Samsung Galaxy S III (Verizon)
Phone Scoop Review
Jul 10, 2012 by Eric M. Zeman
Phone Scoop takes Verizon's version of the Samsung Galaxy S III for a spin. Does anything set it apart from the AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile versions? We find out. read review ›
User Reviews
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Second go around.
I had an at&t Galaxy S3. No complaints there. Now that life happened and I'm on Verizon, I decided I want the same thing (I also have an iPhone [check my review for it], but there's no rule against having two lines). Walmart had it in brown (VZW doesn't have brown anymore, so I got lucky). Other than icons mysteriously dissapearing and the one time I was in 3G when I should have clearly been in 4G LTE, this phone is a beast. While the S4 looks appealing, I saw no major difference between the two. Go get one! I love this phone so much that I have a spare sitting in a box in case my clumsy behind breaks this one.
God bless,
tgc1980
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Verizon Galaxy S3 = Awesome
Galaxy S3 is a great phone, big screen, battery life has been fine.
I enabled the feature called "Power Saving"
which throttles down the processor, and I turn off bluetooth when not in use.
Its crazy that samsung was able to make this phone last as long on battery as other phones with much smaller screens last.
The camera, the videos, the USB OTG devices, everything has been a pleasure to use.
Yes samsung did borrow heavily from some of the apple styles (see sound recorder on iphone and GS3 for example)
Its a great phone, I am very satisfied with all its features.
its solid, stable and just works great.
GREAT PHONE!!!!!!!!!
coming from a samsung droid charge which i liked this phone is amazing.can a phone be sexy?ah yea!it feels good with an excellent display,ease of use,battery better etc..i've had my phone for at least two weeks before reviewing it.lots of good tips and tricks on youtube videos also.this phone does more than i need it to do and i'm sure i will be content for quite awhile.iphone not.i'll keep my s3.try it.
'my experience' with the Galaxy s3
I had an AT&T Samsung Infuse. It was the best phone in the world. I loved the UI. The text prediction was the best ever. The sound levels were great. The screen was big and bright. The AT&T network is the worst ever, however. So I switched to Verizon and got a RAZR. I waited with great anticipation for the Samsung Galaxy s3 to be released and I purchased one right away.
Here is what I can say about it. Compared to the Infuse the only thing I like is the big bright screen. The text prediction is the worst every. For example.. I have to type w-e-d-n-e-s-d before it will realize I'm trying to spell wednesday. I try to type 'shirt' and it changes it to 'shot' or 'short' all the time. It loves to make up words like 'bix' instead of 'box' even though I type 'b-o-x'. I could go on with the text/t9/word prediction forever because I have 10 diff emails and text and facebook linked to this phone so I'm always typing and thus, always fighting with the retarded updated word prediction.
Pandora will not restore if you take a phone call while listening to it. You have to unplug your headphones and plug them back in to get pandora to play. OR.. it plays at full volume through the phone call.. nice!
I have had to do 2 factory resets at the request of Verizon tech help and now they are sending me a new phone because it wont vibrate ever.
I wont get a signal in my home, work, or where I grocery shop. My RAZR always had 4G. Samsung is real 'choppy' sounding and eventually cuts out. Or phone will ring and then when you answer the signal drops to nothing. Bad Radio??? Yes. The new way to get apps and bookmarks on home screens is slow and takes forever. I expected the phone to be quicker but it feels slower than my RAZR (and I'm not a moto fan) I love samsung devices but this one misses the mark entirely. It is light and thin in your pocket, I like that. Takes great pics. IMO battery life is awesome. Phone NEEDS a case.. too slippery w/o a case. Very dissapointed.
I want to love it.. NO SIM error keeps me from doing so
Everything about this phone is exactly what I dreamed of. The screen, the fluidity, the speed, everything. But if I really want to use it as a phone (yes, I still place phone calls), I might as well forget it. Two phones and three SIM cards later, I can only make calls about 40% of the time. More often than not, I get a NO SIM error, and loss of mobile network. The phone will show full bars of service...but immediately after placing a call or attempting to send a text, the phone drops out of service & says "NO SIM". I just switched to Verizon from Sprint after 12 years, and so far I'm very unhappy. I just don't know what to do. I don't want to "downgrade", so to speak, so we'll see if Samsung comes out with a fix. For now, I strongly recommend you steer clear of this phone - that is, if you rely on the phone for calls or SMS.
Never say never
I've had every high end android phone and I must say I'm impressed with this one. I've had it for 2 weeks and the only con I can find so far is the occasional dropped call. As with most Samsung devices it seems like they have a little trouble maintaining a strong signal. After the galaxy nexus I swore I'd never buy another Samsung device. I've read a lot online about this device and decided to take the plunge. I paid retail for the phone, $600, and have no regrets. Simply put its got the biggest and best display, excellent camera, and the best all around package. I don't know why people are complaining about the battery. I'm a moderate to heavy user and I have no problem getting 16 hours on a single charge. The customization of this device is the best I've seen yet. For those who didn't give this device a fair try, at least a week, SHAME ON YOU. Do your homework kids!
Very Good...But Not Out of This Galaxy World, Yet
Reviewing after 5 days of normal use.
Pros:
-beautiful & great size screen
-ram & processor make it very fast & smooth
-light weight, very comfortable overall size
-camera much better than some premature reviews
-ice cream & widgets give advantage over iOS
Cons:
-menu button is a design fail to a certain degree...transition between soft keys and menu button, and vice versa, is not intuitive. From soft touch interaction to physically pressing the menu button may sound trivial, but its like coming across a speed bump when everything is going smoothly. It's not like all hope is lost, because the pros will make you get used to this hump. Should have made bigger or more thumb friendly if it was going to be included, but one can suspect with good reason that the design was purposly different than the better designed button on the iCompetition. Minor annoyance.
-camera mode switching between video and still-mode seems to give me lag/freezes for a few seconds. I'm not sure why this is occurring, but it's been a repeatable issue. Still investigating.
Neutral/With Prejudice:
-battery is good but not great as hoped...and this is a variable that will be different for each user. I use my Google Reader a lot, on a wifi connection at home, there was a drop of 10% battery in 20-30 minutes of just reading. This occurred 2nd day as well. The first 2 days, 'we' did spend more heavy-time to get better acquainted with each other and this resulted in 3-4hrs before I hit 10% remaining. The next 3 days of normal replying to emails, facebook updates, couple of photos, around 30 minutes of calls, and texting...Over these 3 days, from around 9-10am, the phone discharges to 15% (low battery warning beeps) by 6-7pm. This is acceptable for most users, but my concern was that I was finding myself trying to avoid doing too much just to avoid seeing rapid depletion...side note: don't turn on percentage indicator...this will drive you crazy as you see the number drop. Will keep testing.
I'm Glad I Got This
I pre-ordered the S3 during the first week of June to keep my unlimited data plan and it arrived yesterday (7/9). It weighs .1 ounce more than the HTC Incredible (3.7" screen) it replaces but that's where the comparison ends. The S3 is fantastic - the screen, ICS, 4G, and sound quality are outstanding. The call quality is the best of any phone I have ever used and due to my hearing loss this feature is very important to me. I live in suburbs east of San Francisco and the 4G signal is better than the 3G I was used to. The signal was great on the train to work this AM. As for the user experience, ICS on the S3 is as fast and smooth as is IOS 5 on my iPad2. I prefer the ability to customize on ICS - IOS feels limited, oversimplified. The only downside to the S3 is the shiny plastic but the chromed edge goes well with the white marble.
In addition to my contacts and email, I have a huge number of files in Google (Drive) and they sync perfectly with ICS. My Chrome bookmarks also stay in sync across all my devices: the S3, iPad, MacBook Pro, and Windows 7 desktop. It's all beautiful - Google has it very together and Apple should be worried.
Now I know why Apple tried to stop this phone from being launched
It's just a phone. Yeah I know but I'm still up at all hours playing with this dang thing. I can't believe how far Android has come. I couldn't wait for Verizon to introduce the iPhone a year and a half ago and lo and behold, this Galaxy S3 beats it.
Pros:
I love this screen ... so big and saturated
Despite its screen size, the phone is quite manageable
Sound quality is very good and your can even adjust equalizer settings in the call
This phone has SVDO instead of EVDO. What this means is that you can talk and surf simultaneously, even over 3G! My area does not have 4G yet but I find this very compelling, more so than I thought I would.
ICS is great, even with Touchwiz
Android is clearly growing up fast and will soon surpass iOS except in the ease of use category
Practically everything else
Cons:
I've never seen a phone with a cheaper plastic back. Do yourself a favor and buy a case. Build quality overall could be better.
For some odd reason I find myself not liking the iPhone-like middle button. It seems a little out of character with this phone.
I haven't tested it out in bright sunlight yet but I saw the screen side by side with the HTC One/EVO 4G and the HTC is definitely brighter
I don't think you can touch any phone this good for the money. Even when the iPhone 5 comes out with a 4 inch screen it's going to look awfully compared to this one.
I'm very happy with this phone.
Coming from the original HTC DINC, I was afraid I would be turned off by the size difference. But, no problem.
Everything about this phone has me singing it's praises to my friends. There are a lot of reviews, like the phonescoop review, that go into the details, so I won't rehash it here.
What really burns me about some reviews are the people who buy a big phone and complain that it is too big. Or, but a phone without a physical keyboard and then complain about not having a keyboard. A word of advice, don't complain about basic designs since you knew what they were when you bought the thing.
BTWay........ the battery life is a vast improvement over the DINC.
