New phone time

Will Rickards

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Good for you time. Hope you enjoy it.

Now for those based in the US what are you doing with the older phones?
Should I take the best buy $50 credit or try to sell it myself?
This is for HTC EVO 4G.
 

CityK

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... and the S3 will still be awesome-r.
I think he had only read the first line of time's post and thought he was going to be reaching parity .... after being awakened to his err, I'm sure that now, at this very minute, dd is undertaking his own mission impossible assualt on the Google Labs, in order to secure a next generation Nexus prototype and restore his ascendance at the top of the Android food chain
 

ddrueding

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I think he had only read the first line of time's post and thought he was going to be reaching parity .... after being awakened to his err, I'm sure that now, at this very minute, dd is undertaking his own mission impossible assualt on the Google Labs, in order to secure a next generation Nexus prototype and restore his ascendance at the top of the Android food chain

Nah, I actually second-guessed it and cancelled the whole thing. I shall retain my Android 1.5 goodness with the 6-hour battery.
 

Will Rickards

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Got the HTC EVO 4G LTE saturday at Best Buy.
It is really nice.
Battery has been great, not even close to drained at the end of the day sunday.
Pictures look great on the phone. Display is really quite good.
I can't seem to use the camera button through the case effectively so I'm returning that.

Wife chose the iphone 4S.
We traded in her EVO for the $50 credit + $50 gift card. Kept mine as a backup.
 

timwhit

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Got the HTC EVO 4G LTE saturday at Best Buy.
It is really nice.
Battery has been great, not even close to drained at the end of the day sunday.
Pictures look great on the phone. Display is really quite good.
I can't seem to use the camera button through the case effectively so I'm returning that.

Wife chose the iphone 4S.
We traded in her EVO for the $50 credit + $50 gift card. Kept mine as a backup.

You didn't want to wait for the Galaxy S3?
 

MaxBurn

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Did a little looking and it seems the S3 was rooted before it was released so should only be a matter of time before something like CM9 is available for it. This interests me.
 

time

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When I first charged the S3, it dropped from 100% to 90% very quickly - I think this means the battery needs calibration.

I set up push email on it and (along with other people) used the screen for around 5 hours over 2 days (configuring, surfing, camera stills + video, playing, etc). After 48 hours the battery indicator said 12% remaining.

I charged it again yesterday but only used it lightly (maybe 40 minutes screen including 20 minutes web browsing) and after 24 hours it says 75% remaining. I have marginal 3G reception here, so light-use runtime ought to be better for other people.

A quick and dirty rule of thumb appears to be <1% per hour standby + 8% per hour for screen use.
 

Mercutio

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I really want to see something in a next-generation screen before I really commit to buying a phone. 1280x720 in a Galaxy S3 certainly is impressive, but I wonder how much better off we'll be from one or two more rounds of product launches.
 

MaxBurn

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Virge reviews suggest the one x has the best screen on the market bar none with its laminated IPS LCD. Have you looked at a one x?

Seems like a really hard choice between a one x and the s3.
 

Will Rickards

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I consider the HTC Evo 4G LTE / LTEVO / One X on sprint better than the S3. Mostly based on the screen and the actual camera button. And that kickstand.
My only concern was the not easily removable battery.
The past few days with it have alleviated that concern as I end the day with 75% charge.
There are a couple issues so far:
1. It asks you to set the time when switching networks (wifi - 3G). This message can safely be ignored.
2. I was playing solitaire last night and watched as the wifi would disconnect and then reconnect. This hasn't been an issue during actual usage of wifi. Not sure if it is doing that to save battery or what. But it was weird.

We upgraded mostly on my wife's insistence though. She was getting really frustrated with her Evo. So I bit the bullet and upgraded.

I also ordered a 32GB microsd card for the ltevo.
 

time

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I certainly looked at a One X and, when I realized the price advantage, considered it very seriously.

I thought the screen was good, but still suffering from color shift much the same as a low-end 23" IPS monitor. That's not an issue, but it shows that contrary to some of the drooling going on, it's not a gift from god or anything. On my second and third viewing, I felt that it mainly looked good because it was bright - and most phone displays are dim. The Galaxy Nexus AMOLED display in particular is very dim.

The thing is, outside the showroom and away from the spotlights, a really bright display one foot from your eyes doesn't seem like such a great idea after all.

Also, GSMArena's sunlit contrast tests still give the nod to AMOLED displays such as the S3's, despite the very high measured brightness of the IPS panel on the One X.

I have deteriorating eyesight and need objects to be more brightly lit, but the S3 display is already brighter than previous AMOLED displays, yet has less glare than the One X IPS display (that's a characteristic of AMOLED BTW). So personally, I prefer the S3, but most people would be equally happy with either.
 

Mercutio

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I visited a mall today to buy fancy and stupidly-expensive tea for a ladyfriend. Just outside the tea shop was a Sprint kiosk, so I spent a few minutes drooling over the X One. When I brought up the S3, the Sprint guys were forced to admit that they didn't have one, but the bored looking gentlemen at the T-mobile kiosk next door started waving theirs around, so we took a collective field trip to put the two phones side by side.

You are right, time. Those are both sweet, sweet phones. The X One is much, much brighter (both were at their highest setting) and seems a little more pocket-friendly due to very slightly smaller dimensions. I don't think I'd be complaining about either screen, truth be told, but lighting conditions definitely seemed to favor the HTC device. The X One also feels more solid, but that's probably because of the fixed battery. I like Sense a lot better than Touchwiz but then I'm one of those people who actually WILL swap SD cards if there's a slot , and the S3 has a slot. I have a feeling that's going to wind up being the deciding factor if I wind up getting a new phone anytime soon.
 

timwhit

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I got my S3 on Friday. I like it so far other than some TouchWiz annoyances. Why can't I disable all animation? Battery life is quite good. Speed is much better than the Evo.
 

time

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Why are you worried about the animation? It's hardly Windows-style annoying and it doesn't cause any lags that I can see. I don't know why Mercutio gets his knickers in a knot about Touch Wiz. To me it's just a launcher, and if I get tired of it I'll replace it with something else - this is Android after all.

The only way I've managed to make a serious dent in the battery life is 3D games. Otherwise, I see it as a 2-day (36-hr) phone, i.e. 7am to 7pm the following day, or 3 days for light users (I've tested this). More than 72 hours is too far unless you're only glancing at the phone a few times a day. Of course, this is with Power Saving enabled, WiFi and GPS disabled, and display brightness set to Auto under natural indoor light. And I did fully discharge the battery to train the phone.

The only gripe I have is that the case is so thin, especially at the edges, that I have (some) trouble picking it up with my fat fingers. Coupled with the reduced durability compared to an S2, I think it's a strong candidate for a protective case, or at least a bumper. Unfortunately, decent cases are not yet readily available off the shelf.
 

Will Rickards

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LTEVO has a microSD card slot. I just put a 32GB card in and between that and the almost 10GB it came with I don't think I'll have any need to change it.
 

time

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I believe it's waiting to see if you're going to double-click, which launches S Voice. Looks like they should tweak it.
 

timwhit

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I believe it's waiting to see if you're going to double-click, which launches S Voice. Looks like they should tweak it.

Looks like there is an easy way to fix this. Thanks for the S Voice hint. I never tried double clicking the home button. Seems to be a bit faster now.
 

time

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LTEVO has a microSD card slot. I just put a 32GB card in and between that and the almost 10GB it came with I don't think I'll have any need to change it.

I agree it's a compelling package, but CDMA has been obsolete here for some years now. So we're limited to the One X, which just doesn't stack up as well. :(

Great for you guys though ...
 

MaxBurn

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He seems to like his. I suppose you are all faring well with the S3 as well?

Chris Ziegler (@zpower)
6/26/12 9:21 AM
I've laid out some brief thoughts on the AT&T GS III in a verge user review: vrge.co/KAVTjP
 

Will Rickards

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I agree it's a compelling package, but CDMA has been obsolete here for some years now. So we're limited to the One X, which just doesn't stack up as well. :(

Great for you guys though ...

I was actually responding to Merc. He was talking about One X on sprint which is the LTEVO versus the S3. Both have microSD slots. The main difference would be removable battery in the S3.
 

time

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And the extra 1 GB of RAM, USB On-The-Go, etc.

My point was that most of the world can't use the Evo 4G LTE because it's a CDMA-only phone and most of the world no longer uses CDMA. Also, apart from the screen, it's not really the same as a One X, losing 2 CPU cores and the Nvidia GPU.

But at least it does have a microSD slot! I don't think that alone would stop me; after all, the Galaxy Nexus didn't have one either.
 

time

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I suppose you are all faring well with the S3 as well?

Yep. I have a software gripe though, regarding auto rotation in the Gallery and in Messaging. Might be a bug, because the manual rotate button is permanently disabled. I'll have to compare with a pure Android phone to see if the issue comes from Samsung or Google. Our Nexus S won't be back until the weekend.
 

MaxBurn

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Looking at pictures of that phone it seems like they have dedicated hardware buttons for menu but no button for the task switcher, how do you trigger that on the s3?
 

Striker

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On Gingerbread you trigger it by holding down the home button I think.
 

MaxBurn

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I guess the advantage with soft buttons is their function can change with context, the disadvantage would be it takes up screen real estate.
 

ddrueding

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I think I used the wrong word. These aren't definable programmable buttons, they just aren't physical buttons. They are on the sides of the home button and only perform their single task. They are off the screen so don't consume pixels. It seems the touch sensors for the screen extend beyond the pixels to the place where these "buttons" are.
 

CityK

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I think I used the wrong word. These aren't definable programmable buttons, they just aren't physical buttons. They are on the sides of the home button and only perform their single task. They are off the screen so don't consume pixels. It seems the touch sensors for the screen extend beyond the pixels to the place where these "buttons" are.
Capacitive buttons
 
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