GhostRidah
Member
Worth it, it will blow you away.
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Samsung Galaxy S III (new flagship Android phone from Samsung)
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Worth it, it will blow you away.
scoobs
Member
Got mine in today, it is GLORIOUS. I know this has been discussed before, but can anyone recommend a nice lightweight thin case for this thing? None of that bulky ugly stuff that people have been posting pics of ugh.
Its everything i hoped it would be! One minor complaint: I'm trying to burn the battery life down to 0 before my first overnight charge and I can't seem to get it to 0%, this battery is too good.
Its everything i hoped it would be! One minor complaint: I'm trying to burn the battery life down to 0 before my first overnight charge and I can't seem to get it to 0%, this battery is too good.
Disable the screen timeout, or play a video or something and you'll kill it quick. It's possible to get 48 hours standby with light usage but once you start hammering the screen it drains crazy fast.
I've been using the Rock Quicksand, which can be found on ebay for around $10 or so. It's nice and lightweight, and the cover has a texture that feels somewhat like sandpaper. The only downside is that it doesn't cover the top or bottom like a full case, but considering how it snaps on and is pretty solid, I don't think it would have been possible.
Should this actually be done? I figured battery technology would have been good enough by now not to need to do something like that. I've already charged it
Should this actually be done? I figured battery technology would have been good enough by now not to need to do something like that. I've already charged it
I think it just helps a lttle with accurate readouts. Not necessary at all.
MarkMclovin
Member
I can get 2 full days easy on this phone, but the strange this is when the battery get to 10%, it always think I've got an hour or 2 max, but it can last for hours after. It does dim the screen more though to conserve, but yeah it's great.
blainethemono
Member
i usually just use the "wipe battery stats" option when its at 100% on custom recovery...but I haven't even rooted my gs3 yet
don't know if that's better than letting it drain all the way or what. my old nexus s 4g used to have really fucked up battery problems where it would be nearly full and then jump to being in the red within minutes
Shin Johnpv
Member
Got mine yesterday afternoon and so far really happy with it. This is my first smartphone, and I'm coming from a Samsung Reality, whose touch screen stopped working right. So this is a pretty huge leap for me. I know there's the apps for Android thread, but what kind of Apps do people really use on their phone?
I've downloaded swift key, Flixster, Yelp, Chrome, and MyFitnessPal (the calorie counter thing). I've tried a couple of movie players but they all seem to choke on my 720p mkv test file which is disappointing. So what else do you guys use?
I've downloaded swift key, Flixster, Yelp, Chrome, and MyFitnessPal (the calorie counter thing). I've tried a couple of movie players but they all seem to choke on my 720p mkv test file which is disappointing. So what else do you guys use?
mescalineeyes
Banned
I love Currents. It's a pretty nice news reader if you're into that sort of things. Better format than most dedicated mobile sites.
You can, but only the ATT and T-Mobile versions can be unlocked and used elsewhere
What kind of video is that? The stock video player plays my 720p mkv anime files just fine.
Other things: I love Reddit News.
legacyzero
Banned
So my screen is taking a whoppin 45 percent. Am I doin it wrong?
Nope, that's standard. My screen will start taking 60%+ after a long day.
I'm keeping an eye out for any solutions that will reduce screen battery use, but my display is already on the dimmest setting and I don't really know how else usage can be reduced.
legacyzero
Banned
Dayum, does cell standby really need 19 percent? Or is that just part of that error everybody is taking about?
Could go either way; it depends on how much it starts draining throughout the day.
You're using it too much duh. turn the damn phone off and stop checking GAF every 5 seconds.
Shin Johnpv
Member
It's an h264 mkv, with surround sound. The stock video player will give me smooth video, but no audio. One of the players I found will give me audio but video is like 3 fps, and I found one that does nothing just a frozen frame and locks up.
What is your mkv anime file? Did you put it on your internal storage, or the SD Card?
Lazy vs Crazy
Member
Fedex is excruciatingly slow. My old fascinate is gelling like half a day of battery life now, I really want my new phone.
get MX player
legacyzero
Banned
Gasp! It all makes sense. Now I have to find an APP that fixes my GAF addiction.
I would have killed to get half a day on my X. I would get a full day charge if I left it in airplane mode, but as soon as I tried to use the thing, it would die on me within 2 hours.
Been using kyan rom for a while now, and love it. Am able to get 23 hrs and still at 83% battery life.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1751595
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1751595
One word of advice...
Be careful if you decide to use any toggle widgets, esp. the Wifi toggle. Since my Verizon SGS3 doesn't have a Wifi toggle (like everyone else...thanks Verizon), I put a toggle widget on my desktop. I used the HD Widgets toggle.
The problem is that when I toggled Wifi off, I stopped being able to stay on the 4G network. If I rebooted the phone it would briefly say 4G and then switch over to 3G.
The HD Widgets 4G toggle didn't work. It only took me to the Mobile Network settings screen. Verizon didn't include any options there for selecting they type of network. Googling around it seems that the other carriers have Mobile Network settings that Verizon didn't choose to include (surprise, surprise).
I did a factory reset of my phone as well but that didn't fix it. Luckily, I had Llama installed and remembered that it had some data toggle actions. I used its "Enable 4G" action. Llama reported an error that it couldn't fully enable "WiMax" but I've been on 4G ever since.
I don't know what the Wifi off toggle did (and don't want it to happen again).
Just though I'd share my experience incase this bites anyone else.
Be careful if you decide to use any toggle widgets, esp. the Wifi toggle. Since my Verizon SGS3 doesn't have a Wifi toggle (like everyone else...thanks Verizon), I put a toggle widget on my desktop. I used the HD Widgets toggle.
The problem is that when I toggled Wifi off, I stopped being able to stay on the 4G network. If I rebooted the phone it would briefly say 4G and then switch over to 3G.
The HD Widgets 4G toggle didn't work. It only took me to the Mobile Network settings screen. Verizon didn't include any options there for selecting they type of network. Googling around it seems that the other carriers have Mobile Network settings that Verizon didn't choose to include (surprise, surprise).
I did a factory reset of my phone as well but that didn't fix it. Luckily, I had Llama installed and remembered that it had some data toggle actions. I used its "Enable 4G" action. Llama reported an error that it couldn't fully enable "WiMax" but I've been on 4G ever since.
I don't know what the Wifi off toggle did (and don't want it to happen again).
Just though I'd share my experience incase this bites anyone else.
Shin Johnpv
Member
Thanks for the suggestion, works awesomely!
Zoe
Member
Ugh, unfair that it works for you but not for me
Edit: Is there any way to get version 1.6f instead of 1.6g?
I've got unlimited data but I used to keep track of the amount of data I was using per month just incase Verizon ever did away with unlimited data.
I'm able to use Wifi a lot at home and work. Since Verizon started throttling 3G users who use more than 2GB a month, I've tried to be careful about the amount of mobile data I'd use. Most of my data use comes from streaming Google Music and the occasional Youtube video or Netflix show. Netflix really burns through mobile data quite fast so I never did much of that.
I would usually use anywhere between 500MB to 1.5GB of data a month while being mindful of the 2GB throttle. Before Verizon implemented that policy, I would occasionally use just over 2GB of data a month. My wife doesn't do any streaming, and she usually uses around 100MB or less a month for e-mail and occasional web browsing.
Now that I have a 4G phone and am capable of better quality streams, I plan on enjoying more of my unlimited 4G data than what I did on 3G with the throttling hanging over my head.
Hope that helped.
Edit: It's the streaming that uses the most data in my experience. Email and web browsing use much smaller amounts. So it depends on what you will want to do on the mobile network to determine what data tier would work best for you. If I had to purchase a tier just for my personal line, I'd probably get a 4GB plan. Of course, I don't really know how much 4G data I'm going to be using a month since the S3 is my first 4G phone.
Shin Johnpv
Member
Zoe
Member
It's not even selecting it for me. If I try to select S/W, neither of them are selected when I look at the menu again.
It's a DTS issue :\
I have unlimited but I looked at the past 6 months and I use 2-3 GB a month. I could reduce that to half or less if I were conscious about it simply by making all "updates" at home on wifi rather than whenever I feel like it. I don't have wifi at work, so that's the reason for most of my usage.
You can download a different launcher from the market that won't have it and are more customizable...stuff like go launcher, apex launcher, nova launcher are decent. Avoid launcher pro.
Verizon seriously took out network options?
Thanks for the detailed info, I am wondering how much streaming music say pandora from time to time will use up on 4G.
If you want, I can stream Pandora over 4G for an hour or so. I can post the results since ICS allows you to see the data use per app.
Why avoid Launcher Pro? I use it on my droid x and it's fine, are the others that much better?
Sweet deal
Here's the results...
Not to bad for an hour of streaming. That was 12 songs and 3 Pandora commercials. I think Google Music uses more data. The stream is at a higher bit rate I think but Pandora sounded pretty good.
Video streaming is another matter.
I used it on my Droid X as well. It was great and made the phone much less laggy. But it hasn't been supported for quite some time and I don't know if it plays nicely with ICS.
Awesome!, By my rough calculations I will need about 4-5 gb per month with moderate to heavy light music streaming and some web searching and gaf browsing on the road.
Launcher Pro was good while it got support, but with the developer MIA, I wouldn't invest and put any faith into it and any issues you may have with it being resolved. I loved Launcher Pro when I first got my X, but it had too many hiccups with new updates to the phone and to see the developer not even keep people informed with what the status is on the rewrite or if there even will be one is annoying and not the type of software I would continue to support. I got Nova as soon as I started messing with my phone yesterday and I'm very impressed so far.
pyrealnova
Member
Anyone know if ATT stores and/or Best Buy have S3 demo units to fool around with?
One thing to mention is that Google Music can cache music locally, so it only downloads a song once, afterwards its played local. But of course its limited to your library and whatever is shared with you, unlike Pandora.
Good point. I guess it depends on how often you listen to the same stuff over again in a relatively short period of time.
The Google Music purchased from the Play Store is encoded at 320Kbps. One of my tracks is roughly 13MB for a 6min track. That's just one song. After two songs you're already past where you would be with the Pandora stream. If you are skipping around your library, Google Music will still download the track once it starts, I think, so that is just wasted bandwidth unless you go back to that track later.
Don't get me wrong, I love Google Music and almost listen to it exclusively. I've uploaded my entire music library to the cloud and since the Beta have been purchasing albums from Google instead of from other sources. But streaming it for a couple of hours could use a couple hundred MBs.
If I had a limited data cap, I'd be much more cautious about using Google Music and pin more of my most listened to albums to the phone. As it is, I've gone through my entire library and "thumbed up" all of my favorite tracks and I shuffle the Thumbs Up playlist as my own personal radio station where every song is sure to be a good one. Though sometimes you run into problems of consecutive songs that don't transition well or I may skip some tracks to get to another one better suited for my mood.
ncsuDuncan
Member
Is there a way to change that annoying water droplet noise to something else? I find the option to disable it, but I'd still like to have a menu sound.
All that Google-fu turned up. Seems this would require root access.
http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-s3/561765-system-sounds.html
I've only found where it can be disabled in Settings>Sound>Screen Lock Sound. Yeah it does get old after a while.
BTW, I'm a NCSU alumnus as well. GO PACK!
True. But with Google Music you can side load your entire library from a computer or down load on wifi eliminating any streaming. You are limited only by your phone memory/sd card.