Re: Any Galaxy S3 users get a Nexus 4? What are your impressions?
I had owned a Galaxy S3 since June when it was released here, and have had a Nexus 4 for a few weeks now.
- Better screen. I always felt AMOLED screens were way too over-saturated, so the LCD on the Nexus 4 is a nice change. Looks more natural and pleasant to the eye. Plus text is noticeably sharper. Doesn't have the AMOLED 'blur'. I think this is due to no pentile, but I'm not sure.
- Nexus 4 is significantly faster and smoother. Animations are much smoother. Transitions from app to app in the task switcher is better, everything just feels much more polished on the Nexus 4. The S3 felt fast, but didn't feel nearly as smooth as the N4. I really notice little details like how an app will enlarge it's window from exactly where the app is on the screen, how the RSS reader will fly up the top and a Chrome browser window will fly in to open the link etc. It's much nicer.
- The Nexus 4 having 2gb RAM and the international S3 only having 1gb RAM also added to the fluidity and reduced the amount of apps needing to be re-loaded compared to the S3.
- Stock android is much, MUCH better than Touchwiz. I never owned a Nexus device before and had a lot of Samsung phones. It really doesn't even come close. Stock android looks and feels much more polished, well designed and classy, whereas Touchwiz on the S3 looks and feels kiddy, cartooney and yes, very much cutesy-Asian inspired. The super large text with coloured icons in the settings
- The build quality is an absolute blowout. The S3 feels like a cheap, plastic piece of crap, and they have the gall to charge a top end price for it. The Nexus 4 looks and feels fantastic. Solid design, nothing tacky about it.
- The Galaxy S3 was full of useless gimmicks. Tap to top barely worked for me. It only works on like 4 apps anyway, but I had a hard time getting it to scroll to the top if you tap it twice. Smart stay was completely useless. It barely ever worked, and even then you can just set your screen off time to 10 minutes then press the power button when you've finished looking at the screen. I don't know why you constantly need the front facing camera to (attempt to) see if you're looking at the screen. Another gimmick is the pop up video thing which seems like it's designed to 'wow' people at a phone store, but has no use. You can change the size of the popped out video, and even then your eyes are only going to focus on one thing; either the video you popped out, or something else on the screen. You're not going to do both. So I felt that was a gimmick, as is a bunch of other 'features' they packed in. Needless to say, I did not miss them at all with the N4.
- Storage wasn't an issue. I never had large amounts of files stored on my phones anyway. Right now on my Nexus 4, I have 11 gigs of free space. But that's just me. You may require more space.
- I've grown to really like the on-screen buttons. At first I felt like it might be using up screen space for no reason, but after a while, you don't even notice it. Add to that, it's much better than the home button of the S3, which was worse than the button on the Galaxy S2.
- Nexus 4 will get updates immediately when Google release them. Not 6 months down the track (hello Galaxy S3 and the 4.1 update.....).
Overall, I'm extremely happy with it. I had no qualms with selling my S3 as soon as I got my N4. The Nexus 4 isn't for everyone (low storage + no LTE could be deal-breakers for many), but it's by far the best android phone I've ever owned.