I think its going back

[Nestafaria]

Had the phone almost 3 weeks now. I've owned 4 iPhones before this, and I knew nothing about android, just that I was bored with Apple. I love the phone size/screen, and all the cool things I can do with Android.....but basic functionality is just poor, and I'm thinking i'm unwilling to compromise on that.

My issues are:

Poor wifi -- takes a long time to connect, and when it does its slow compared to my iphone and ipad.

Terrible audio with video -- Took about 15 movies over the weekend of friends water skiing. Not one of them came out ok, everything sounds like chipmunks. It works fine in a quiet room, so I'm assuming its a software problem.

Bluetooth doesn't always autoconnect in my car.

Battery life compared to my iphone. Not even close. I have juicedefender, tasker, read all the threads.....its just poor.

No integration with my BMW. This is one of the biggest. I'm spoiled being able to control my iphone through idrive. I've tried hotspotting for the iphone, but thats just a PITA.

I'm pretty disappointed, I really wanted an alternative to Apple, I'm tired of all their proprietary crap.....

 

[Szadzik]

These are not problems that cannot be overcome- maybe apart from battery life, you will not get more than 1 day on a charge, but just compare the size, resolution of the screen and the CPU and you will know why.

 

[Nestafaria]

These are not problems that cannot be overcome-

How so?? I could probably live with the battery life, I'm just used to charging my iPhone every other day. The audio when taking videos seems widespread??

 

[sean76]

Yes most issues can be overcome! But as for battery life, remember your comparing a phone with a 3.5 screen and not running on LTE against a phone that does run LTE and has a giant screen.

OK here's what I did...my first GS3 wasn't getting good battery life at all, just terrible!

So I got a new unit and started from scratch. That choice is up to you, otherwise you can do a hard reset and go from there.

First things 1st, you don't need juice defender, or anything like that. The Samsung task killer works just fine. As for wifi, go into the settings and change the settings to the following, where is says keep wifi on during sleep...set to only when plugged in! And where it says frequency band, set to 2.4! Those fixes should help alot.

As for the battery life, if you get a new one use it out of the box and run it down until it just completely dies. Meaning set it up, do your thing with your apps and ring tones and all that, and then run it down till it dies. Next plug it in and leave it alone, just let it charge all the way up to 100, when the light turns green, unplug it and shut it off and then plug it back in and allow it to charge for another 10 min or so. Some will say you don't need to do this with modern batteries, well I've done this about for about the first three charges with the new unit and I'm now getting roughly 17/18 hrs on a charge!

Also I only use GPS when I need it, same for blue tooth. Wifi is used whenever I'm home and stays on until I leave my house.

Hopefully it all works out for u!

 

[Hogan773]

Yes most issues can be overcome! But as for battery life, remember your comparing a phone with a 3.5 screen and not running on LTE against a phone that does run LTE and has a giant screen.

OK here's what I did...my first GS3 wasn't getting good battery life at all, just terrible!

So I got a new unit and started from scratch. That choice is up to you, otherwise you can do a hard reset and go from there.

First things 1st, you don't need juice defender, or anything like that. The Samsung task killer works just fine. As for wifi, go into the settings and change the settings to the following, where is says keep wifi on during sleep...set to only when plugged in! And where it says frequency band, set to 2.4! Those fixes should help alot.

As for the battery life, if you get a new one use it out of the box and run it down until it just completely dies. Meaning set it up, do your thing with your apps and ring tones and all that, and then run it down till it dies. Next plug it in and leave it alone, just let it charge all the way up to 100, when the light turns green, unplug it and shut it off and then plug it back in and allow it to charge for another 10 min or so. Some will say you don't need to do this with modern batteries, well I've done this about for about the first three charges with the new unit and I'm now getting roughly 17/18 hrs on a charge!

Also I only use GPS when I need it, same for blue tooth. Wifi is used whenever I'm home and stays on until I leave my house.

Hopefully it all works out for u!

Hey Sean76 .... just a piece of advice....you actually WANT Wifi to be set to "Never" as in "Never shut off even when the screen is off or the phone is asleep". Reason is that if you have it set your way, if the phone is sitting on your desk at home then the wifi is going to shut down all the time, at which time the network data (LTE/4G/3G etc) turns ON and then any background syncing will be done over the network.

This is bad for 2 reasons.....1) you'll use network data when you could have been using free wifi data and 2) it takes more power to transmit to the network than it does wifi.

You might be confusing the wifi setting with another situation which is turning wifi off when you're OUT OF RANGE OF YOUR CHOSEN ROUTER and/or not planning to use wifi. In that case, for example when I'm at work all day without wifi connection, it is a waste of battery to have wifi turned on and constantly searching the universe to see if it can find any routers......

 

[SUroot]

Yeah its counter intuitive but WiFi sleep policy set to never uses much less battery than not having it set.

 

[cary328is]

OP: Not going to try to convince you to stay with Android. iOS is better for some folks - I even recommend iPhone for folks who are on the fence but aren't interested in customization, just basic functionality. This is the beauty of choice. I love android, but I also have macs. I've just never been an iPhone fan - it's too restrictive for me. I hope you like the new iPhone. I hear it's going to be awesome for you iPhone users.

 

[Nestafaria]

OP: Not going to try to convince you to stay with Android. iOS is better for some folks - I even recommend iPhone for folks who are on the fence but aren't interested in customization, just basic functionality. This is the beauty of choice. I love android, but I also have macs. I've just never been an iPhone fan - it's too restrictive for me. I hope you like the new iPhone. I hear it's going to be awesome for you iPhone users.

Thank you. The restrictions is what drove me to Android. Maybe a jailbroken iphone 5 is the answer for me.....for now. And Android is certainly on my radar now.

 

[Rastaman-FB]

ios 6 is nearly the same as ios5.

anyway what version of device are you using international or us carrier specific
the reason i ask is this.

wifi for me is very fast at connecting, faster than any other phone ive used.
video recording at full hd for me is fine, its a little loud but not distorted
battery life will last me 48 hrs with normal phone use
if i use it to record the odd video, play 20mins of games and some a fair bit of browsing then it will last just over 24hrs which is about the same as an iphone4s

however mine is the international version and ive seen many threads here recently that VZW version of this device has been butchered quite badly by VZW and theyve made a meal of it

 

[eluno]

Sounds like you may have a bad unit. My wifi connects in less than 3 secs from the time I turn it on. And the speeds are much faster than my old iphone4, and lets not even bring up the data speeds cause I’m getting 30+mbps up which is way faster than my home wifi. But the main reason I say you might have a bad unit is because the audio you say sounds like chipmonks. my audio sounds great. Maybe it time you try a floor model and see if it sounds like chipmonks?

 

[sean76]

Hey Sean76 .... just a piece of advice....you actually WANT Wifi to be set to "Never" as in "Never shut off even when the screen is off or the phone is asleep". Reason is that if you have it set your way, if the phone is sitting on your desk at home then the wifi is going to shut down all the time, at which time the network data (LTE/4G/3G etc) turns ON and then any background syncing will be done over the network.

This is bad for 2 reasons.....1) you'll use network data when you could have been using free wifi data and 2) it takes more power to transmit to the network than it does wifi.

You might be confusing the wifi setting with another situation which is turning wifi off when you're OUT OF RANGE OF YOUR CHOSEN ROUTER and/or not planning to use wifi. In that case, for example when I'm at work all day without wifi connection, it is a waste of battery to have wifi turned on and constantly searching the universe to see if it can find any routers......

I've tried both ways, and the way I laid it out is saving me tons of juice. Not a little, but alot. My friend who works at at&t had me set it up this way and its been working really well for me. I have 3 email accounts set to sync every 4 hours and don't use hardly any syncing apps that are constantly running. I also go into the stock task killer very often and kill everything after I use my phone. Either way, this wifi setting is working for me.

 

[kurtyyyyyy]

Strange, i was surprised at how fast my wifi connects!

 

[Rastaman-FB]

I've tried both ways, and the way I laid it out is saving me tons of juice. Not a little, but alot. My friend who works at at&t had me set it up this way and its been working really well for me. I have 3 email accounts set to sync every 4 hours and don't use hardly any syncing apps that are constantly running. I also go into the stock task killer very often and kill everything after I use my phone. Either way, this wifi setting is working for me.

maybe so but you would get even better battery if it was set to always. this is proven within android on all devices and is widely accepted as the best solution for saving battery as wifi is less of a draw than the radio stack.

your battery saving is likely a combination of all those things however if you change the wifi setting to always then it will be even better

 

[sean76]

maybe so but you would get even better battery if it was set to never. this is proven within android on all devices and is widely accepted as the best solution for saving battery as wifi is less of a draw than the radio stack.

your battery saving is likely a combination of all those things however if you change the wifi setting to never then it will be even better

I'll give it a shot with this new unit and see how it goes...

 

[Nestafaria]

I've got the att version....US carrier.

When browsing, there is significant latency between pages. When I turn off wifi, this goes away. None of iOS devices experience this.

I can't even 12 hours, with little to no usage. The g/f and I were coming back to dc from richmond. We got in the car both of our batteries were dead. Her's was pretty much fully charged when we got to DC, mine was at 13%! And we used her pandora b/c of the integration into idrive.

 

[Rastaman-FB]

I'll give it a shot with this new unit and see how it goes...

sorry i meant "always"
they changed the wording around

you want wifi on even when sleeping

 

[Rastaman-FB]

I've got the att version....US carrier.

When browsing, there is significant latency between pages. When I turn off wifi, this goes away. None of iOS devices experience this.

I can't even 12 hours, with little to no usage. The g/f and I were coming back to dc from richmond. We got in the car both of our batteries were dead. Her's was pretty much fully charged when we got to DC, mine was at 13%! And we used her pandora b/c of the integration into idrive.

hmm its likely to do with the lte frequencies and the changing of cells constantly when on the move

there has been reports from other users that lte is a massive battery drain. it doesnt seem to just affect the s3 either

 

[sean76]

I've got the att version....US carrier.

When browsing, there is significant latency between pages. When I turn off wifi, this goes away. None of iOS devices experience this.

I can't even 12 hours, with little to no usage. The g/f and I were coming back to dc from richmond. We got in the car both of our batteries were dead. Her's was pretty much fully charged when we got to DC, mine was at 13%! And we used her pandora b/c of the integration into idrive.

I'm getting roughly between 15-20hrs depending on my usage for the day! If its a lighter day I'm looking at about 20hrs with juice to spare before a plug in.


On heavier days I'm right between say 15-17hrs...And when I say Heavy, that's heavy and not moderate.

Give it a shot to maybe do an exchange and some tweaking. My first unit had me going bonkers, well after getting the new one that I'm using now, the iPhone 5 is basically off my radar unless its absolutely stunning and really stomps on the S3 ...which I doubt!

 

[Nestafaria]

Give it a shot to maybe do an exchange and some tweaking. My first unit had me going bonkers, well after getting the new one that I'm using now, the iPhone 5 is basically off my radar unless its absolutely stunning and really stomps on the S3 ...which I doubt!

Ok, maybe I'll try a new device. But the battery life is not my main issue. Bluetooth, wifi, and audio/video issues are, along with no integration into iDrive ( the real killer).

 

[joekent79]

ios 6 is nearly the same as ios5.

anyway what version of device are you using international or us carrier specific
the reason i ask is this.

wifi for me is very fast at connecting, faster than any other phone ive used.
video recording at full hd for me is fine, its a little loud but not distorted
battery life will last me 48 hrs with normal phone use
if i use it to record the odd video, play 20mins of games and some a fair bit of browsing then it will last just over 24hrs which is about the same as an iphone4s

however mine is the international version and ive seen many threads here recently that VZW version of this device has been butchered quite badly by VZW and theyve made a meal of it

I'm with Rastaman...
WiFi on this this is extrememly fast to connect, and I can provide links to videos taken i've uploaded to youtube, in 1080 at that, that are clear as hell for a cell phone. I'd say, as an ex iPhone user myself, you have a bad phone. This is a great place to be, I've already learned so much about this device, which is my first Android phone.

I have horrible battery life on mine, but it's about the same as my iPhone 4 was, so I'm ok with it, I have issues putting the phone down. I stream music pretty much from 6 am until I leave work, so mine is on the charger at around 10 am. I don't consider this too bad since my data usage has gone up compared to the iphone, and my battery life is similar, even with the larger screen.

Having said all that, I'd sure try, if you indeed like the device, talking to AT&T about swapping out out for a new one, before giving up on it completely.

 

[_-Jay-_]

Checked my phone last night. Battery stats showed 1Day2Hrs on current charge with 40% left in the tank (Light Usage). I typically get between 10-15hrs (Heavy Usage). 15-20 (Med Usage) and 20-30hrs (Light Usage)

 

[clitrenta]

I'm surprised that no one mentioned screen timeout. If you look at the battery stats, the display is by FAR the biggest user of battery. My husband kept complainnig about ow his phone was running down unusually fast (which it was) and when I checked his settings, I noticed that somehow the screen timeout got set to 10 minutes! No wonder. Unless you are religious about turning the screen off after you use it (which he wasn't), this would suck your battery down in no time. You really have to check everything. One thing i do NOT do however, is compromise how I want to use my phone just to save battery. Why have it then? You know? I know most people don't but I have my screen brightness all the way up. At my age, the more light I have, the easier it is to see. I also have my GPS (location services) on all the time. To many things use it. I have WiFi turned on all the time while I am at home (REALLY saves battery that way) and turn it off at work. I'm trying to cut back how often e-mail is checked which is fine since my important stuff comes thru gmail which is push anyway. I think with my useage I probably get at least 12 hours but I usually throw it on the charger for about an hour during the day in case I end up having to be out longer than usual. With the size of this screen and the brightness level, I think it does darn well. The iPhone would last a little longer but it was a much smaller screen. I can live with it.

 

[Easilyamused]

I don't understand the battery thing. Mine lasts a day or more and I don't turn anything off. The only thing that really affects that is if i'm running the S3 as a hotspot (which again, I dont understand as mine works fine). You're used to the iPhone and the way it works. The S3 is not an iPhone clone (despite what Apple claims).

My wifi works fine as well. Don't know if it's an update or what, but no issues. It connects and stays connected as does my iPad.

As far as functioning with your car, it's not like you can change the function of the car. It's not designed for the S3, it's designed to connect with an iPhone; it is what it is.

There's been plenty of posts here from people who have migrated from iPhone to S3 and are quite happy, and wouldn't go back. I've read many who have said the battery life is better, or have installed aftermarket extended batteries if the OEM battery doesn't suit their particular usage needs. They have found new features they love, or workarounds or downloads to help the phone fit their needs.

Then there are those who complain because it doesn't act like an iPhone clone. No disrespect, but it sounds as if you fall into the latter category. Some are more open minded and seek solutions, other just gripe. Either way, their expectations are the S3 is an iPhone with a good screen. It's not. Everyone has different needs, and despite that it's boring and has it's own shortcomings compared to the S3 (as does the S3 compared to iPhone) what it does it generally does well, and it does it the same way it has for several generations. This provides a comfort level and familiarity that is not quite duplicated with Android. iOS is abundant, strictly controlled and has been around so long there are many things specifically developed to work with it (such as your car). Android, while making its inroads, is not there yet.

At any rate, given the tone of your posts, I would recommend you take the S3 back and move on. No sense wasting any more time here. You'll always be disappointed the S3 is not an iOS device, because the truth of the matter is it isn't.

 

[Nestafaria]

I don't understand the battery thing. Mine lasts a day or more and I don't turn anything off. The only thing that really affects that is if i'm running the S3 as a hotspot (which again, I dont understand as mine works fine). You're used to the iPhone and the way it works. The S3 is not an iPhone clone (despite what Apple claims).

That's great for you, my battery doesn't work like yours. What is hard to understand about that?

My wifi works fine as well. Don't know if it's an update or what, but no issues. It connects and stays connected as does my iPad.

Again, good for you. When I walk into the gym it takes minutes for my wifi to begin working. I get the wifi symbol with a question mark over it. Its like i have to jostle it to work, same as my bluetooth.

As far as functioning with your car, it's not like you can change the function of the car. It's not designed for the S3, it's designed to connect with an iPhone; it is what it is.

True. I underestimated how much I liked this.

There's been plenty of posts here from people who have migrated from iPhone to S3 and are quite happy, and wouldn't go back. I've read many who have said the battery life is better, or have installed aftermarket extended batteries if the OEM battery doesn't suit their particular usage needs. They have found new features they love, or workarounds or downloads to help the phone fit their needs.

Then there are those who complain because it doesn't act like an iPhone clone. No disrespect, but it sounds as if you fall into the latter category. Some are more open minded and seek solutions, other just gripe. Either way, their expectations are the S3 is an iPhone with a good screen. It's not. Everyone has different needs, and despite that it's boring and has it's own shortcomings compared to the S3 (as does the S3 compared to iPhone) what it does it generally does well, and it does it the same way it has for several generations. This provides a comfort level and familiarity that is not quite duplicated with Android. iOS is abundant, strictly controlled and has been around so long there are many things specifically developed to work with it (such as your car). Android, while making its inroads, is not there yet.

At any rate, given the tone of your posts, I would recommend you take the S3 back and move on. No sense wasting any more time here. You'll always be disappointed the S3 is not an iOS device, because the truth of the matter is it isn't.

Are you offended that my experience hasn't been perfect? I came here for information(solutions), not to be scolded that I'm not being open minded. Complaining that core functionality of the phone not working FOR ME, is not comparing it to an iPhone. These are things that SHOULD work. Thank you for your completely unhelpful post, and thank you everyone else for being helpful.

 

[Easilyamused]

Are you offended that my experience hasn't been perfect? I came here for information(solutions), not to be scolded that I'm not being open minded. .

Not offended in any way whatsoever, just suggesting a course of action that seems most logical based upon your initial post (in which you stated you think you're returning the S3, gripe it lacks "basic functionality" and proceed to list things you don't like without once asking for help on a solution at any point). That many in this Android community are still offering help to change your point of view on some of your specific complaints doesn't change this, nor do any of the suggestions offered address your primary complaint.

I never claimed you were closed minded, despite the negative tone of your post (you wrote it, not me), and your replies - while stating once that perhaps you might give a different S3 a try, is undermined by your feeling the upcoming iPhone 5, when jail broken, is at least at this point, more for you.

Regardless of your other issues, or my lack of "understanding" as you have listed many issues I don't share or cannot duplicate, integration with a device specifically designed for the iPhone is not going to be resolved (short of BMW upgrading your car with an "aDrive") by any suggestions made here. As that having been stated by you as being by far the most important function, what purpose does it serve bashing the S3's lack of (in your view) basic functionality?

However much we go back and forth on the rest of the issues, I don't see any logical conclusion in which you'd be happy with anything other than an iPhone. It would certainly be ridiculous to trade your car in for something which integrates with an S3, even if such a thing did exist

I'm simply skipping ahead to the conclusion which we all know will come anyway.