Picked up the Alpha - Anyone Else?

[Phillip Pugh]

It's ture the alpha is fixed at 32 gigs but that should be plenty for most .I think the screen looks just as good as any other 720 screen out including the iPhone 6 for which the alpha looks why better in my opinion

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[Phillip Pugh]

I saw the Alpha for the 1st time today - it looked very nice. I did not mind the display - but I was told there is a SD card slot under the back. When I got home, looking at YouTube, there is not, you get a 32g internal memory, with about 25g free. There is not expansion - can anyone confirm this. I really wanted more memory. I think the phone is a great form factor.

There's no sd slot but most won't need it 32 gigs is plenty

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[osvanberg]

Still trying to decide whether to buy this or theXperia compact for my girl. Gonna wait till I can see both side by side. The Pentile 720p screen wont be a concern as when i had my S3 it didn't bother me in the least, and I'm sure the alpha's screen is better using the diamond matrix. Wont matter much to her either. The only thing that might sway me is the price.

No, sorry to disappoint you. I have the S3 also and compared it to the Alpha in store. The S3 screen is by far better than the Alphas. If something, the diamond matrix seems to have worsen the pentile effect. So weird. I actually thought that it was a faulty Alpha cause of the bad display, but the store had 3 other Alphas on display to test, and they are all the same. Sammy has really made a huge mistake with this display.

 

[osvanberg]

.... as good as any other 720 screen out including the iPhone 6 for which the alpha looks why better in my opinion

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That's just fanboyism! The Alphas display has no chance IRL compared to the I6.

 

[rikken]

No, sorry to disappoint you. I have the S3 also and compared it to the Alpha in store. The S3 screen is by far better than the Alphas. If something, the diamond matrix seems to have worsen the pentile effect. So weird. I actually thought that it was a faulty Alpha cause of the bad display, but the store had 3 other Alphas on display to test, and they are all the same. Sammy has really made a huge mistake with this display.

I have had the S 3 and that screen is NOT better. The Amoled screens have been improved with each iteration and the screen on the Alpha is plenty good enough for its size.

 

[rikken]

That's just fanboyism! The Alphas display has no chance IRL compared to the I6.

The screen on the Alpha looks better to me too. If that is fanboyism then you are a troll.

 

[osvanberg]

The screen on the Alpha looks better to me too. If that is fanboyism then you are a troll.

As usual you get named troll as soon as you something negative about some guys new favorite model. Grow up, will you!

 

[rikken]

It is you who need to grow up since you don't accept that people like this phone and the screen.
Peoples taste differs you know and if you don't like this phone then it is not for you.

 

[dohlo]

I went into the AT&T store thinking I was going to walk out with the Alpha, even though the 32gb memory was kind of keeping me on the fence from switching from my 32gb iPhone 5 that was practically full. I liked it... But it didn't seem as fluid as I expected. Best Buy was a stones throw away so I thought I'd go see if they had it on display yet, they didn't so I picked up the S5 and messed with it for a bit. Even went as far as going to different flagship AT&T stores to mess with the phone (it takes me a long time to convince myself to make any purchase lol) and at the next two stores the Alpha wasn't working at one, and the third it actually felt rather snappy. But after playing with the S5, I kept finding myself going back to it. I started to appreciate the screen size and the fthe camera. And the expandable memory was a big deal for me, I keep thousands of songs and pictures/video on my phone and it's ever expanding so I didn't want to be limited by 32gb of memory.

It's a beautiful phone and I liked it a lot and the colors on the display were very vivid IMO. The big deal breaker was the lack of an SD though. I feel I made a good choice for my own personal needs by deciding to try the S5 instead

 

[rikken]

The S5 is exellent. Congrats ☺
I have both and the Alpha is no slower.

 

[dohlo]

The S5 is exellent. Congrats ☺
I have both and the Alpha is no slower.

Thanks I agree it's a great phone so far. I did LOTS of research about both and read every review possible from the day the Alpha was announced so I knew what I was in for (I'd been considering dropping Apple for a very long time and was waiting for the right phone) and I was hesitant to have such a large screen, but now that I've spent time with the S5 it makes me laugh at how small Apples older screens are. And the new models just didn't do it for me. I've jailbroken my last three phones and wasn't really looking forward to a newer Apple phone with no customization yet on ios8 so I decided it was time. Alpha was kind of the one that really led me towards it, and even the leaks of the A5 are impressive aesthetically. The Note 4 is a BEAST and a beautiful phone, but too large for my needs/lifestyle.

I wonder if the speed of the Alpha has anything to do with 4.4.4 being stock on it? I was actually really surprised to see that it outperformed the S5 in bench tests with a less powerful processor, but much of that seems to be attributed to the screen requiring less power?

Either way both are beautiful and powerful phones. There was just a few things that made me change my mind once I had true hands on with both

 

[rikken]

The speed of the Alpha is not just 4.4.4 but the Exynos octa Samsung has come up with. Anyway it is always nice to read opinions from those who come from another os

 

[tigerpierre]

My wife and I went into our ATT store to compare the new Alpha with the S5. She really like the look of the Alpha and upgraded from her S3. I'm still in limbo between the Alpha and the S5.

 

[thoots]

Just picked up an Alpha today -- my two years with my (get this) original Galaxy Note were finally up. I got the Note after the Note 2 was available, and once upon a time, I really wanted that big, wider screen. But, my needs have changed, and I really wanted a smaller screen and a smaller, lighter phone.

I just managed to turn the "My Magazine" off -- WONDERFUL!!!! That was the biggest drawback about the Alpha, as far as I was concerned. ;-)

I'm still installing apps and setting things up, but so far, so good. I can't even begin to comprehend the whining and moaning about the screen -- it's the same resolution as my much, much-bigger screened Note, so "big deal." So far, I'm entirely happy with the screen. I've switched to a darkish single-color wallpaper, which I've always preferred.

As for the memory, I figured I could live with that. I've got a Galaxy Tab S 8.4 tablet and a Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 LTE tablet, and I've got 128GB cards in each of those -- I'll use the tablets for multimedia, not my tiny little phone. I've decided to set a limit of 5GB for multimedia files, and I've got more than plenty so far at only 3GB -- I don't expect to add much more. I had a 32GB card in the old Note, didn't even have half of it used, and I just rarely, rarely accessed any of it. So, I think I'll be fine with the 32GB internal memory given that I'm well aware that I hardly won't use much of it at all.

Oh, and as for the battery life, I've always charged my phone up at night, then topped it off in the morning -- I've never even seen anything below 50% with my old Note. So, I expect I'll do just fine with the Alpha's battery.

At any rate, I'm very happy with the little bugger so far -- and I'm really looking forward to carrying around a much smaller, lighter phone in my pocket from now on.

 

[rikken]

Congrats, it is a well performing little rascal

 

[thoots]

rikken,

Thanks! I pretty well finished setting everything up yesterday, so now I'll just go through life with a much smaller and lighter phone in my pocket.

I actually wound up copying about 4.25GB of multimedia and other files to it, which should suffice for my needs, and so far, I've got a hair under 20GB free -- which, again, should be more than enough room to keep me going well into the future.

I turned off the "Caller ID" trial program -- it actually worked quite well, but for me, it's just not worth the $2.99 per month that they charge for it. And I turned the "transparency" all the way down on the time/date/weather widget, which gives it the familiar background with the changing sky and so on, which I much prefer to the fully transparent state that it comes with. I also put five (it'll take five, not just four) apps in the bottom, "sticky" row of icons, and that helped me keep much the same screen configuration that I had with the old Galaxy Note, so I'm very happy with that.

And finally, the Alpha does seem to be quite a bit snappier with everything than the Note was -- I'm very happy with the speed of everything. It'll take a bit of getting used to a smaller screen, but that's definitely what I wanted -- in the end, I'm just tired of packing around a near-tablet-sized phone in my pocket everywhere I go. The Alpha is absolutely the kind of size difference I was looking for, and I'm happy with all the new stuff like the Super AMOLED screen, the S View case, and so on -- everything but the "My Magazine" thing that I despised, but I was absolutely thrilled to be able to turn that off. Now I've got a lean, mean phone that'll do exactly what I want, without a whole lot of excess baggage. "Perfect."

 

[Phillip Pugh]

I saw the Alpha for the 1st time today - it looked very nice. I did not mind the display - but I was told there is a SD card slot under the back. When I got home, looking at YouTube, there is not, you get a 32g internal memory, with about 25g free. There is not expansion - can anyone confirm this. I really wanted more memory. I think the phone is a great form factor.

32 gigs should be plenty for must why would you need more then that I have 32 on my note 4 and it's more then enough iphone never had memory card so get over it folks

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[Phillip Pugh]

How can you like the display!?? I don't get it? It's crap.... The low resolution and pentile matrix really destroys it. It must be "buyers bias"!

So I guess the iPhone 6 with with the same 720p screen is so much better ...not

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[osvanberg]

So I guess the iPhone 6 with with the same 720p screen is so much better ...not

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Well obviously you're not educated enough in the different display techniques!

720p pentile isn't really 720p - it's alot less actual pixels! Hence the crappy display on the Alpha. So yes, the IPhones none pentile display IS in fact better / sharper / less pixilated / better whites etc.

(not that I like the IPhone per say, I dislike the whole Apple concept. But the I6 has gotten alot of thigs right. It's hard to deny.)

 

[Phillip Pugh]

Well obviously you're not educated enough in the different display techniques!

720p pentile isn't really 720p - it's alot less actual pixels! Hence the crappy display on the Alpha. So yes, the IPhones none pentile display IS in fact better / sharper / less pixilated / better whites etc.

(not that I like the IPhone per say, I dislike the whole Apple concept. But the I6 has gotten alot of thigs right. It's hard to deny.)

What apple did finally right is come out with a bigger phone but there flagship phone is no match for the gs5 in every way and don't even try to compare it with the note4 with its multimedia capacity compare that with the iPhone plus note 4 is a beast don't take my word for it just check out all the you tube videos that compare the two

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