Samsung Galaxy S3 Gripes

[KreepyKen]

Ok, hoping that this is a legit gripe thread, here are my main concerns (please bear with me as I am new to android after being with blackberry since 2005):

1) The battery life is terrible on this phone. Currently have to charge the phone as may times as my 9900 (2x/day). I've installed juice defender & have all the power saving options turned on. I did notice my cell standby takes up A LOT of my battery

How is your signal during the day? Do you have WiFi, GPS, and Data turned on? If 3G, 4G, Wifi, or GPS are on with a weak or non-existant signal, it will eat battery by constantly looking for the signals. My old Captivate would last 24 hours if sitting near a wifi router, but if I'd wander to an area with poor cell coverage and no Wifi, I'd be lucky to get 5 hours with minimal usage. I can't say for sure it's the same with the SGS III, but it sure made a difference on my last phone. If you're inside and not near wifi during the day, try turning off wifi and GPS and see if that makes any difference.

2) The led notifications are spotty at best. Sometimes I'll get a blinking led notification when a message comes through or it'll be a solid light or it won't light up at all. I've missed more than a few messages (emails, whatsapp messages) because of this. I really miss my blackberry when it comes to notifications

They are wacky, aren't they? I haven't figured out all the colors yet (except red for charging and green for charged). Samsung really needs to provide an app so we can control this light.

 

[CaneToad]

My stock alarm widget works just fine. The alarm clock icon in the widget changes between green and White when you touch it. White is OFF and Green is ON.

Sent from my Galaxy Tab using Tapatalk 2

 

[spicedham]

my grip is that samsung changed so many features on ics that it made harder to use and added a bunch of gimmicky features. simple things like making folders are harder with samsung's skin. also samsungs keyboard predictive text is really bad compared to the original ics keyboard. those are just two of the many things that samsung changed for what seems to be changes for the sake of changing.

 

[Inka]

Hello everybody.

My two gripes are the keyboard, and the native email client (not gmail).

The stock keyboard on my GS2 Skyrocket was much more fluid, and the predictive text was better IMO. I am now using SwiftKey and pleasantly surprised how nicely it works.

The native email client is horrible! Again, it was much better on the GS2. For starters when opening up an email (hotmail) with images, they don't display. Now I know they usually don't automatically display but you do get a show images and always show from this sender options, but it doesn't in this client. You can scroll down to the bottom of the email and click on the Load more details button, and only then the images will load. I have to do this every single time. I have ensured that the display images option in the settings is checked off. Am I missing something here or is this how it's going to be unless I use a third party email client for hotmail?

Oh and I almost forgot, what's up with the emails not fitting to screen by default? That's a downer as well!

These aren't major gripes but am dissapointed that the previous iterations were, ulitmately, better than the ones in the GS3.

I love this phone though, am happy I got it, and am having fun learning something new every day.

 

[ckirkwood9]

Just got my S3 yesterday, i was immediately hit with a few things from the start that were a disappointment.

1) The Galaxy S3 doesn't work with my Incase Headphones with call switch/mic/media control
- These headphones work without issue with my HTC Evo 4g.
- Researching, i found that Iphone headphones also don't work with S3 as designed
- Not sure if there are ANY non-samsung headphones who's call switch/mic will work

THIS SUCKS and is almost a deal breaker on the phone BECAUSE:

2) The headphones that come with the phone are HORRIBLE.
- They feel cheap, like an aftermarket product purchased from ebay
- They SOUND cheap, like an aftermarket product purchased from ebay
or like using 2 single-ear mono ear-pieces that came with a transistor radio from 1970.
(there is little to no bass, and I am not a person who likes heavy bass-driven sound)
- A-W-E-F-U-L that samsung would cheap-out on such an important
user-experience accessory

3) The samsung keyboard that is installed is also not very good.
I immediately installed swype, this makes typping (swypping)
SOOO much better and accurate

4) The samsung keyboard does not have a voice-to-text button, though menu items seem to
indicate that it should. The menu item 'show voice entry button on keyboard' is checked.
Installing swype fixes this, since swype's voice to text is very good.

POSITIVES:

1) It boots pretty quickly
2) Fast response time
3) Screen is much better than my old Evo 4g and looks great with netflix
4) Camera is fun, and takes great photos.
5) wifi seems quick to connect

That's all for now... more to come after using it for a week or so

 

[phonejunky]

I also noticed my S3 doesn't work with my iPhone headphones either. Do they have some thing where you can only use their headphones or what?

 

[InkedAdrenaline]

Well I dropped the iphone today and picked up the s3. After I downloaded SwiftKey I love it.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

 

[walcolm]

I also noticed my S3 doesn't work with my iPhone headphones either. Do they have some thing where you can only use their headphones or what?

i just plugged an old iphone headset to the GS3 after reading your post and it worked great....i believe any 3.5mm headset will work irrespective of the maker

 

[walcolm]

Just got my S3 yesterday, i was immediately hit with a few things from the start that were a disappointment.

1) The Galaxy S3 doesn't work with my Incase Headphones with call switch/mic/media control
- These headphones work without issue with my HTC Evo 4g.
- Researching, i found that Iphone headphones also don't work with S3 as designed
- Not sure if there are ANY non-samsung headphones who's call switch/mic will work

THIS SUCKS and is almost a deal breaker on the phone BECAUSE:

i disagree with you on this point...i have never been able to get the iphone headset controls to work on any device other than apple products

i dont think you can blame this on Samsung...its probably all apple

 

[walcolm]

my grip is that samsung changed so many features on ics that it made harder to use and added a bunch of gimmicky features. simple things like making folders are harder with samsung's skin. also samsungs keyboard predictive text is really bad compared to the original ics keyboard. those are just two of the many things that samsung changed for what seems to be changes for the sake of changing.

i agree with you....from most ICS reviews i have read, the vanilla ICS experience is said to be better than the OEM's skins, so why do the OEMs (yeah you samsung and HTC) spend time, money and other resources changing things around when all it does is reduce the quality of the user experience?

 

[Serial Fordicator]

I ran vanilla ics on my razr. It's boring as hell. Like eating a tomato without salt.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Android Central Forums

 

[walcolm]

I ran vanilla ics on my razr. It's boring as hell. Like eating a tomato without salt.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Android Central Forums

i wont eat tomato with salt

but thanx for sharing that first hand experience...

 

[Rapta619]

my only gripe Is that the palm swipe to capture doesn't work at all. Other motion gimmicks do, and it's turned on but I just can't get it to work anywhere. I switched back to touchwiz from apex and it still didn't solve it . o well, hardware buttons it is.

oh and for the people crying about the keyboard, buy SwiftKey and be done with it.

p. s. apex FTW.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Serial Fordicator]

my only gripe Is that the palm swipe to capture doesn't work at all. Other motion gimmicks do, and it's turned on but I just can't get it to work anywhere. I switched back to touchwiz from apex and it still didn't solve it . o well, hardware buttons it is.

oh and for the people crying about the keyboard, buy SwiftKey and be done with it.

p. s. apex FTW.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

It works well with mine. I just use the side of my hand and run it across.
I don't agree with Swiftkey permissions. They don't need to store my texts or check my credit card info when I type them

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[20blks]

my only gripe Is that the palm swipe to capture doesn't work at all. Other motion gimmicks do, and it's turned on but I just can't get it to work anywhere. I switched back to touchwiz from apex and it still didn't solve it . o well, hardware buttons it is.

oh and for the people crying about the keyboard, buy SwiftKey and be done with it.

p. s. apex FTW.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

Check out a youtube video. Your hand has to touch the screen

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[davidlnewman]

I have 2 gripes. The first being that in order to silence the phone I need to set the sound icon to silent AND set the default notification to silent. Shouldn't just setting the sound icon to silent suffice? Silly. Also if you have 2 emails set up in the default email client, and 2 icons on the screen (one for each email addr), the number of unread messages that get shown is the same for both icons. It's the number of combined unread messages in both accounts, instead of each account icon showing its own number of unread. Again, silly.

 

[Serial Fordicator]

I have 2 gripes. The first being that in order to silence the phone I need to set the sound icon to silent AND set the default notification to silent. Shouldn't just setting the sound icon to silent suffice? Silly. Also if you have 2 emails set up in the default email client, and 2 icons on the screen (one for each email addr), the number of unread messages that get shown is the same for both icons. It's the number of combined unread messages in both accounts, instead of each account icon showing its own number of unread. Again, silly.

Hold the power button and turn silent mode on

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[ansextra]

I also noticed my S3 doesn't work with my iPhone headphones either. Do they have some thing where you can only use their headphones or what?

Honestly with the quality of iPhone headphones I would see that as a positive rather than a negative.

 

[davidlnewman]

Hold the power button and turn silent mode on

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Yup, tried that and notifications still audibly alerts

 

[the1m.polo]

Lag? Com'on Son! No lag not at all...fast phone

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