Nexus 5 VS Galaxy S3 LTE (T-Mobile)

[nikon5400]

My 2 cents, I would not pay $300-$350 for a 2 year old phone (GS3 LTE) when I can get a 4 month old phone (the Moto X) for $400. To answer your question about "Okay Google Now"s usefulness, it is extremely useful. I didn't even realize how often voice is a more convinient input method than touch until I had a Moto X. Walking the dog and don't want to drop your phone while using it with one hand if the dog chases after a squirrel or something (it happened the second day I had my HTC One), use voice commands to dial or text. Driving? Use voice to text someone that you are running late/on the way/whatever. Holding your kid and don't want to risk dropping the phone? Use voice commands. For me, an always listening voice command mode is a must have feature for a phone going forward.

Well, I agree with you. I just don't have a dog nor hold a kit. But I'm sure if I had Moto X I'd find use of this feature. As for Moto X being 4 months old - that's not 100% accurate. While it is 4 months old, the hardware it uses is older than that. I think they did a great job with their processor cores allowing these extra features and I was about to buy it, but then new phones are going to come in a couple months and they may support these features, while they'll be more biffed up and may cost not much more. As for GS3 LTE - I can get it for less than $250 with my discounts, that's why I feel like it's such a good deal considering I can use it for a year or so and pass it on to my parents who just need big numbers.

Does anyone have kitkat on GS3? I'd really like to know if kitkat removes all the sluggishness from this phone.

Thanks all

 

[JRDroid]

Well, I agree with you. I just don't have a dog nor hold a kit. But I'm sure if I had Moto X I'd find use of this feature. As for Moto X being 4 months old - that's not 100% accurate. While it is 4 months old, the hardware it uses is older than that. I think they did a great job with their processor cores allowing these extra features and I was about to buy it, but then new phones are going to come in a couple months and they may support these features, while they'll be more biffed up and may cost not much more. As for GS3 LTE - I can get it for less than $250 with my discounts, that's why I feel like it's such a good deal considering I can use it for a year or so and pass it on to my parents who just need big numbers.

Does anyone have kitkat on GS3? I'd really like to know if kitkat removes all the sluggishness from this phone.

Thanks all

I would even have a hard time paying $250 for it. Developement for it (both official and unofficial) is going to start to trail off in the next 6-12 months as more and more people who bough it upgrade and the user base drops significantly. And yes, the X8 is based off an older S4 processor, but Motorola has done a lot of tweaking and optimization. I've used phones that had the standard S4 the X8 is based on, the X8 is noticably faster. I see no difference in performance between the X8 and the SnapDragon 600 my HTC One GPe had.

 

[nikon5400]

Comparing it to my nexus 5...I'd say it's nicer to hold than the nexus 5 and better camera. That's the only thing that's better. The UI on the N5 is much snappier...haven't tested the radios yet, but they seem about the same speed to me.

Can you do me a HUGE favor?? Can you call some other phone from both phones, N5 and GS3 and leave voice messages? But please use the handset, not the hands-free and not the speakerphone. Then please compare the sound quality of your messages. If your result will be different than mine, I may consider exchanging my N5 instead. It's just, as I mentioned in 1st post, I compared store displays, so every N5 I used was faulty. But may be mine and store displays are from the first batch and LG addressed the mic issue already

Thanks!!!

 

[LegalAmerican]

You are looking at specs...
Samsung keeps buttons off the screen, which makes viewing area on GS3 screen slightly larger than Nexus 5 and probably a lot larger than Moto X. Nexus 5 and Moto X buttons take up a chunk of the viewing area
Resolution is smaller than on N5, I don't think I need 1080p on 5"

Keep in mind this is why the Google Experience Launcher allows the softkeys to disappear almost all the time. Making the loss of screen size non-existent. The only time those buttons take up real estate, are times when screen size doesn't really matter to me (dialing phone numbers, sending a text, etc). The times where you want the big screen, those buttons vanish.

 

[nikon5400]

Keep in mind this is why the Google Experience Launcher allows the softkeys to disappear almost all the time. Making the loss of screen size non-existent. The only time those buttons take up real estate, are times when screen size doesn't really matter to me (dialing phone numbers, sending a text, etc). The times where you want the big screen, those buttons vanish.

I thought that's how it supposed to work, but I never saw them disappear . Do you have to enable something to hide them or they disappear for certain programs automatically? They hide for me during youtube, but the space they use doesn't get used anyway.

 

[LegalAmerican]

I thought that's how it supposed to work, but I never saw them disappear . Do you have to enable something to hide them or they disappear for certain programs automatically? They hide for me during youtube, but the space they use doesn't get used anyway.

Hmm....I'm actually not sure if it's a setting. Mine does it automatically. I think it's up to the app developer whether or not they make that functionality possible. I just know quite often I realize they've disappeared. Some apps it stays a pointless black bar, but others like Google Play TV And Movies and Google Play Books it utilizes that screen portion.

 

[nikon5400]

You guys were right, S3 is slower than I thought May be T999L slower than T999? Can't wait for kitkat, and hopefully the CM11 will be bug free

P.S. Has anyone tried comparing the mic issue on Nexus 5 to another device, preferably S3? Just curious if all N5s I tried (mine + store displays) are from an earlier batch and problem is solved now

 

[UJ95x]

You guys were right, S3 is slower than I thought May be T999L slower than T999? Can't wait for kitkat, and hopefully the CM11 will be bug free

P.S. Has anyone tried comparing the mic issue on Nexus 5 to another device, preferably S3? Just curious if all N5s I tried (mine + store displays) are from an earlier batch and problem is solved now

The new ones are supposed to have bigger grilles for the speaker, but I'm not sure if they'd sound any better/louder

Posted via Android Central App

 

[nikon5400]

The new ones are supposed to have bigger grilles for the speaker, but I'm not sure if they'd sound any better/louder

I don't care for the speaker, I'm fine with it. I care for the microphone. People can't hear me well, unless I speak much louder.

 

[mojo rising]

I currently have a SG3 (non-LTE) on T-mobile. Last year they installed a new LTE tower near my house that I want to take advantage of. The SG3 just received an OS update and I am very happy with it. I bought the Nexus 5 for the LTE ability. Will I notice much of a difference?

 

[Almeuit]

I currently have a SG3 (non-LTE) on T-mobile. Last year they installed a new LTE tower near my house that I want to take advantage of. The SG3 just received an OS update and I am very happy with it. I bought the Nexus 5 for the LTE ability. Will I notice much of a difference?

Depending on signal strength yes.

Below is a HSPA test and the next is LTE.

Sent from my T-Mobile Note 3 using AC Forums.

 

[mojo rising]

Thanks. I live a mile away so it should be pretty good. Does LTE improve signal strength over hills or inside buildings?

 

[UJ95x]

Thanks. I live a mile away so it should be pretty good. Does LTE improve signal strength over hills or inside buildings?

Depends on the band it's using. Some bands are better for building penetration and others are better for long distance

Posted via Android Central App

 

[nikon5400]

I currently have a SG3 (non-LTE) on T-mobile. Last year they installed a new LTE tower near my house that I want to take advantage of. The SG3 just received an OS update and I am very happy with it. I bought the Nexus 5 for the LTE ability. Will I notice much of a difference?

Can you do me a favor - compare the microphones on these? Can you call some other number and leave a message from both phones, holding them normally, no headset, no speaker phone. PLEASE!!
Thanks

P.S. As for the difference - UI on N5 will be faster. If you put your S3 away, play with N5 for a while and then try S3 you'll notice UI on N5 is MUCH faster. GS3 is sluggish comparing to N5, but I'm not sure if the processor to blame, the touchwiz or both.

As for your GS3 4g non-lte VS lte, I get 3-15 on 4g non-lte, and 25-65 on lte.

 

[mojo rising]

I will try the microphone test. Hope to get the phone at the end of the week.

I downloaded the Ookla Speedtest app and I was surprised how slow my 4g is. The 1st test was 6.76 download. Throughout the day yesterday I tried the test 5 more times and they were all near 1. This morning was 1.1 and 2.9. This is on the 2nd story of a home right next to a window with 3 of 4 bars and the 4g icon.

I can't wait to see what the N5 can do.

 

[limdoug]

Can you do me a HUGE favor?? Can you call some other phone from both phones, N5 and GS3 and leave voice messages? But please use the handset, not the hands-free and not the speakerphone. Then please compare the sound quality of your messages. If your result will be different than mine, I may consider exchanging my N5 instead. It's just, as I mentioned in 1st post, I compared store displays, so every N5 I used was faulty. But may be mine and store displays are from the first batch and LG addressed the mic issue already

Thanks!!!

If you want to PM me your number, I can call you and leave you a voice message from both phones so you can judge for yourself. Just let me know when would be a good time and I'm sure we can work something out.

Thanks.

 

[nikon5400]

If you want to PM me your number, I can call you and leave you a voice message from both phones so you can judge for yourself. Just let me know when would be a good time and I'm sure we can work something out.Thanks.

Just sent you PM. you can call anytime basically, if I don't pick up please leave a message. Thanks

I just tested it a few more times. When N5 is an inch away from my chick, everything is fine, may be almost as good or just as good as S3.
Then I placed my phones near the edge of the table, with my mouth about 8-9 inches from the microphone. Left a voice message on some other phone. Did the same thing with S3. Then again N5 and again S3. The phones were NOT in speakerphone mode. N5 message - I couldn't not hear a thing. NOT A THING!!! S3 - just fine. 8-9 inch away from my mouth and I was talking just as loud as I do when I hold the phone to my ear. Used the same sim card and phones were rebooted.

I suspect either my phone is faulty or the mic quality somehow depends on the signal strength. I noticed N5 voice signal indicator is about 10db lower than S3, but when phone is in call the signal on N5 gets better and is about equal as it is on S3 (when s3 is not in use). Also my phone is a sprint version, used on T-Mobile. Since sprint had their hands in the box, may be sprint version of N5 is configured differently somehow? Don't know. But either way, I'm returning it. Not being able to hold the phone 8-9" away from a mouth may not be a deal breaker for most people, but it is for me. May be it's a defective phone, maybe sprint version is different, maybe first batches had this issue, maybe every one has this issue, but nobody notices it. I'll test out Google Play version later and if that one is better I may get that one later.

Love the battery life and charging time on N5, love the processor, love kitkat, love the visibility during sunlight, love the looks.... but hate the mic!

Thanks all

 

[mojo rising]

I have now had the N5 for 4 days now and I am happy with it, with a few minor reservations. Originally when I was planning on upgrading from my GS3 I was going to buy the Note 3 when I expected a Black Friday deal like they did last year. They didn't offer it this year and I realized at this time I would be paying $700 to replace a phone I paid $600 for just a year prior. And, I could only re-sell it for $225 (used Swappa, lower fees than Ebay.) The SG3 worked very well for me and I wouldn't have thought of replacing it except it didn't get LTE. The phone worked great as far as I was concerned, however, I figured if I was paying for LTE I might as well get it.

The new T-mobile pricing model made me realize how much I was paying for the device through their new pricing model (not really new, but re-marketed.) I hope this puts downward pricing pressure on device makers as the latest versions of phones aren't that much better than the prior model as was the case when smart phones were 1st introduced. I hope that they will start competing on price soon as PC manufacturers do. I see that AT&T now offers a bring your own device plan for $50/month.

Now to the phone review:

What I really like with the N5 vs. the G3:

LTE - Triple the speed
Better radio - get signal in areas where I didn't before
Being able to delete apps that I don't want, I know that they didn't take up that much memory, however, it is easier to navigate the app menu
The price, $399 for the specs that other companies would put useless bells and whistles on and charge a few hundred dollars for

What I don't like:
Notifications. I like the LED to flash every 3-5 second
Hangouts. I replaced the text app with 8sms. Seems to work well
Calendar. Still looking for a replacement calendar app. I liked to be able to look at month view and see some text of what was scheduled for a day
Wifi calling - apparently if I get a Google voice number and download another app I can make wifi calls through May. I travel to areas sometimes where wifi is available and T-mobile isn't. Rumor has it that Googlevoice is working on a solution to offer it through their Hangouts app. We'll see.
Lock screen hot buttons - I liked the Touchwiz feature that allowed to go to 5 apps on the bottom of the screen from the lockscreen without having to unlock and then swiping again for the app

What wasn't a problem was the memory card port. I had the 16gb version of the sg3 and added a external 16gb memory card with my music. I simply ported the music over to the new 32gb internal memory leaving me wit the same 16 free memory. The other was the removable battery. When I had an SG2 and SG3 I bought extra batteries and had them as back-ups. I used them less than 3 times in over 3 years.

I thought the N5 would be faster than my GS3, however, the GS3 was pretty darn snappy. If it had LTE I would have kept it.

 

[nikon5400]

I thought the N5 would be faster than my GS3, however, the GS3 was pretty darn snappy. If it had LTE I would have kept it.

Try GS3 after you spend a couple of weeks with N5 and then see if you still find GS3 snappy. Id really love to see GS3 running kitkat and compare that to N5.
If N5 doesn't work out for you, you can get GS3 LTE for $300 (I'm assuming you are with T-Mobile)..
As for LTE vs 4g Non-LTE - it really depends what you do. If you have 500mb plan, then I guess you don't use data that much..
I get up to 15mbps on 4g and it's been fine for everything, including gps (maps get downloaded as you drive). The only time I'd say LTE would really be needed is in the areas where you'd have LTE but wouldn't have hspa, but I'm not sure if there are such areas out there.

 

[mojo rising]

I sold the SG3 last week so I am keeping the N5. While I was preparing the SG3 for sale after playing with the N5 for about 5 days I didn't see much difference in the time when I pressed an icon and it took to do the command I requested.

The area that I live must get very slow data. I get 1/3 the speeds I see quoted while at home. When I am closer to more urban areas I do get the speeds that I see quoted online. I also noticed at an amusement park last week I was able to download in a large crowd area where I was unable to with my SG3.

I did not price the LTE SG3, however, for the $150 difference (including cost of selling/buying) I probably would go with the newer hardware.

One other issue came up. With Touchwiz you could left swipe to text from contacts and right swipe to call. In people with the N5, when I right swipe it brings up a useless menu. Left swiping the contact does nothing.