To be honest, like many of you I've been pretty hesitant to go back to Samsung because of faulty radios and gps that plagued the second generation of Galaxy devices. I am a frequent traveler, so having strong signal, in addition to reliable navigation is a MUST for me. I gave up after 10 months with the Epic 4g Touch and moved onto the Galaxy Nexus, which unfortunately, also had radio and gps issues.
Being burned twice by Samsung, I finally jumped ship and switched to the iPhone 4s which had phenomenal radios, but the OS was so severely lacking despite jailbreaking and buying $50+ worth of "tweaks" in Cydia, that I had to switch back to Android. Enter the HTC Evo 4g LTE; a phone that could only test my patience for a grand total of a week. I could not STAND the lagginess of the phone, especially coming from the iPhone 4s. It was night and day how SLOW the Evo was when opening apps (even STOCK apps), taking pictures rapidly without holding down burst mode (the speed of which was supposed to be it's main selling point). Along with Sense reloading repeatedly, the so called "multitasking" that HTC just had to molest, and the god-awful browser with its counter-intuitive UI and inability to access my notifications-- I had enough. Basically it was all these basic little things that most oems get right, HTC completely ruined. Sorry if this comes off ranty, but I am with Android because I want raw horsepower and efficiency performing basic tasks. If I wanted to blow $600+ on a device that's pretty and inefficient, I would just go back to iOS, or hell, even a feature phone.
Anyways, there wasn't one area of the OS, not ONE that HTC couldn't keep their hands off of. Everything in ICS had to be fiddled with, tweaked, changed, just out right MOLESTED for the sake of Sense's individuality and distinction between other OEMs. Motorola's latest ICS update for the RAZR Maxx did ICS right, keeping it fairly untouched from stock, and the latest iteration of Touchwiz (from what I've seen) does very little to get in the way of ICS, although IMO they are still pretty aggressive with some of Touchwiz's changes.
All this to say, I've been researching the GS3, trying to find the one phone that has the all-around best overall package without having to make too many sacrifices here and there. Despite my ranting, I am in fact, aware that there is no "perfect" phone. Still, if you're like me and you worry about the radios and gps, the GS3 thankfully has GLONASS in addition to GPS (google what GLONASS is, it's pretty amazing), and radio strength has been reported to be much better than the Galaxy Nexus. Fluidity in Touchwiz has been almost unanimously praised by reviewers everywhere, and the camera has proven to result in a much more stable video quality in comparison tests against the LTEvo, even against the iPhone 4s which still has a pretty competitive camera. (Exhibit A: Galaxy S3 vs. iPhone 4S Camera Photo/Video Shootout! - YouTube) The LTEvo's 1080p video recording takes it at 24 fps (I believe) while the GS3 takes it in full 30 fps, a very very noticeable difference. In addition, the LTEvo in my experience had troubles with stabilization when moving the camera too fast, creating this very distracting "wobbly" effect when taking videos. The GS3 did not have these issues.
I'm hoping the GS3 will be the last device I will upgrade to for at least a year. From everything I've read and researched about the device; reviews from Phonedog, Android Central, Phandroid, Arstechnica, TheVerge, Engagdget, Anandtech, and many many others, it looks like the GS3 is going to hopefully be the phone with the all-around complete package that I'll need until next year.
TL;DR: Samsung, Apple, and HTC have all in one way or another left out crucial features that make them the best well-rounded phone. However, Samsung has updated their radios, gps, and Touchwiz has been praised highly for it's performance and fluidity, as well as a better camera than compared to the LTEvo or even the iPhone 4s. Hopefully this will be the phone for me, at least until next year.
Being burned twice by Samsung, I finally jumped ship and switched to the iPhone 4s which had phenomenal radios, but the OS was so severely lacking despite jailbreaking and buying $50+ worth of "tweaks" in Cydia, that I had to switch back to Android. Enter the HTC Evo 4g LTE; a phone that could only test my patience for a grand total of a week. I could not STAND the lagginess of the phone, especially coming from the iPhone 4s. It was night and day how SLOW the Evo was when opening apps (even STOCK apps), taking pictures rapidly without holding down burst mode (the speed of which was supposed to be it's main selling point). Along with Sense reloading repeatedly, the so called "multitasking" that HTC just had to molest, and the god-awful browser with its counter-intuitive UI and inability to access my notifications-- I had enough. Basically it was all these basic little things that most oems get right, HTC completely ruined. Sorry if this comes off ranty, but I am with Android because I want raw horsepower and efficiency performing basic tasks. If I wanted to blow $600+ on a device that's pretty and inefficient, I would just go back to iOS, or hell, even a feature phone.
Anyways, there wasn't one area of the OS, not ONE that HTC couldn't keep their hands off of. Everything in ICS had to be fiddled with, tweaked, changed, just out right MOLESTED for the sake of Sense's individuality and distinction between other OEMs. Motorola's latest ICS update for the RAZR Maxx did ICS right, keeping it fairly untouched from stock, and the latest iteration of Touchwiz (from what I've seen) does very little to get in the way of ICS, although IMO they are still pretty aggressive with some of Touchwiz's changes.
All this to say, I've been researching the GS3, trying to find the one phone that has the all-around best overall package without having to make too many sacrifices here and there. Despite my ranting, I am in fact, aware that there is no "perfect" phone. Still, if you're like me and you worry about the radios and gps, the GS3 thankfully has GLONASS in addition to GPS (google what GLONASS is, it's pretty amazing), and radio strength has been reported to be much better than the Galaxy Nexus. Fluidity in Touchwiz has been almost unanimously praised by reviewers everywhere, and the camera has proven to result in a much more stable video quality in comparison tests against the LTEvo, even against the iPhone 4s which still has a pretty competitive camera. (Exhibit A: Galaxy S3 vs. iPhone 4S Camera Photo/Video Shootout! - YouTube) The LTEvo's 1080p video recording takes it at 24 fps (I believe) while the GS3 takes it in full 30 fps, a very very noticeable difference. In addition, the LTEvo in my experience had troubles with stabilization when moving the camera too fast, creating this very distracting "wobbly" effect when taking videos. The GS3 did not have these issues.
I'm hoping the GS3 will be the last device I will upgrade to for at least a year. From everything I've read and researched about the device; reviews from Phonedog, Android Central, Phandroid, Arstechnica, TheVerge, Engagdget, Anandtech, and many many others, it looks like the GS3 is going to hopefully be the phone with the all-around complete package that I'll need until next year.
TL;DR: Samsung, Apple, and HTC have all in one way or another left out crucial features that make them the best well-rounded phone. However, Samsung has updated their radios, gps, and Touchwiz has been praised highly for it's performance and fluidity, as well as a better camera than compared to the LTEvo or even the iPhone 4s. Hopefully this will be the phone for me, at least until next year.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram