Wait for iPhone5 or get GS3?

farscapesg1 said:
For those with the Galaxy S3, what is your experience with using the phone outdoors? I've read that there are issues with visibility in sunlight, even worse than previous Galaxy phones.

Also, any problems with battery usage? I know you can get an extra battery for S3 for really heavy usage, but I don't think I'm in that camp ;) Apple seems to be showing some pretty impressive battery performance (11 hours vs 9 hours for the S3 on Engadget's battery test), but I'm already used to charging my phone every night (and actually in the car during commute and even sometimes at work :( )...
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1.) As far as the screen visibility goes, I don't recall it being any worse than my iPhone 4 was, so not really bad. Putting an anti-glare screen protector on it makes it better. I use my GS3 with the Waze app as my primary in car GPS navigator, and neither sunlight nor sunglasses have yet to be a problem.

2.) As far as battery life goes, I was concerned at first. It can burn through a lot of battery in a relatively short period of time if chugging data over LTE. For me it hasn't been a huge problem though. With my charging over night, I've gotten close a few times, but never had it doe on me prematurely. Right now its 4:48pm. I've been using the phone since I got up this morning at 7am, then plugged it in in the car for my 20 min commute to work, but otherwise not had it plugged in. Battery is currently at 83%, granted I've only used it for some light email and web browsing today, and I've been on Wifi for most of it.

So as far as battery goes, it can scare you how quickly it can go down during heavy use, but in my real world use it's never been a problem. I have a charger (my old blackberry charger) at my desk at work just in case, but thus far I haven't needed it.

Most of my music streaming happens when I am driving, and when I do that I have it plugged into my car charger, so I am OK from that standpoint.

Your typical usage may vary, but for my typical usage its been just dandy.
 
Thanks for that. Considering I have a 1-1/2 hour commute each way, an in-car charger is pretty much mandatory for me anyways ;) I've got wifi at work, so no problems there and once I get home I'm usually using my tablet or laptop more than my phone anyways, so I don't think battery life will be that big of an issue for me.

The comment about sunglasses and driving is very helpful, since my 3GS is a PITA to read while driving and wearing sunglasses.
 
farscapesg1 said:
For those with the Galaxy S3, what is your experience with using the phone outdoors? I've read that there are issues with visibility in sunlight, even worse than previous Galaxy phones.

Also, any problems with battery usage? I know you can get an extra battery for S3 for really heavy usage, but I don't think I'm in that camp ;) Apple seems to be showing some pretty impressive battery performance (11 hours vs 9 hours for the S3 on Engadget's battery test), but I'm already used to charging my phone every night (and actually in the car during commute and even sometimes at work :( )...
Click to expand...

any device in direct sunlight nowadays will have a hard time viewing, but i find the glare not too obtrusive. the S3's battery life is pretty impressive, but beware of heavy usage of the LTE network, it does drain big time, especially using navigation. i got a second battery for the phone for those moments, just in case.
 
Unfortunately what I need is the phone with the best battery, and no I don't want to buy another battery to carry around with me in case the first one dies :eek:

I really do dig the way the S3 looks though, and I wish the Lumia 920 was on Verizon :(
 
BiH115 said:
Unfortunately what I need is the phone with the best battery, and no I don't want to buy another battery to carry around with me in case the first one dies :eek:

I really do dig the way the S3 looks though, and I wish the Lumia 920 was on Verizon :(
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So you would rather hit a hard stop, and have a dead battery, and nothing you can do about it, or take a phone with (possibly) slightly less battery life (~18%), but once it does you can just swap it out and keep going?

That's your choice.

I'd be willing to wager that the battery time difference between the new iPhone and the GS3 is primarily down to screen size at this point. After all the GS3 has ~27% more lit screen area than the iPhone 5 does.


Another option would be to simply disable LTE, take a little bit of a speed hit, but see the battery life increase dramatically.

Probably won't even notice much of a difference in real life use with LTE off.
 
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Zarathustra[H];1039157388 said:
So you would rather hit a hard stop, and have a dead battery, and nothing you can do about it, or take a phone with (possibly) slightly less battery life (~18%), but once it does you can just swap it out and keep going?

That's your choice.


Another option would be to simply disable LTE, take a little bit of a speed hit, but see the battery life increase dramatically.

Probably won't even notice much of a difference in real life use with LTE off.
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If I can get one full day without a charge, I'd be fine. I'm not a huge cell-phone user. I refuse to buy another battery, unless in the future I plan on traveling, then maybe. My current scenario is with the original iPhone 4, I get MAYBE a day, with barely any use. It's just dying slowly over the course of the day, it's an atrocity.
 
BiH115 said:
If I can get one full day without a charge, I'd be fine. I'm not a huge cell-phone user. I refuse to buy another battery, unless in the future I plan on traveling, then maybe. My current scenario is with the original iPhone 4, I get MAYBE a day, with barely any use. It's just dying slowly over the course of the day, it's an atrocity.
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How old is your iPhone 4?

That seems like pretty short battery life for the 4, I'm wondering if its battery is just starting to give out...

On my iPhone 4 I browsed and emailed throughout the day, and never came even close to running out of battery by the end of the day...

With the GS3, if I don't charge it, and leave LTE on, I get through the day with ever so slightly less of a battery percentage left at the end of the day than I used to with my 2 year old iPhone 4, but I still don't run out.
 
Zarathustra[H];1039157422 said:
How old is your iPhone 4?

That seems like pretty short battery life for the 4, I'm wondering if its battery is just starting to give out...

On my iPhone 4 I browsed and emailed throughout the day, and never came even close to running out of battery by the end of the day...

With the GS3, if I don't charge it, and leave LTE on, I get through the day with ever so slightly less of a battery percentage left at the end of the day than I used to with my 2 year old iPhone 4, but I still don't run out.
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It's not just me, with the last two iOS5 updates, the battery life went to shit for not only the 4 users, but the 4s users as well. I also replaced the battery and got a new one after a year (so, last year sometime in the summer). This thing just sucks, and I can't wait to get rid of it. It's painfully slow (I barely have anything on it...), and the top button is constantly getting stuck.

Don't get me wrong now, I wouldn't mind the new iPhone, I'd love a faster phone, but it has to have a better battery...for the love of god.
 
Thanks for all the input on this. Finally made my decision on the GS3, submitted the form and it was processed today so I should have a shiny new GS3 next week :)

It finally came down to my wife getting her iPhone 5 in the mail last Friday and I had to help her set it up. Just felt like the "same old thing" to me and I really kind of wanted to use this opportunity (free phone and service) to try the other side of the phone market. Already ordered some NFC tags and just need to find a good case...
 
Got the phone on Monday and so far I love it ;) It is a refreshing change from being on IOS for the last 3 years. Went ahead and rooted it, but so far I've left the stock ROM on it (from Verizon) and installed Nova Launcher on it. Got some NFC tags to play with and configured them for home, car, work, etc.

I was a little concerned about the reviews of the screen in sunlight, but it is 100x better than my old 3GS screen! I can actually see the screen when wearing sunglasses and driving, or while working outside in the yard on the weekend.

For me the battery life is just about perfect. I "stress tested" it and unplugged it in the morning before leaving for work and made it 12.5 hours before it reached 10%. That was with 3 hours of Pandora while commuting, installing apps and web-surfing while I was in a traing class most of the day at work (boring!!!), taking about 2 hours worth of calls, and watching an episode of Fringe over wifi from home (using Emit) during lunch. My 3GS with it's battery issue would have been dead before lunch, and even before that wouldn't have made it until I got home from work without needing to be charged.

The size is also really nice. I know a lot of people like the iPhone size, but the extra screen size works better for me. Just got to find the perfect balance between icon size and number of icons on the screen (since Nova Launcher lets you customize rows and columns). The text message screen is also nice, with a lot larger text which works better when driving (just to see the text.. I don't respond back while in the car). So far, haven't run in to any issues with the "won't fit in my pocket" problem a lot of people bag on android phones for. I wear business-casual clothes for work, so my pockets have enough room. Not a big jeans wearer, but I don't see it being a problem fitting my Levi's pocket.

Very happy with it so far and finding it hard to set it down and stop tinkering with it....
 
farscapesg1 said:
Got the phone on Monday and so far I love it ;) It is a refreshing change from being on IOS for the last 3 years. Went ahead and rooted it, but so far I've left the stock ROM on it (from Verizon) and installed Nova Launcher on it. Got some NFC tags to play with and configured them for home, car, work, etc.

I was a little concerned about the reviews of the screen in sunlight, but it is 100x better than my old 3GS screen! I can actually see the screen when wearing sunglasses and driving, or while working outside in the yard on the weekend.

For me the battery life is just about perfect. I "stress tested" it and unplugged it in the morning before leaving for work and made it 12.5 hours before it reached 10%. That was with 3 hours of Pandora while commuting, installing apps and web-surfing while I was in a traing class most of the day at work (boring!!!), taking about 2 hours worth of calls, and watching an episode of Fringe over wifi from home (using Emit) during lunch. My 3GS with it's battery issue would have been dead before lunch, and even before that wouldn't have made it until I got home from work without needing to be charged.

The size is also really nice. I know a lot of people like the iPhone size, but the extra screen size works better for me. Just got to find the perfect balance between icon size and number of icons on the screen (since Nova Launcher lets you customize rows and columns). The text message screen is also nice, with a lot larger text which works better when driving (just to see the text.. I don't respond back while in the car). So far, haven't run in to any issues with the "won't fit in my pocket" problem a lot of people bag on android phones for. I wear business-casual clothes for work, so my pockets have enough room. Not a big jeans wearer, but I don't see it being a problem fitting my Levi's pocket.

Very happy with it so far and finding it hard to set it down and stop tinkering with it....
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Awesome! Glad you like it!

Just because I'm not hip to all things smartphones... What are NFC tags? I googled it and I ma none the wiser...
 
Zarathustra[H];1039205050 said:
Awesome! Glad you like it!

Just because I'm not hip to all things smartphones... What are NFC tags? I googled it and I ma none the wiser...
Click to expand...

Near Field Communication

Basically the ones I ordered are chips about the size of a quarter and you can program them with phones that support NFC like the S3. For example, I have one programed for my car that enables Bluetooth, disables Wifi, turns up the ringer and music volumes, enables GPS, and launches Pandora. I have another one at work that disables Bluetooth, Enables Wifi and connects to our "guest access", turns down the ringer volume and disables GPS.

You can set them to check in to some of the social apps (facebook, foursquare, etc.), automatically place a call or send a text, set alarms (like if you wanted to use your phone as your alarm clock and didn't want to always set/enable the alarm yourself). I'm sure there are more but that's the general idea.
 
@ the op; I think you made a good choice. I like the bigger screens over iPhones tiny screen. Apple failed by leaving the screen narrow. The iPhone 5 is very quick though and I think they may have better quality screen. I hate how android screens seem pixelated under normal resolution sizing. Makes you have to zoom in to read. I like being able to scroll then zoom a bit when I am ready to pick. This is mainly on web pages/ forums, but I can get over it.
I'm still trying to decide what phone I want, but want to wait another month to see how the new coming phones fair.
Congrats though, you should be happy with your decision
 
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