Help In the market for a new phone need some input

[alpha2k]

Ok I'm in the market for a new phone. I've been doing homework on different variants of phones, via tmobile, sprint and boost.

I am on boost currently and have an Epic 4g touch, but am looking to upgrade a week from this friday.

Short and simple I port cars around town and use a gps quite frequently, so that is a must, a working good gps. The rest I can work around I think.
I am doing this for a friend as well, and upgradeing mine while I pass mine onto him.....he has my old zte warp, so you can imagine him pulling his hair out on a regular basis with that phone, so this S2 will be a nice upgrade for him.

Now onto the phones.

I was reading about teh LG F7 phone and while I like the features and options they offer in the OS, I was reading about the horrible gps, so that nixed that phone.
I haven't yet checked the F9 phone out, but will be doing that after I post this.

My next option is the s3, that's what brought me here to this forums..

2 things I was wondering
1: with this s2, this phone has real issues with gps lock-on in quite a few roms for this phone, so I always revert back to touchwiz, and am currently on touchwiz, just because it works and works well. So given that, I was curious with CM10.1/10.2 or even kitkat, how well does the gps work out, is it troublesome? is it flaky, does it work well?

I'm not gonna dis-own the s3 if it can't do roms, just wanted to know and that'd be a HUGE plus for me, as I am a big big BIG fan of aosp.

2: I was told by a friend that works for the Kansas Dept Of Corrections, they had like 50+ phones and had REAL issues out of the phones, possibly some due to bad serivce, but he said and I quote

KDOC had about 50 S3's, and everyone of them had connection problems, rebooting issues, large number of dropped calls, major antenna issues, issues with battery life

Keep in mind this is an IT person and not some joe blow who is a newbie to technology. I'm sure what he says is true, just wanted to check against this forums and get some input before I spend out the cash.

I'm leaning against going tmobile or sprint simply because it's $20-$35 more on my monthly bill per month and I'd rather not pay that extra cash out if I can at all possibly help it. With boost I pay $45 a mo right now, I'd like to keep that price, this is why I am leaning towards the s3, but I really don't want to get into a bunch of issues if I can at all avoid it.

So any input would be greatly appreciated in my endeavor and hunt for a new phone.

I appreciate your input and time.

 

[funkylogik]

I can speak for CM and AOSP based kitkat roms and say ive never had a problem with gps locking onto satellites. Its always very fast and reliable.
Im on the i9300 (global) version though so i dont know how similar the gps hardware is to the north american variants :thumbup:

 

[alpha2k]

I can speak for CM and AOSP based kitkat roms and say ive never had a problem with gps locking onto satellites. Its always very fast and reliable.
Im on the i9300 (global) version though so i dont know how similar the gps hardware is to the north american variants :thumbup:

Ok cool, yeah I am hoping that the gps works and I can use aosp.......not sure why aosp attracts me so much, I guess it's because it's so simplistic, yet effective, and does the job, no fuss no muss sorta thing......I was worried is all about the friend of mine saying his company had such bad issues from the phone....and they wouldn't be rooted....so it is a concern of mine is all.

I have a week to look at this thread and make my mind up so hoepfully this thread will being good feed back, instead of what my friend is saying....I'm not doubting him at all, it's highly possible they had issues, but also possible it could have just been a fluke and a bad batch, being as they would have all been ordered at the same time more than likely, and I've seen where a batch of phones came off the line and were nothing but problems.


We'll see how this thread ends up though....I'm reserving judgement till then.

I'm kinda 50/50 really now but still reserved (if that's even possible)

I've spoken with jding and he says his s3 was not bad at all, so again, we'll see.

 

[funkylogik]

i think most issues on the s3 have been firmware/software related and not the hardware. I dont like touchwiz and most of the people i chat to use custom roms and dont have any issues that cant be solved.
I think a lot of non rooters are getting problems from taking official updates and not doing a factory reset where as us flashers know how important it is to wipe the phone between big updates

 

[Mikestony]

fwiw, I've had no issues with gps. I ran rooted on CleanRom (TW based) for a while, now I'm on CarbonRom (stable version, AOSP) and still have no gps issues. I'm hooked on AOSP too.

Yes, I've seen alot of threads about issues with 4.3. I can't say what the issue is (have not read about it to give an informed opinion), but if I got a new S3, I wouldn't accept the update and I'd be rooting it straightaway (that's just me tho )

As far as your friend having an issue with alot of S3's....it could be the service area and the devices looking for a signal, thereby draining the battery....but who knows.

I've been very happy with my S3. I don't use all that bloatware crap that came with it. Rooted it 3 days after receiving it, and flashed a rom.
I'm a simple user and it has served me well so far.

Texts work, gps works, battery is awesome, no call problems...I suppose that could be different in different areas on different carriers too eh?

Hope that helps a little bit.
You'll get many opinions, take it with a grain of salt.

 

[alpha2k]

fwiw, I've had no issues with gps. I ran rooted on CleanRom (TW based) for a while, now I'm on CarbonRom (stable version, AOSP) and still have no gps issues. I'm hooked on AOSP too.

Yes, I've seen alot of threads about issues with 4.3. I can't say what the issue is (have not read about it to give an informed opinion), but if I got a new S3, I wouldn't accept the update and I'd be rooting it straightaway (that's just me tho )

As far as your friend having an issue with alot of S3's....it could be the service area and the devices looking for a signal, thereby draining the battery....but who knows.

I've been very happy with my S3. I don't use all that bloatware crap that came with it. Rooted it 3 days after receiving it, and flashed a rom.
I'm a simple user and it has served me well so far.

Texts work, gps works, battery is awesome, no call problems...I suppose that could be different in different areas on different carriers too eh?

Hope that helps a little bit.
You'll get many opinions, take it with a grain of salt.

It does and I appreciate the inputs.
This s2 has had horrible problems with anything BUT touchwiz roms, with gps lock-on, and 3g LOS. they either have one or the other....or both issues.

I'm not a huge fan of touchwiz, so that's why I like aosp I think. For whatever reason Touchwiz just turns me off. Can't explain why it just doesn't do the job for me, even if it does work, just the look doesn't appeal to me.
Maybe it'sa rebel thing against touchwiz lol, I can't say what it is exactly, but I'm determined to use anything BUT touchwiz if at all possible....funny thing is, LG phones have enough feature rich options in them I like I wouldn't be unhappy with touchwiz if they had a couple of nice features I like in the LG phones. I don't get it but it is what it is I suppose

 

[Mikestony]

Even rooted on touchwiz, you can use something called Xposed modules to change anything you want in a rom.
I haven't messed with it much, and don't want to get off topic, but here is the link to it:
[FRAMEWORK ONLY!] Xposed - ROM modding without modifying APKs (2.4.1)(02.12.2013) - xda-developers

Anyways, I hope you'll be happy with the S3 if you decide to go with it.
I suppose if you are looking at what carrier to go along with your possible S3 purchase, what carrier has the best coverage in your area? Does Boost satisfy your coverage needs?

 

[jeepman4403]

Galaxy note 3 Bar none..

 

[alpha2k]

Even rooted on touchwiz, you can use something called Xposed modules to change anything you want in a rom.
I haven't messed with it much, and don't want to get off topic, but here is the link to it:
[FRAMEWORK ONLY!] Xposed - ROM modding without modifying APKs (2.4.1)(02.12.2013) - xda-developers

I've used the xposed stuff, I only found one I really wanted to use, and that was the notification pull down while in lockscreen. Other than that I either wan't interested really for the most aprt or it was for other phones or non-touchwiz. I wanna use the GravityBox JB, but for some reason I remember I couldn't use it I think because of touchwiz

DOES NOT support ROMs vastly modified by device manufacturers (HTC Sense, Samsung Touchwiz, MIUI, LeWa, ...)

I still keep an eye out on it though seems like they add now and then to it, so that's a good thing, but quite a bit of it seems more revolved around not CM or AOKP, but more around AOSP, and not around the heavily modified ones, because as they say, it's probably already in the modded rom.

Anyways, I hope you'll be happy with the S3 if you decide to go with it.
I suppose if you are looking at what carrier to go along with your possible S3 purchase, what carrier has the best coverage in your area? Does Boost satisfy your coverage needs?[/QUOTE]

Yeah boost/sprint has never really been an issue for me, while others seem to be plagued by issues from sprint network....I personally have seen ALL carrier have issues no matter what....it really depends on what area yu are in as to what is better in said area. For me sprint is just fine I haven't had many if any dropped calls, except in certain dead spots, and that's gonna happen with any carrier, they all have the dead zone.

I also am not overly concerned about 4g either, while yes it's faster but the battery can be drained so I am pretty satisfied with 3g only if need be. I'd use it if it were available, but eh, it's not a deal breaker for me......give me the best hardware+software+options with 3g only, vs sub par hardware+os+options, I'll pick the 3g every time.

I'm not that hooked on 4g really, even though I have seen the speeds and while it's nice, as I said I'm not really sold on 4g vs 3g, I guess it takes so little to please some people .

For me, gps is the seller for me, I prefer working gps, and 3g over 4g and non- working gps r wonky/half working gps, and some go for the camera as a main seller, so it really depends on the selling point and what the person wants to do with it.

I think I'm kinda out of the norma as far as that goes, because while the majority go for the camera, and the 4g, I on the other hand go for the gps with working 3g. I think I am the rarity in this case, of corse I also use gps for a living so that may play a vital key in the role of choices.

 

[alpha2k]

Galaxy note 3 Bar none..

Yeah sadly boost doesn't have that, which means I would go up as I said the $20-$35 more per month
Good choice though.....I've seen those on youtube reviews, really nice

 

[funkylogik]

I can vouch for Xposed Framework but, again, i dont know what useful modules work with TW. think ive read that parts of Xblast do though and that module can really change the look of the UI