Has Samsung corrected the issues that plagued my Note 3?

[kj11]

I had a Note 3 on Verizon for a little over a year, and loved it for about 8 months. After that it went down hill... GPS wouldn't stay connected while running, often times causing the phone to restart a few miles in, frequent dropped calls, or times when I couldn't even place a call, or send a text message, I'd just get a pop up message that said service was unavailable, the phone got laggy, i didn't love touchwiz and battery life went from great to abysmal.

Multiple factory resets did nothing to correct these problems, and I finally got fed up and went with a LG G3. That phone has been great, not a single problem, and I probably wouldn't even be considering replacing it if not for how much I like the Note 5. I was also considering the Moto X Pure edition, but I'm not even sure that's really an upgrade over the G3.

At any rate, I've read good things about the improvements to touchwiz, and with the theme store I could definitely deal(I'm not opposed to launcher apps, but I found keeping things fresh with Nova prime to become tedious after a while). The camera is very important to me, and obviously the Note 5 is king there. So hopefully one or more of you had a Note 3 at one point, and can speak to any connectivity improvements, because honestly if those haven't been fixed that's the deal breaker.

Thanks in advance!

 

[MDMcAtee]

I had a note 3,so I can comment about how this phone runs as compared to it. Night and day different for me, but I was /am on AT&T not Verizon too.

Your GPS issues aren't there with the Note 5 like they were on the first 3 notes. Samsung has come a long way in fixing this.

Touch Wiz is lighter, faster, less burdensome than back then too, but still it is miles away from stock.

Nova Prime is much better now too and has tons more functionality as well. It's not tedious at all and you can even use Samsung's themes with it so you don't have to root to do this. Just have Nova running first before loading one of their themes. Right now I am enjoying running the material dark theme on top of Nova Prime.

Night and day difference on the camera too and this phone just Flys with no hiccups at all. You can download Disabler Pro to disable the bloat without root too.

As you already know the screen is the best available and while the battery isn't removable I get great battery life. The lack of the removable SD card may be a minor inconvenience but in reality that's all it is because you can grab a Leaf Micro USB cardholder and it's plug and play and you can use as many as you want just like before. So you really haven't lost the ability to use them.

Most issues you will find are stemming from Verizon themselves and you should look on the forums about this.

All in all the Note 5 is the best non waterproof phone I have ever owned and managed and can say that you will be pleasantly surprised at how well it does as compared to the Note 3.

Good luck

Posted from my AT&T 64 gig black Galaxy Note 5

 

[dpham00]

I have had the note 3, g2,g4, and Note 5 and I haven't noticed any GPS problems with any of them.

With regards to battery life, haven't used the g3,but the note 5 is much better than my g4.

Sent from my Verizon Samsung Galaxy Note 5

 

[pdub73]

I had both The Verizon note 3 and note 4 they were great until their respective major updates hit, then both suffered from horrible battery life...the problem wasn't Samsung. Out of the box my note 4 was flawless and stable, the Note 3 had a couple of software issues that I remember complaining about 4.4 fixed those but at the same time ruined my battery life. The Note 5 is great...no problems what so ever for me

 

[kj11]

I had both The Verizon note 3 and note 4 they were great until their respective major updates hit, then both suffered from horrible battery life...the problem wasn't Samsung. Out of the box my note 4 was flawless and stable, the Note 3 had a couple of software issues that I remember complaining about 4.4 fixed those but at the same time ruined my battery life. The Note 5 is great...no problems what so ever for me

You know what, that sounds about right... I think it was right around the time kit kat hit that my note 3 went up in flames.

 

[kj11]

I had a note 3,so I can comment about how this phone runs as compared to it. Night and day different for me, but I was /am on AT&T not Verizon too.

Your GPS issues aren't there with the Note 5 like they were on the first 3 notes. Samsung has come a long way in fixing this.

Touch Wiz is lighter, faster, less burdensome than back then too, but still it is miles away from stock.

Nova Prime is much better now too and has tons more functionality as well. It's not tedious at all and you can even use Samsung's themes with it so you don't have to root to do this. Just have Nova running first before loading one of their themes. Right now I am enjoying running the material dark theme on top of Nova Prime.

Night and day difference on the camera too and this phone just Flys with no hiccups at all. You can download Disabler Pro to disable the bloat without root too.

As you already know the screen is the best available and while the battery isn't removable I get great battery life. The lack of the removable SD card may be a minor inconvenience but in reality that's all it is because you can grab a Leaf Micro USB cardholder and it's plug and play and you can use as many as you want just like before. So you really haven't lost the ability to use them.

Most issues you will find are stemming from Verizon themselves and you should look on the forums about this.

All in all the Note 5 is the best non waterproof phone I have ever owned and managed and can say that you will be pleasantly surprised at how well it does as compared to the Note 3.

Good luck

Posted from my AT&T 64 gig black Galaxy Note 5

Thank you very much for your detailed response, pretty much touched on everything. All very encouraging too. I'm definitely going to have to look into the leaf micro USB cardholder, I have a ton of photos, video and music on my SD card now, and no removable storage was about the only negative I could think of regarding the Note 5.

Thanks again.

 

[blacklabel1783]

Never had any of the issues that you described on my VZW N3. Ran great from the day I got it even after me picking up the N5. My N5 is great now, besides of the battery issue.