USCellular Jellybean (Good/Bad)

[CChamp]

Now that it looks like USCellular has finally received the Jellybean update, lets start a list of bad or good things that are being discovered. I personally have not been able to get the update but will in the next couple of days (Hopefully).

 

[bewald]

So far mine is good no big changes kimda disappointed was expecting way more but have heard netflix isn't working

Sent from my SCH-R530U using Android Central Forums

 

[Tarant]

Good:
Go to settings> about device> multi tap on android version> tickle the big bean>enjoy
Device is faster. Making games, navigation, and multitasking much better.
Text's in the notification bar. (Although I dont remember if it was that way before since i always had it hidden)

Bad:
Battery life has taken a hit.

Will update as I remember

Sent from my SCH-R530U using Android Central Forums

 

[c_elliott1983]

My battery life isnt that bad. About the same as on ics. No big changes imo. Nothing that i actually use if there is any. Kind of a waste of time when i updated

Sent from my SCH-R530U using Android Central Forums

 

[huggy110]

Got the jb update last night from us cellular, didnt do anything to the phone but let it update. No major changes as of yet !!

 

[Bree6472]

I freaking HATE the new Jellybean update. It has adversely affected my XT9 abilities and I want to take the update off and can't!!!

 

[Bree6472]

There are several problems with the new Jellybean update for the GS3...not the least of which is the fact that it totally messed up the predictive texting abilities. I feel like I'm tapping everything out in Morse code now. It doesn't automatically give you the word you're texting. You have to chose it from a list of words rather than having it appear on screen. If anyone knows of a fix for this please let me know!!

 

[bewald]

Battery life did go way down and phone is slugish in loading web pages and some larger apps kinda wish I just kept ics. Plus update has made my phone hot and its never gotten hot just a very mild warm

Sent from my SCH-R530U using Android Central Forums

 

[Bree6472]

bewald, I had the same problem. It is hot, sluggish. I'm going to have to do a factory data reset on it and NOT do the update on it.

 

[clintw22]

bewald, I had the same problem. It is hot, sluggish. I'm going to have to do a factory data reset on it and NOT do the update on it.

Doing a factory reset won't set u back to ics. It just erases everything saved onto your internal storage and resets your settings. If your rooted you could re flash the stock software and start over but eventually it will make you update.

Sent from my SCH-R530U using Android Central Forums

 

[mitsubishiman]

Complete disaster and possibly the final edict in a long list of issues since purchasing the Galaxy S3 (US Celluar)

Ordinarily I do not take the time to submit reviews, I am of the opinion that products are what they are, none are flawless and none will ever live up to the advertisements or the false reviews generated for the purpose of enhancing sales, however?

I upgraded from a Samsung Galaxy S to a Galaxy S3 in mid November 2012, it was of course after the 15 days I noticed some issues, I live in a rural area and the first two weeks reception was fine, then suddenly I have to go outside my house to actually make or receive a call, I was then told by a US Cellular engineer that the reception on the S3 is not as good as the Galaxy S that I had, and I should have been told that by the people that sold me the phone (they said it would be remarkably better) and in fact all smart phones have less reception than their predecessors, this is common knowledge that the assumption being there are more towers and therefore reception is no longer an issue, try again, my reception is zero.

And then unbeknown to me, because a failed email symbol (an envelope) is the same as a message symbol, one of my email accounts is not sending emails, of course this one is my business account, I have three email accounts, the standard gmail, and then two accounts that I have used on previous us cellular phones.

One works fine (Mediacom) receives and send from the phone, but the second one (work account) Iowatelecom, now windstream, receives but will not send.

I spent 20 minutes on a land line with the company I bought the phone from, they said call the ISP
I spent 20 minutes on a land line with the ISP they confirmed the settings were correct and I should call Samsung
I spent 20 minutes on a land line with Samsung, they gave up and said install a third party software
I spent 134 minutes on a land line with US Cellular and they of course continued to tell me my setting were wrong and we tried a dozen variations, I cross checked all of the settings with the ISP, the phone takes the settings, actuates the account, still receives but all attempt to send receive a fail message.

USC opened a resolution ticket?

So, I called the ISP again, they advised that I remove the account and then add the account again, it added the account flawlessly including all of the correct settings automatically, reconfirmed the password and all other settings.

Still same problem, on account (Mediacom) works both ways, the other (Windstream) receives but will not send.

Then yesterday December 26, 2012 I receive the famous jellybean update, now my wallpaper (my pictures) are all washed out like they were taken with a 1 megapixel camera (actually Canon EOS 40D), I removed the picture and reloaded the one and set it, and tried several others and all the same result, like a diminished video driver, quality is really poor.

So I called US Cellular, they advised that I had a bad upgrade (I used my Wi-Fi connection, Mediacom hard line 30/3 phone literally 12 inches from the modem) and sent me to the Samsung site and I downloaded the jellybean upgrade and installed it, no difference, I asked if I could uninstall the upgrade, stated not possible it is a one way ticket.

Also I had to install all new drivers on my PC because the new Jelly Bean update did not contain the Auto-Driver updates via USB connection function.

And now when I hook up the phone via USB cable and try to copy pictures, I no longer see the pictures in windows 7 picture viewer regardless of how I set the view, large icons, very large icons, etc, they all look like the default icon unless I actually open the photo.

So I now have a cell phone on a business account that has no reception at home, I cannot send emails from my business account, and my screen display looks like a cartoon when it is a 3.6 Mb hi-Res photo.

So my advice is, if US Cellular is your provider, and you are in a rural area.

Switch providers and get anything except a Samsung phone.

And more importantly, can we get the beta testers / software update designers to include all input from the community, for every update we receive we seem to loose functions that others found useful, or in my case extremely important.

 

[Tarant]

Clintw22 is correct a factory reset wont put you back into ics.

Iam just going to put this out there, it worked for me....... After updating to JB i was not all too happy, not much faster and the battery life really sucked didnt matter what settings i changed, it was still slow.
So I did a factory reset (this will reset/erase everything on your phone so back up pics, music and such)
Next went into Settings then Developer Options and turned Window animation scale, Transition animation scale and Animator duration scale to off. Lastly went into Application manager then ALL and went through and disabled all the bloatware and apps i dont use.

After that my phone was much faster, battery life still isnt great but its not bad.

 

[j1d10t]

I downloaded the update the day it came out. Used the Samsung Simple Upgrade Tool because when I tried to get the OTA update from US Cellular I kept getting the message that basically said, "we're busy, wait your turn" - I didn't want to wait LOL The update went fine. Lost root, got it back... I think my battery has actually been lasting longer since the update. Not a lot, but some - I used to be down in the 30% range when I'd plug it in at night and now I'm only down in the 40% range. The phone was pretty quick before, so if there is any speed difference I haven't noticed it. I guess I was expecting more bells and whistles with the update, but I haven't noticed anything that really stands out as amazing. It has Google Now, but I haven't played around with that much, yet. The update was OK - not great, not bad (for me), just OK. Nothing to write home about :-(

 

[jokout1]

Sadly, JB started off as a huge disappointment from day one for me! I was completely satisfied with ICS and had everything setup the way I like, the phone was fast and smooth, while yielding what I consider excellent battery at 24-30 hrs! After putting up with the "TRY LATER" message for days, the update finally popped up and I decided to pull the trigger...If i would have known what was to come, I may have passed!
After update, I was treated to a device that just didn't feel that fast AND sucked battery like I owned a power company!!! I went from my aforementioned 25 hrs to around 6 hrs!!!! I could almost sit and watch the battery percentage drop! It's always a warm feeling in your heart when you realize you have turned a device you love into a turd...It's called heartburn!!! LOL!
Sadly, after a little research, I came to the conclusion that Google Now was at least partly responsible for the battery drain and I disabled the one feature I was really looking forward to in JB! This seemed to improve things somewhat but no where close to where it had been! So into apps manager I go and disabled everything I do not use or isn't all that important!
Lastly, I popped back into Developer options and the animation settings as mentioned above...Strangely enough, I had these set to off in ICS and the update reset them! Finally, I did a battery pull for good measure and rebooted!

Now, after all of this, it seems that my GS3 has come back from the dead! It actually DOES feel a bit smoother/snapper then it was on ICS, but then again that may be just the change from how slow it was initially on JB! Transitions are crisp and Chrome seems to load MUCH faster! I am also noticing the LTE is much more consistent and strong now, I have 4g where I was limited to 3g before...I'm not sure if this is a JB thing or a USCC tweak! But it is definitely noticeable on my GS3.

All in all, while the jury is still out on JB, in my case it has added a few small benifites, while failing to provide the one feature I was most looking forward to...Google Now! I will have to play around with it to see if it can be added back in down the road without killing my battery and data! I can say that Google Search seems to be MUCH improved! Much better/faster voice recognition and results! Again, a few nice tweaks but not as major an update as I had expected!

Cheers

 

[wncmtns]

I have had no problems with the jellybean update except for one. I have no sound on Netflix. How can this be fixed?

 

[ccp0415]

I have the same problem with Netflix.

 

[Nixchic1968]

I have the same problem with Netflix. I called US Cellular and they told me to call Netflix. I did, and they said "we'll look into it, it's the first we have heard of any problem. Call back in 24 hours if it isn't resolved." I called Netflix back, and they told me that it's the first they have heard of the problem, and to call Samsung. UGH! Utterly frustrated now!

I forgot to mention.....if you do watch Netflix for about 30 seconds or so, the picture freezes too!

 

[hell_on_heels]

There's an application called TV portal, it's free. There are thousands of shows and NEW movies on there. The first 2 days u can watch unlimited, then after that u can watch 2 every 6 Hrs. if u want unlimited its only 99 cents. Screw netflix. Also download the flash player it recommends for best playback. Neither one are large apps, I've watched every episode of Dexter and a few movies. No ads or buffering if u have good Wi-Fi. Enjoy. Tell them Michelle Lewis sent ya.

WISHING I HAD WAITED AND GOT THE NOTE 2, ANYONE WANNA TRADE? o>_<o~

 

[ronmisfeldt]

Pros:

Google Now (even though I've had to disable a lot of the features) and the voice search are now awesome. It blows Siri out of the water when I compare it to friends who have iPhones. Plus it anticipates my needs, reminds me of appointments, and even gives me an ETA with traffic updates for work and appointments.

Rich notifications. I love being able to use the "previous track" button from the notifications bar (sometimes)

Cons:

Battery life. I used to go a day of heavy use with WiFi, bluetooth, and the occasional GPS and I would drop to maybe 40% by the end of the day. Now I'm barely touching the phone and I'm down to 20%, and I sometimes have to charge it midday if I've texted a lot or made a few calls. I drop an average of 10%/hour with little to no use. I've disabled all of the bloatware, turned off almost all of the features of Google Now (except weather), stopped automatic reporting of my location for searching, and even tried to turn off syncing. The battery is still being sucked dry. Any other suggestions would be great. Tonight I'm doing a factory reset, which makes me very sad.

Inconsistency. Sometimes it's faster, sometimes not. Sometimes I can see the Google Music ongoing notification, sometimes not. Sometimes it tells me the correct name of the person texting me in the notification bar, sometimes not. Gets a bit annoying.