[fzman]

I am on T-mobile, in the Chicago area, and am currently using a G2 (HTC version) and wonder if it would be worthwhile to upgrade to an S III, or wait for the next wave of devices to come thru.  I like the physical keyboard on my G2, but really wish it had a seperate row for the number keys.  I also looked at the Relay, which does have a physical keyboard, but both were tethered with retractable-cable security devices,. which made it pretty much impossible to get an accurate hands-on with either phone.  I want to use it as a phone and portable internet device, not really as a music payer.  I've already got an 801, a Cowon x7 which are for music.... it would be nice to have it not suck for music, but it will not be used for that very often, unless it sounds dramatically better that what i've got, and doesn;t kill the battery too soon.
 
Any thoughts?
 
Thanks!

 

[leftnose]

I went from a BlackBerry to a SII Skyrocket.  I was also worried about the adjustment from a physical keyboard to a touch screen.  Now, almost a year later, I can type just as fast on the touch screen as on the BlackBerry (and have been able to do so for a long time--adjustment was probably a month or so).  I'm not quite as accurate but I'm using SwiftKey which has adaptive auto-correct and predictions which work like a miracle. You can install the Jelly Bean keyboard in ICS now and it works similarly to SwiftKey but I like SwiftKey's layout and long-press feature more.
 
Bottom line, touchscreen keyboards are just as easy to use as physical keys don't let that be a deciding factor for you.

 

[micrors4]

Definitely go for it the GS III is a phenomenal phone that won't be bested anytime soon, it will be a huge step up from your G2 and the bigger screen will make it easier to type on then the small keyboard on the G2.  As for battery life it will be a big step up as well and depending how much you use it you could get as much as two days use out of it before recharging it.  It's the flagship phone for most carriers so support will be good and you should get the latest build of Android fairly quickly, I believe it just got the 4.1 update so it's on the latest build of Android.

 

[fzman]

thanks for the comments/suggestions.  I've gone through my share of smartphones, starting with a Blackberry 8700, then a Nokia E61i, An O2 Atom Life, the G1, and lastly the G2. Every upgrade starts out as "wow, this is really fast, easier to use, and does more stuff"...  and ends up being "crap, this is slow, the screen's too small-- i'll wait tl i get to a desktop or laptop to do x".
 
Part of this for me is because of the HTC Flyer Tablet i got.  it sits at home, but is just enough bigger than a cell, and fast enough via wifi, to be quite usable.  Just not sure if the S III wil be close enough, or not.  And it's hard to get enough of a trial -- apparently T-Mobile has a $50 restock fee, and may or may not have dropped their activation charge...
 
I'm gonna keep pondering this -- keep you thoughts and comments coming.

 

[kobeclix]

Don't do it. If you can, wait for the Galaxy Note II. That is going to be a media consumption monster and probably the best android phone to surf the web considering its size. It should be releasing soon. It also has a stylus that does stuff. It runs the latest android software out of the box. 5.5 in screen. If I were you, I would check it out at tmobile and play around with it. The upside or downside might be its size. It is noticeably bigger than the GSIII. Besides, the GSIII is a couple of months old, not outdated, just older. The Note II is brand spankin new.
 

 

[micrors4]

The GS III is a great phone and will be far faster than the Flyer tablet as it has much newer and more powerful components, it has a big screen but it is still pocketable.  I have tried out the Note and it is HUGE, not for everyone but some people do like them, I'm just not sure you would want to carry around something that big.  The note is a good option but the only way to get it would be to change carriers when it comes out as Tmobile most likely won't get it.  Both are good options you just need to decide which you would rather carry everday and how far you are willing to go to get the Note II.

 

[cassull]

I have the Note 1. If you're willing to try custom ROMs, I would not go for the Note 2; since it's new, developer support isn't as good as for the Note 1. 
 
Btw, don't know if you prefer to stay on contract with T-Mo or not, but if you decide to go prepaid route, you could also try out Straight Talk, which is through Wal-Mart. $45 for unlimited talk, text and data; the data isn't "true" unlimited as Straight Talk reserves the right to kick you off their service if you use way too much data, the unofficial cap is about 100MB a day, 2GB/month, which I've never gone over when I was on my grandfathered unlimited plan with Verizon. You can buy your own device if you decide to try out Straight Talk, which is through Tracfone and they use T-Mo's and ATT's coverage towers. You won't get 4G, but you'll have the same network coverage. That way, you can basically try out whatever phones you want, just buy them outright online or off ebay. 

 

[NZtechfreak]

The Note 2 already has decent developer support, of course older phones will have more, but I don't really see that as a reason to hold off a phone that is definitely going to get great support and already has good support. Do that and you might just as well wait for the next wave of better hardware.
 
I had two S3s, International and US variants, both superb phones. If you can handle the size of the Note 2 then there is no question in my mind it is the best handset available for anyone who isn't heavily invested in Apples ecosystem. I'm in a better position than most to discuss the relevant merits of phones since I get basically all of the flagships as I write about them/review them etc (since last November I have had S2, Note, Nexus, Razr, One X, 4S, SIII, US SIII, Note 2, N9, N8, N808, Huawei Ascend D1 Quad XL on the way).

 

[William007]

Do the older galaxy's (s) also offer the option to go digital out?

 

[NZtechfreak]

Do the older galaxy's (s) also offer the option to go digital out?

No.

 

[William007]

And the note ?

 

[micrors4]

Quote:

The Note 2 already has decent developer support, of course older phones will have more, but I don't really see that as a reason to hold off a phone that is definitely going to get great support and already has good support. Do that and you might just as well wait for the next wave of better hardware.
 
I had two S3s, International and US variants, both superb phones. If you can handle the size of the Note 2 then there is no question in my mind it is the best handset available for anyone who isn't heavily invested in Apples ecosystem. I'm in a better position than most to discuss the relevant merits of phones since I get basically all of the flagships as I write about them/review them etc (since last November I have had S2, Note, Nexus, Razr, One X, 4S, SIII, US SIII, Note 2, N9, N8, N808, Huawei Ascend D1 Quad XL on the way).

How did you like the Nokia N9 and the 808 as I was thinking about buying one of them to use on T-mobile's network as I have been drooling over them ever since they came out.

 

[cassull]

Generally for new phones, developer support might be high, but you'd also deal with a lot of initial bugs in ROMs, like memory leaks or random stuff that will piss you off. Honestly, in my opinion, phones have gotten so much better so fast that you probably won't see that much of a performance boost. That's my rational for not updating to the Note 2, anyway; it's definitely better than the Note 1, but for what I use it for, it's not worth the extra cost of selling my old phone and finding a ROM that works and that I actually like. My friend also has a Note and follows developer news much more closer than I do and he's told me that developers apparently do not like working with the Exynos processor on Samsung's phones. That doesn't mean that developers won't support the Galaxy line, which is very popular, but he indicated that the Note 2 developer support may wane and won't be as good as the Note 1. That's all speculation and not even really confirmable, but it's something to keep in mind. Like I said, phones have come so far and so fast that going from a dual core processor to quad core won't be as big a deal as it was when phones made the leap from single core to dual (phones could actually multitask better!)

 

[NZtechfreak]

Quote:

And the note ?

 
Possibly been added to the Note in a firmware update, I don't have one to test unfortunately. They added a lot of external device support to the Note in its early ICS updates (PS3 controllers, expanded bluetooth that works with Wiimotes etc), but not sure if this is one of the improvements that has been implemented.

 

[NZtechfreak]

Quote:

How did you like the Nokia N9 and the 808 as I was thinking about buying one of them to use on T-mobile's network as I have been drooling over them ever since they came out.

 
The N9 was really nice, but kinda impossible to recommend now. Real shame Nokia dumped Meego, could have been great.
 
808 camera is unbelievably stellar, audio quality is great, but honestly it is hard to recommend that one too - it is so horrible to use from the point of view of the OS that despite some bright points I can't recommend it unless the camera is of extreme importance (this comes from an old school Symbian fan very familiar with the ecosystem). To be honest I am actually thinking about getting one of these again though, mostly for recording gigs - the zoom and amazing audio capture are perfect for that use (no distortion on captured audio up to something ridiculous like 140dB).