I am a Sprint customer and was eligible for an upgrade in July. At the time, I owned a Galaxy Nexus. While I love a "pure" Android experience without bloat and manufacturer overlays, I thought the hardware specs of the GS3 looked pretty sweet and, since I dabble in rooting and flashing custom ROMS, etc., I figured I would be able to slap a pretty pure Jelly Bean ROM on the GS3 within a short period of time. So, I bought a white, 16GB Sprint Samsung Galaxy S3. Thankfully (for me anyway), I kept my Galaxy Nexus and returned the GS3 on the 14th day of the "trial period". I know before I did the upgrade that I read as many posts like this as I could to help me determine if I really wanted to use my valuable upgrade on the GS3, so, here are my thoughts, if you care to read on:
SPEED: The GS3 is fast. I can notice a difference between a stock GS3 and a stock GNEX. The GS3 is smoother. While some of the JB roms I have tried improve the GNEX speed, the GS3 is as smooth as butter and with 2 gigs of ram, multitasking causes no noticeable stutter. However, prior to getting the GS3, I was never really thinking I was lacking much in the speed category and since I have gone back to the GNEX, the user experience isn't any worse because the phone is somewhat laggier at times. The GNEX is still darn quick and I don't consider the speed that comes with the faster dual core and the additional gig of ram to be a reason to upgrade.
CAMERA: The camera on the GS3, and more importantly, the TouchWiz camera app is phenomenal. Period. I am by no means any sort of photography aficionado either--just a regular dude who uses his camera from time to time to snap pics of his family and dogs and to put them on Facebook or send to my mom. In any case, the GS3 8mp camera and the TouchWiz app blow away anything the GNEX can do and I really don't think it's debatable. The colors are better. There are more features and shooting modes (burst mode and best pic options are sweet) and it is faster. For me, this is not really much of a reason to use an upgrade, but for some it might be.
STORAGE: Of course, GNEX has 32GB with no external SD card option. GS3 comes in 16 and 32G and you can insert at least an external 32G (maybe even 64?) sd card. I bought a 16G GS3 and purchased a 32G Class 10 PNY SD card to put in it. So, the 32G GS3 is obviously better than the 32G GNEX since the internal storage is the same and you have the option to add additional ROM with an external SD. HOWEVER, I bought a 16G. I use Spotify and Rdio to store music on my phone for offline access. You cannot, I repeat, cannot store apps or downloaded files from many apps (including Spotify and Rdio) on the external SD card on a GS3. I won't go into the technical reasons why Samsung or Google (depends on who you ask) have made it this way, but suffice it to say that you can't do it. At least you can't if you aren't rooted, but even if you are (I was) it is still difficult to do and is buggy and a hassle if you can somehow get it to work. So, if you are going to upgrade to the GS3, spend the extra $50 and please get the 32G internal storage version. This, of course, was never an issue for me since I had 32G internal on the GNEX.
BATTERY LIFE: It's MUCH better on the GS3. This is really the only thing that made me hesitate about going back to the GNEX. I could easily get 13 or 14 hrs charge with moderate to heavy use on my GS3. Never got anywhere close to that with a GNEX and standard battery. However, I have a Seidio extended battery for my GNEX (adds a little bulk, but it is worth it) so this isn't an issue for me.
SOFTWARE: For me, if I have an Android based phone I want it to look like Android--Google's Android. Not Touchwiz or Sense or any of that. Now, I will say that some of the Touchwiz features are cool, for example, the camera app (see above) and the various gestures which allow you to do things like accessing the camera app from the lock screen or doing a screenshot very quick and easy. Also, it has a feature that will override the screen timeout by using the front facing camera (which by the way is better on the GS3, but who cares) to recognize if you are still looking at the screen--pretty slick. However, NONE of that makes up for a true Android AOSPish experience, at least for me. Plus, we will get stock updates/OTAs faster (still waiting for the JB ota for my GNEX...come on Sprint). S-Voice sucks btw.
RADIO/RECEPTION: I have no data, evidence or whatever to back this up, but it is my sense that the radio was better on the GS3--at least in so far as voice calls and signal to make voice calls was better on the GS3 it seemed. Data wise and LTE speeds--I didn't really notice much difference.
SCREEN: The GS3 screen is bigger and is gorgeous. Nice and bright and in my opinion is a definite upgrade over GS3.
BUTTONS: I like the GNEX on-screen buttons, but the GS3 "home" button and two soft keys don't bother me.
So, I returned the GS3 to get my money and my upgrade back and hopefully Google will roll out a new Nexus phone that Sprint will carry sometime before 2055 and I can use my upgrade on that. That's all I can think of...If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them.
SPEED: The GS3 is fast. I can notice a difference between a stock GS3 and a stock GNEX. The GS3 is smoother. While some of the JB roms I have tried improve the GNEX speed, the GS3 is as smooth as butter and with 2 gigs of ram, multitasking causes no noticeable stutter. However, prior to getting the GS3, I was never really thinking I was lacking much in the speed category and since I have gone back to the GNEX, the user experience isn't any worse because the phone is somewhat laggier at times. The GNEX is still darn quick and I don't consider the speed that comes with the faster dual core and the additional gig of ram to be a reason to upgrade.
CAMERA: The camera on the GS3, and more importantly, the TouchWiz camera app is phenomenal. Period. I am by no means any sort of photography aficionado either--just a regular dude who uses his camera from time to time to snap pics of his family and dogs and to put them on Facebook or send to my mom. In any case, the GS3 8mp camera and the TouchWiz app blow away anything the GNEX can do and I really don't think it's debatable. The colors are better. There are more features and shooting modes (burst mode and best pic options are sweet) and it is faster. For me, this is not really much of a reason to use an upgrade, but for some it might be.
STORAGE: Of course, GNEX has 32GB with no external SD card option. GS3 comes in 16 and 32G and you can insert at least an external 32G (maybe even 64?) sd card. I bought a 16G GS3 and purchased a 32G Class 10 PNY SD card to put in it. So, the 32G GS3 is obviously better than the 32G GNEX since the internal storage is the same and you have the option to add additional ROM with an external SD. HOWEVER, I bought a 16G. I use Spotify and Rdio to store music on my phone for offline access. You cannot, I repeat, cannot store apps or downloaded files from many apps (including Spotify and Rdio) on the external SD card on a GS3. I won't go into the technical reasons why Samsung or Google (depends on who you ask) have made it this way, but suffice it to say that you can't do it. At least you can't if you aren't rooted, but even if you are (I was) it is still difficult to do and is buggy and a hassle if you can somehow get it to work. So, if you are going to upgrade to the GS3, spend the extra $50 and please get the 32G internal storage version. This, of course, was never an issue for me since I had 32G internal on the GNEX.
BATTERY LIFE: It's MUCH better on the GS3. This is really the only thing that made me hesitate about going back to the GNEX. I could easily get 13 or 14 hrs charge with moderate to heavy use on my GS3. Never got anywhere close to that with a GNEX and standard battery. However, I have a Seidio extended battery for my GNEX (adds a little bulk, but it is worth it) so this isn't an issue for me.
SOFTWARE: For me, if I have an Android based phone I want it to look like Android--Google's Android. Not Touchwiz or Sense or any of that. Now, I will say that some of the Touchwiz features are cool, for example, the camera app (see above) and the various gestures which allow you to do things like accessing the camera app from the lock screen or doing a screenshot very quick and easy. Also, it has a feature that will override the screen timeout by using the front facing camera (which by the way is better on the GS3, but who cares) to recognize if you are still looking at the screen--pretty slick. However, NONE of that makes up for a true Android AOSPish experience, at least for me. Plus, we will get stock updates/OTAs faster (still waiting for the JB ota for my GNEX...come on Sprint). S-Voice sucks btw.
RADIO/RECEPTION: I have no data, evidence or whatever to back this up, but it is my sense that the radio was better on the GS3--at least in so far as voice calls and signal to make voice calls was better on the GS3 it seemed. Data wise and LTE speeds--I didn't really notice much difference.
SCREEN: The GS3 screen is bigger and is gorgeous. Nice and bright and in my opinion is a definite upgrade over GS3.
BUTTONS: I like the GNEX on-screen buttons, but the GS3 "home" button and two soft keys don't bother me.
So, I returned the GS3 to get my money and my upgrade back and hopefully Google will roll out a new Nexus phone that Sprint will carry sometime before 2055 and I can use my upgrade on that. That's all I can think of...If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them.
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