Question for Galaxy S3 users in SoCal

[Ez Duzit]

1st of October is upgrade time for me but I have a few major concerns. If I stay with Sprint I'll either get the GS3 or the HTC Evo Lte but please, please, please NO debate about which one I should get. That's a topic for another thread and I'm pretty sure there's already a few out there talking about just that.

For right now I really just need answers to the questions below.
I live in the Inland Empire and work as a Courier. I deliver from Temecula to Victorville and everywhere inbetween, and sometimes out to Palm Springs or Rancho Mirage. I can't have my phone constantly dropping calls since I need to be in contact with my office. I also need 3G to be good enough for Google Maps or Navigation if I need to use it, and good enough l to look something up online if I need to. (Without it taking 5 minutes for a page to load).

So, Galaxy S3 users in Riverside or San Bernardino Counties, are you getting decent call reception and data, or is it lots of dropped calls, low signal strength, and slow data?
If you upgraded from an older sprint phone, how is the reception compared to that?
Also, how is the reception when you are driving in these areas, (using your bluetooth headset of course)?

I've read so many posts for both the GS3 and the new Evo about constant dropped calls, low signal strength, and really slow or useless data, it's a big concern for me. I'm sure it will all change when 4GLTE actually gets here, but I can't wait. If I stay with sprint and upgrade, I need to know I can rely on my phone for calls and basic web access. This is kind of a deal-breaker so I appreciate any input, especially from people in the above mentioned areas.


Ez Duzit

 

[Lawrence76taylor]

You say you're with sprint right now? Well then you know what to expect. Your service is not getting any better with either of these phones, at least it didn't get any better for me and I had both. I haven't experienced too many if any dropped calls, but I have very poor data speeds where I live. As far as maps goes I just got back from a road trip to New York and had little to no problems with maps and I used it lot through in low coverage areas like south Dakota and .

 

[seoulbrova]

I live in Los Angeles but work in Riverside, connection is better than the Epic Touch. One of the reasons I personally upgraded was the Epic Touch's poor GPS. It would take forever to lock on, and even then I needed to reboot the phone to get it to work.

The S3 has the best GPS lock I've had in a phone. It is quick and beats out the other phones I've used (Evo 4g, Moto Photon, Epic Touch).

That said, for basic 3g coverage, the Motorola Photon had the strongest lock, but since wimax is dead, I didn't see a point in keeping it.

I haven't had any major issues with dropped calls, coverage, etc with the S3. I went to a wedding in Temecula two weeks ago and had a pretty solid connection.

 

[MangoPowah]

Well I don't know about Sprint (as I had the AT&T variant version of the S3), but reception is great here for me. Although my house has pretty crappy signal, everywhere else is fine.

Sent from my HTC One X