 

[Gmash]

Its definitely one of the nicest phones out there, but I don't really play games on my phone, and I'm not sure what all of that extra horsepower would do for me. The big screen would be nice in a way, but I was checking them out at Best Buy, and I'm not sure it would even fit in my pocket comfortably. Cricket emailed me about entering a drawing, so maybe I'll win one lol. I'm sure you'll love it, maybe my willpower will drop when I see them at the Cricket store haha.

 

[lightsleeper23]

Do you know if the cricket GS3 has the same specs as the big companies? Cricket has a habit of rebranding phones and dumbing them down considerably. But seeing as how it's not called the Samsung Galaxy C or something stupid like that, and they're charging so much, I'm guessing it's the real deal?

 

[Gmash]

Do you know if the cricket GS3 has the same specs as the big companies? Cricket has a habit of rebranding phones and dumbing them down considerably. But seeing as how it's not called the Samsung Galaxy C or something stupid like that, and they're charging so much, I'm guessing it's the real deal?

Everything looks the same to me. I don't think Samsung is doing different versions of this phone in the US, except colors. Cricket has both the blue and the white listed. I think in Europe they got a quad core, here we get the dual core processor.

Samsung Galaxy S

 

[OverByter]

Everything looks the same to me. I don't think Samsung is doing different versions of this phone in the US, except colors. Cricket has both the blue and the white listed. I think in Europe they got a quad core, here we get the dual core processor.

Samsung Galaxy S

 

[Gmash]

Yeah that's not a downgraded processor though, it benchmarks just as well and the reason wasn't to dumb the phone down or make it cheaper, it's just that the quad core Exynos doesn't play nicely with LTE, so it comes down to the international quad core with 3G or the US model with a dual core Qualcom with LTE.

Oh, I know, you are right. I just thought I would mention it for some reason lol.

 

[nimoxp]

Ok, So I got my Galaxy today and I am very :dancing:
The phone is incredible. The sharpness of the screen, the vast amount of functions (which should have me busy all week learning it all), the incredible camera and all the camera functions!

Mainly, I never had a 4g phone, and this thing blows my mind at how fast it is. I knew it was fast, but actually owning the phone with this speed is great. Youtube videos play immediatley etc. You get the idea.

This phone is not dumbed down or anything at all. It is a regular Galaxy S3 4G LTE phone.

However if you are thinking about maybe buying it, you may want to buy one sooner then later, cause I asked about Muve, and they said they plan on integrating Muve into the phones later on. So if you hate all that Muve Cricket crap, nows the time.

I will not make any updates to this phone if Cricket sends updates. I like as is.

It is running off Android 4.0.4 Kernel. I picked the white color. The shiny blue one is nice, but from research, most people that bought the blue regret getting it, and wish they got the white.

Cricket has a great and vast 4g network in San Antonio.

With my same 60 dollar plan, they now give me 5GB of data. If you get the 70 dollar plan you get 10GB.

Anyway, if anyone has any questions feel free to ask. It's a great purchase if your wallet can handle it. It is incredibly expensive.


Now I need to try to find a way to sell my 4 week old Mercury.lol

 

[Gmash]

Congrats!

 

[gixxer_751]

i went as close as going into the store just to see whats up but the $600 for everything.... its ok, ill stick to my merc.. love the S3 but for what im using my phone for, torrentz, etc.. its fine......................................................for now

 

[nimoxp]

I don't blame you. I love the phone so much and am really happy with Crickets 4g LTE service, but the price is horrible.

The price of the phone is just nuts. It's the cost of rent, or a car payment, or a 40 inch flat screen TV.

I'm still getting over the sticker shock lol. I am however loving the phone and have already spent over a hundred dollars more on accessaries for the phone! It's my Christmas present to myself, cause I'm not getting anything else.

 

[mathesar]

Negative, I can't see myself spending a half grand on a cellphone when you can buy a PS3 or Xbox360 for $200 lol.

They're charging way to much.

 

[nimoxp]

It's amazing how my perspective has changed so quick. I used to think the 4 inch screen was the perfect size. I always thought the 4.5 androids looked too big.

Now that I have had a 4.8 inch screen for a few weeks, it seems perfect. I pulled out my Mercury which I hadn't looked at in a while and wow!>...Not only did it look tiny it looked old.

What I mean by old is the design being a normal rectangle, compared to the Galaxy with the curved edges. This amazes me, because just a few weeks ago I was admiring how cool the Mercury looks. It's fascinating how much my perspective has been altered.

 

[Gmash]

Cricket has the GS3 on sale through December 29 for $350. ($50 off plus $150 mail in rebate) This makes things a lot more tempting. There's $20 more off if ordered online. My main concern is the size of the phone. I carry my phone in my front pocket, and I'm not sure how comfortable it would be having that beast in my pocket all day.
I'm still happy with my Mercury, but for this price the GS3 is a great deal, even though you still have to shell out $500 + tax and wait for the rebate.
Anyway, I haven't decided, but thought I would share in case everybody hasn't heard about this deal. (I heard a radio commercial saying $200 off of the GS3, so I checked it out online)

 

[nimoxp]

The S3 fits fine in my pocket. And just as an example, I was at Best Buy the otherday and managed to fit the samsung Note 2 in my pocket. Now that was tight, but I had room. Seriously I have no problems putting the phone in any of my pants pocket.

However, Since I have been buying all type of accessories for this phone, I decided to get all three phone protectors that they sell at the Cricket store. The cool thing is that two of them add no mass because they simply replace the back battery cover.

There's one that is Black Rubber that comes with a clip that attaches to your built or even just the side of your pocket. All my life I have kept my phones in my pocket, but this clip holder is so well designed that I use that most of the time now. Slides right in and out.

 

[lightsleeper23]

Still wouldn't get it. Even at $350. I'd much rather spend $300 and get the nexus 4. Wouldn't be stuck with crickets shitty service either, and always have the latest android update. That s3 will never see an update, count on it. With the hardware, and the guaranteed updates, the nexus will have a longer lifespan than crickets s3.

 

[Gmash]

Still wouldn't get it. Even at $350. I'd much rather spend $300 and get the nexus 4. Wouldn't be stuck with crickets shitty service either, and always have the latest android update. That s3 will never see an update, count on it. With the hardware, and the guaranteed updates, the nexus will have a longer lifespan than crickets s3.

Well, to be fair the $300 Nexus is only 8 GB which is not enough for anybody in the real world. The 16 GB is $350. The GS3 has removable battery and SD card slot which is important to me. The only real advantage of the Nexus for the same price is the updates, which really isn't a big deal to me. The GS3 has so much dev support that updates will be there unofficially for a long time to come. Cricket service is good where I live. If I knew for sure we would get lte here soon, that would make it an easy decision. The owner at the local Cricket store says we will get it "soon", but I don't put much stock into anything they say. I get more accurate information from the forums.

 

[lightsleeper23]

I can see that. The storage limitations. The updates do matter to me though because I do not like rooting phones, I've had too many issues in the past. And I've never flashed one Rom that worked perfectly with no little issues. You're right about the storage though, I actually would prefer 32 gb because I put a lot of music on my phone. I might get by with 16 ok though. And storing my music in the cloud with Google play isn't really an option for me either. Because it's not really efficient to have to stream it over 3g and use my data when I'm out about riding on the bus or whatever.

But I really don't like the looks of the s3 either. For me, the corners are way too rounded, and I like black. I never did get good service with cricket here in salt lake city either. My 3g was in and out constantly, and even when it was in it was really slow. And I had serious mms issues. That may have been the fault of the mercury though.

 

[nimoxp]

The Nexus S4 is probably one of the best phones you can get for the money. Of you would have to leave Cricket to get that phone, unless you want Cricket to flash it, but I've always heard you lose or may lose certain phone abilities.

it's intresting how some people say that have bad reception with Cricket. It must really depend on where you live. I have used At&t, Sprint, T-moblie (back when it was called Voicestream lol) and others. The best of all those reception wise was Sprint and Cricket is just as good as Sprint if not better.

The funny thing is that here Sprint doesn't even offer LTE for the S3. In fact, I thing they just added 4G for it.

Someone mentioned they don't like the way that the S3 looks. I never paid attention much to the looks, but it sure looks sleek to me. The funny thing is that the edges are rounded much like the Nexus 4. Maybe a bit more rounded on the S4, but they are both rounded.

Needless to say, it sure makes rectangle phones look old. I was just blown away at how old my Mercury looked after not looking at it for a few weeks.

I wouldn't be surprised if curved edges will be how future Flat screen TVs will be shaped. Sort of how like old cars were shaped using Boxes and Rectangles, and are now shaped with all kinds of crazy curves.

 

[Gmash]

There's still a lot of rectangular phones. The brother of the Nexus 4, the Optimus G, is much more squared off. I think its just a preference thing. But the Nexus 4 is a GSM phone, no way to flash it to Cricket at all. LTE is the only 4G that Sprint is using now. They did away with Wimax, they gave it to Boost and Virgin for the old phones they passed down to them. It still works for the Wimax phones that people are still using on Sprint, though, they're just not making any more Wimax phones.

 

[nimoxp]

Thanks for the info. I could have sworn I read that Sprint was not offering this phone with 4g LTE (here) . Or I read that they would update it by next year. What I read was for the Galaxy s3 alone. I don't know. Maybe I remember wrong.

 

[Gmash]

Thanks for the info. I could have sworn I read that Sprint was not offering this phone with 4g LTE (here) . Or I read that they would update it by next year. What I read was for the Galaxy s3 alone. I don't know. Maybe I remember wrong.

Sprint is still building out their LTE network. They may not have it there yet, or just recently turned it on. They don't have it in my area yet. I know the Sprint S3 doesn't have any other 4G radios in it. Not sure, but the GSM versions (Tmobile and AT&T) may have HSPA+ as well as LTE.

 

[Gmash]

I'm still on the fence 50/50 between getting the S3 while it's on sale or keeping my Mercury and getting a Nexus 7 tablet. I still like my Mercury, but $350 is a good price for the GS3, and I have bought myself a new phone the last two Christmases, (Ascend and Mercury). Any drawbacks on the S3 yet? I read something about show 3G speeds on the S3, and we don't have 4G here yet, so that would suck. Is there any way to turn off 4G so it doesn't drain the battery searching for it?

 

[nimoxp]

Yes, in settings you can turn off 4g and stay in 3g. I never turn it off cause I have a constant 4g feed.

I love the phone. I would say get it. Treat yourself if you can.

Drawback: The only one would be battery life. If you wake early most likely the battery wont last the entire day. I bought an extended battery for times that I may not be around to charge the phone.

However, battery life is different for everyone. One of the drawbacks is that the s3 uses a large amount of power when the phone is not even in use...just in standby mode. I read that Jellybean has a fix for that, but I doubt Cricket will switch to jellybean, but you can get it your self.

Is it bad enough not to get the phone? Hell no! This phone has so many options and abilities, it's like night and day when comparing to the Mercury. The sharpness of the screen is just supreme as well.