Still rocking a Galaxy S3 in 2016

S

supyo

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Mar 20, 2013
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I love new tech but even in 2016 I see no reason to upgrade my S3. The screen is great, battery life is good, and it does everything I could ever want a smartphone to do. Why would I pay $300-$700CAD for a new phone that really does nothing all that new. Hell, even some newer phones I've looked at have worse screens and battery life. Also, a new genuine S3 battery will set you back all of $8-10.

The camera is decent for quick shots but its really the only reason I could see justifying an upgrade.

Smartphones are a weird market segment. Its seems like only gimmicky features and crazy resolutions is what gets refreshed. Sure the processors are now 64-bit and have a crazy amount of cores but battery life for most new phones is no better than what my S3 can achieve. I bought a $15 extend capacity battery on Amazon that gives me over a day and a half.

Other than the camera I just see no reason. I think I'll probably be rocking this S3 for easily another year.

Are any of you guys rocking old tech? Are there any good reasons to upgrade (other than the camera)?
 
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I still have Note 2 as one of my two phones (one for private sim, one for work)
 
My girlfriend is still using my Galaxy S3 while she's studying abroad. Unfortunately, it's going to be retired later this month because the power switch has failed and is now shutting itself down randomly.

If the switch hadn't failed, I doubt there would have been any push to upgrade. I sent an S5 as a replacement and to me, it felt exactly the same as the S3.
 
As someone who used a Note 2...man those things ran like pigs compared to anything more recent. The screen is pretty bad (serif fonts are next to unreadable, and washes out easily in sunlight) compared to even middling range phones these days...Oh yea, and your butt is exposed to a bucket load of known security threats that are never going to be patched. If you do nandroid backups, they take for frigging ever because the I/O speeds on the onboard flash is slow as snails.

If you "see no reason to upgrade"... you aren't looking very hard....now if you were talking the difference between say an s5 and an s6, things are much closer and marginal gains IMHO.
 
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Rocking the 2013 Moto X here. It's getting slow, but I got used to it. Like the phone a lot.
 
hmz said:
Rocking the 2013 Moto X here. It's getting slow, but I got used to it. Like the phone a lot.
Click to expand...

I'm still on the 1st gen Moto X as well. I really like it for the size, but it's starting to have issues keeping 4G so an upgrade it probably in the future. It does all I need it to do so didn't see a need to upgrade.
 
Skripka said:
As someone who used a Note 2...man those things ran like pigs compared to anything more recent. The screen is pretty bad (serif fonts are next to unreadable, and washes out easily in sunlight) compared to even middling range phones these days...Oh yea, and your butt is exposed to a bucket load of known security threats that are never going to be patched. If you do nandroid backups, they take for frigging ever because the I/O speeds on the onboard flash is slow as snails.

If you "see no reason to upgrade"... you aren't looking very hard....now if you were talking the difference between say an s5 and an s6, things are much closer and marginal gains IMHO.
Click to expand...

I use a note 2... I see no reason to upgrade, it does what I need it to do, 3rd party roms keep it up to date... works fine
 
I'm still using an LG Optimus F3 that I bought late summer of 2013.

It does everything I need it to do *shrugs
 
Nokia 810 is being used by my wife and that is 2K12 tech... still works
 
FLECOM said:
I use a note 2... I see no reason to upgrade, it does what I need it to do, 3rd party roms keep it up to date... works fine
Click to expand...

And those are buggy/crashy...and the ones maintained are few and far between. Hell, simply trying to find updated ROMs for my Old Man's Galaxy S4...well there aren't any. All that is left these days is CM13 which is buggy in all the ways Samsung AOSP is buggy.

And that is never mind the interface lag, the poor screen tech (by current standards)...and that damned back-cover creak.
 
New phones are all so similar. I don't nearly as excited about em as I used to.

I wen't from a Galaxy S3 to a LG G4 and it did little for me.
 
I use a Nexus 6P as my primary/carry phone, but have a few S3s that were phased out at work (salesmen broke the screens) running CyanogenMod (because F Samsung's skinning) that I use as VOIP phones for around the house or for streaming to the Chromescasts, and one for taking to the gym and other environments I'd likely damage my GOOD phone with (steam room, near the hot tub).
 
I enjoyed my upgrade two years back from the S3 to the S4, but I think the screen is as crisp as I need it to be. And 2GB ram is still plenty for me.

My most exciting moment of 2016 was switching from my Verizon subsidized plan to the unsubsidized plan. Saves me 50 bucks a month on two phones (until I decide to upgrade them) :D
 
Skripka said:
And those are buggy/crashy...and the ones maintained are few and far between. Hell, simply trying to find updated ROMs for my Old Man's Galaxy S4...well there aren't any. All that is left these days is CM13 which is buggy in all the ways Samsung AOSP is buggy.

And that is never mind the interface lag, the poor screen tech (by current standards)...and that damned back-cover creak.
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well, I don't know what you are trying to do on your phone... but I make phone calls, read texts/emails... use my VPN to RDP into things, it does all those things just fine... I know there are better phones but I am not going to spend $800 so my emails look better that's just silly
 
Was rocking a Sony Z3 for a while until work needed me to get one of their "standard" phones, HTC One M9, I like it, but my Z3 was awesome for general everything.
 
S3 is my favorite phone in terms of size and handling. Also have an S5 but find myself switching back to the S3 often. Cyanogenmod 11 (KitKat 4.4.4) on the S3 helps make it a bit more up to date.
 
I'm still rocking the s3 I bought used. It has a crack on the screen but I don't care I rarely use my phone. I would still be using a touch pro2 if the power buttons wouldn't stop breaking on the ones I bought and I didn't switch networks once they all broke. Loved being able to use it as a free hotspot.
 
I have been using an unreliable HTC m8 and was tempted to stick my sim back in my old GS3. I remember when i got it I thought the screen was huge and now the phone just feels small. Kept me from switching back.
 
Its all well and good those S3s until you break the charging port or end up with continuous reboots and blame your power button. No fun soldering that shit back on. I've given up taking them in for repair now (I fix phones)

Zibigan - Condolences on the M8, mate. Gave up on them too :/
 
I still am too. However, I am looking for a new phone but I want one I can hack. It seems like that ability is dying though.
 
I was going to keep my Note 3 for a long time too but that stupid OTA update to 5.0 fucked everything up for me. It forced me to get off of Android, now I'm doing a mix of iOS and WP.
 
It's funny how smartphones get so buggy and slow within a few years and there's a clear disadvantage compared to newer models. Just goes to show how badly written mobile OS's are.

Compare to a pc, there's hardly any difference in a pc 5 years old vs a new one, they run the exact same OS - if its Windows, since Win 7/8/10 got faster and smaller and supported old hw, unlike OSX. 90% of any slowness is fixed by adding an SSD, ironically phones already have ssd memory, MIUCH lower requirements, and are still slow.
 
MrCrispy said:
It's funny how smartphones get so buggy and slow within a few years and there's a clear disadvantage compared to newer models. Just goes to show how badly written mobile OS's are.

Compare to a pc, there's hardly any difference in a pc 5 years old vs a new one, they run the exact same OS - if its Windows, since Win 7/8/10 got faster and smaller and supported old hw, unlike OSX. 90% of any slowness is fixed by adding an SSD, ironically phones already have ssd memory, MIUCH lower requirements, and are still slow.
Click to expand...

Because these things called features aren't added with new updates...The S3 was already slow when it launched, not sure what you were expecting. Would you rather they optimize for older phones rather than newer ones?
 
MrCrispy said:
It's funny how smartphones get so buggy and slow within a few years and there's a clear disadvantage compared to newer models. Just goes to show how badly written mobile OS's are.

Compare to a pc, there's hardly any difference in a pc 5 years old vs a new one, they run the exact same OS - if its Windows, since Win 7/8/10 got faster and smaller and supported old hw, unlike OSX. 90% of any slowness is fixed by adding an SSD, ironically phones already have ssd memory, MIUCH lower requirements, and are still slow.
Click to expand...

One word: Power.

If these phones could utilize anywhere near the power a PC/component could use then they might get that quick. The balance of hardware/software features is a delicate one, while certain software optimization can obviously be of benefit, a 2-3w ARM core cant be expected to acheive much. So as a manafacturer, when it comes to marketing your product you have to try and work out the balance carefully, but thats doesnt always work out for the best.

Maybe a good analogy would be to compare a combustion engine with a full electric one. What makes this good is the maturity of said technologies also. Need i say more?
 
Still using my s3 as well. See no need to upgrade as I am able to install latest Android builds. Currently running Marshmallow. Only fix needed was new battery. It also helps modern devices all look like s3s so I don't feel like I'm using a dated device.
 
I think android phones are progressively getting worse. They keep adding features to differentiate themselves from other android phones. Most of those new features are half baked at best and generally don't make it to the next generation since they are so gimmicky. I have used a Galaxy S4 and an HTC M8 and both were extremely good with stock android. They should have just kept their focus on improving their phone instead of adding new features that they think they need to sell them.
 
My mother still uses an S3, my wife an S4, and an M8 for myself.

Unfortunately the Galaxy's are going to have to go soon, S3 is getting screen burn in of the keyboard, and the S4's charging port is getting dodgy.
 
Only people that care about new phones are the hipsters that only care about status symbol. I got a 6P and don't plan on upgrading til it dies. I will even attempt to swap out the battery when it goes before buying a new phone.
 
S3 was my shortest smartphone stint, so slow and laggy even rooted with custom roms. Like 5 months max. Build quality was shit too, basically fell apart in less than a year as my wife continued to use it. Only phone I've ever thrown in the trash.
 
My S3 lasted for 2 years without fail using custom roms. I am using the HTC 10 and like it so far, however, I did have some custom rom issues as of late.
 
I'm running my S4 still, battery life is not great and it is a bit slow for some of the things I use it for. Nothing crazy but I may upgrade to an S8 or something next year if its worth it. If not I may just buy a 5 dollar battery. Not a big fan of the S6 / 7 looks. Who knows.
 
S3 is an awesome size...The only downside I could see is the camera as well as the lack of 700MHz support for T-Mobile.
 
just got my 1st s3 note and surprised at how quiet and short the calendar notifications are..

I'm coming from a old Samsung convoy and those calendar notifications could be heard 40' away !

So, is there a fix ? or good dependable program that would help make the calendar notifications
louder or last more than 2 seconds ! ????

Otherwise this note 3 is a good improvement over my old convoy ...

thanks.
 
I'm using Huawei Honor 6 which is over two years old. To me the battery life is still good and everything feels snappy. The Android M runs better than the original KitKat. It was a good thing that they put loads of ram in this and the battery is large too.

I might upgrade to Honor 9 (or Huawei P10), OnePlus 4 or something from Nokia next year.
 
Good thing your S3's hanging in there, because two years ago, going on its second year, my own S3's battery life had went down the gutter. Couldn't even survive a 6-hour work shift in my pocket half the time, and that's with the screen off and phone in pocket for most of that!

Thankfully, my Note 4's holding up much better at the same point in its life. Still has most of its battery life, though one of my batteries tends to brown out around the 20% range. Even so, it's probably going to stay with me for far longer than two years given the terrible direction Samsung took afterward.
 
I have a Note 4 (misses also has one) currently that I've recently put a custom ROM on (Resurrection Remix - Android 7.1.1) but have has all of the Galaxy from S2 - S5 and notes from Note 2 to Note 4, find the Note 4 was the last decent phone Samsung brought out aside the S5, hate when they went with the glass design, too much like iPhone they were, only thing lets me down on the N4 is it's Camera isn't all that great but gets the job done.
 
Is there any way to record more than 4 gig at one time ?? any app ? or work-around ???

Do all androids stop recording video after 4 gig mark ?? even newer one ??

I was going to record some kids throwing glass bottles in my driveway and noticed the
note 3 will only record 4 gig max at one time...

I might just have to get surveillance camera or camcorder

thanks for any info..
 
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