Decisions, decisions...

Overall reviews look pretty close.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/25/3042640/samsung-galaxy-s-iii-review

http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/2/2919202/htc-one-x-review

Older pentile displays annoyed me, so I'd personally lean more towards the HTC. But I haven't seen a S III in person, so perhaps the pentile issue is hidden a bit more with the slightly higher density compared to my two older devices.

The One X looks pretty sweet, though I wonder how soon you'll be able to get it. I think they were changing the firmware slightly in order to get SOME of them through customs, but aren't most of them still held up?

I've heard the S3 is really fast, but I'm not a fan of Samsung at the moment...

I'm in the UK.

I can't stand any of the manufacturer skinware that I've used in person, and though the reviews do speak more positively of the newer Touchwiz, I couldn't see myself buying a phone that wasn't either stock Android from the factory, or easily loaded with CyanogenMod. If I had to pick one of those, the Sammy looks like the winner, since I don't think the Pentile display thing is a serious issue at these resolutions, and the better camera and slightly less annoying skin would outweigh anything on HTC's side of the ledger.

Has anything leaked about the next Nexus device (successor to the Galaxy Nexus)?

How about a Galaxy Nexus, international HSPA+ version?

D'oh! Of course. Sorry about that...


Totally agree with all of that, though I have not heard anything nice about the new TouchWiz. From everything I've heard, it's a slap in Matias Duarte's face and ruins any UI improvements that ICS had made.

I'm really sick of this. I'm also really sick of everyone passing the blame on the subject. On the rare occasions that sites like Engadget or the Verge get the cojones to call someone like HTC or Samsung out on this stuff, they let them go with cowardly responses. Companies like Motorola and Samsung tend to say that they do it to appease the carriers (to supposedly differentiate the phones). But that doesn't at all explain why the alterations they make can't simply be undone with the app manager.

At least HTC has claimed that they're trying to offer a better user experience. But they have to know that there's a large percentage of users who don't want their ugly crap, so why make it so difficult to change?

Ugh. I'm hoping this latest Google initiative gets things going in the right direction, which leads to...


As far as I know, the only thing anyone knows is that Google is planning on opening up the Nexus thing to more than one manufacturer. The stipulation is that in order to sell in the new "Devices" section of the Google Play store, you'll have to be a Nexus device with none of this skinning crap. At least Google seems to understand how frustrated we are...or they're just trying to avoid another Kindle Fire...but either way, I'm happy.

There's some recent evidence that suggests the next big Nexus device will be the "Nexus Tablet", a supposedly 7" tablet with a quad-core Tegra processor. (AndroidPolice link) It's unclear that there's any reason to wait if you were otherwise hoping for a new "Nexus" smartphone.

I played with a One yesterday, I really hope Apple never jump on this massive phone bandwagon. A phone that size would make me sad.

I doubt they'll ever go that big. Isn't the One something like 4.8"?

It sounds like if Apple ever increases their screen size, it'll be to something more like 4". That way they can stick to the same resolution, and the pixel density should still allow them to use "Retina Display" as a marketing term.

But that's the upshot to the whole "Android fragmentation" issue. You have options, so there's probably a phone with a screen size you'll like. Though to be honest, if you want the best Android phones they'll probably be big screens, since the market seems to be saying that people like them an awful lot...

The latest set of rumours, that seem to be firming up now, contradict that. I normally try to ignore the "next phone" rumours, but they appear to all be pretty much in agreement.

It looks likely that the next iPhone will have a 4 inch screen, but the same physical width as the current one and a bit taller. So the screen gains just over 100 vertical pixels and ends up being 16:9.

I hope it isn't true as while the extra height is probably within comfortable one handed use, 16:9 brings with it far more disadvantages than advantages.

Advantages:

- better for movies (not much of an advantage, given the other disadvantages of watching films on a phone)
- one extra line of icons or and extra message in a list of emails, a few extra visible pixels of website in portrait

Disadvantages:

- even less well suited to photos than the current aspect ration
- you actually get to see less of most websites in landscape (as the website scales to fill the width in landscape it will mean you see less vertical pixels from the site)
- PDFs, books etc don't really fit the aspect ratio
- they are going to have to work really hard to make the landscape keyboard work without eating up screen height at the same time)
- moving further away from square means toolbars will either end up even more crammed in portrait or have even more empty space in landscape



Yeah, but which came first the cart or the horse...

Any one who wants a top end Android at this point has little choice but to buy one with a huge screen. I wonder whether they all wanted a massive phone

There are also some very credible looking photos hardware floating about to back up the rumours now:

http://www.engadget.com/photos/iphone-2012-back-plate-leak/#5051856

I have had my HTC One X for a little while now, so this is what it is like to own one, and compared to what I hear about the SGS3 as well.

• Screen - Pure and simple, the best phone screen of all time so far. Ridiculous resolution, vivid colours, bright, doesn't wash out too much in the sun. Superlative in every way really.
• Size - Well, its big sure. 4.7" screen, but I wouldn't say it was too big, I really think that it offers a significantly better portrait typing experience than a 3.5" phone. I swapped out my Nexus One for a Desire Z really fast because I simply couldn't get on well enough with the keyboard - but this thing, I can type fast and error free straight out of the box. It really is better than having real buttons, and I am normally a real buttons guy. The biggest issue with the size is that it is a stretch to reach the power button with my index finger, you do have to alter your grip on the phone to do this one handed, and lose the support of the bottom of the phone with your pinky or thumb. I don't know if I have explained myself well there. It does fit into my pocket just perfectly fine, helped by the fact it is fantastically thin and light. I honestly think it is the perfect size, its not exactly a Galaxy Note but it is still just as much of a joy to use. I like it.
• Physical design - The curves on the glass, very discreet LED notification, nice button action, its all great. Way nicer than most Samsung phones that I have played with. Not having a removable battery or SD card hasn't worried me much when I considered how many times I actually removed the battery or memory card in my old phones (zero). Undocumented suck feature though is that since you cannot pull the battery there is a reboot function on the power button which reboots the phone if you hold it down for about 7 seconds. Sit down for about 7 seconds and often the phone reboots in your pocket. By far the most annoying feature of the phone so far.
• Phone features - The camera is really great, it starts up practically instantly and has zero lag as far as I can tell (http://hussein.jodiyawalla.co.uk/temp/IMAG0070.jpg is a sample). Image quality at 100% crop is very phone-like though, but I think is just about good enough to replace a point and shoot. It doesn't seem like the LED flash works particularly well, the colours come out wrong and it feels as though it needs a diffuser over it as it gives a bit of a spot beam. The video quality is great (http://youtu.be/WZeEWr9Twug?hd=1 is a sample). In call sound quality is very good too especially to the other party with its dual microphones, the speaker phone is clear and it seems to have a speaker on it which doesn't distort much which is surprising for a HTC.
• Performance, Software - It is plenty fast. To the point where it doesn't seem like you are waiting on the phone to actually do anything. There are no eggtimer/beachball please wait moments. Apps open in a blink of an eye, there is no lag, the phone does things as fast as you can move your fingers. A cold (fast) boot is around 10 seconds. I don't wish it was faster. Along with most of you, I wish it didn't have Sense and was a more stock Android phone, like a Nexus. I've already rooted mine and installed a MoDaCo custom rom with a bunch of the Sense things removed and replaced with regular ICS versions. I'm extremely happy with my efforts and I would say that my own hybrid hacked up software is pretty great. Honestly though, out of the box the HTC software is really not that bad. It doesn't feel like it slows the phone down and a bunch of applications can be disabled so you can effectively debloat your own phone without risking your warranty.
• Battery - I use my phone for some emails, talking for a few minutes, some gtalk and sms messaging, bluetooth connection to the car, wifi and gps always on. It does last all day. I'm reluctant to use the phrase 'easily lasts all day', I seem to be getting 10% battery left at bedtime. This is not exactly reassuring, especially since the phone is new. It doesn't have a better battery life than my old Desire Z, but I think maybe I do play with it more. Android says the screen uses 47% of the battery power.
• Compared to the Galaxy S3 - The S3 is likely to be better. The camera appears to be a little better (although the camera software on the HTC is better), sure it is a little bit faster too. People may go on about removable batteries and SD cards, but so far its all small differences to me. The big upgrades are that it reports to have significantly better battery life, and the power button is on the side rather than the top. When I bought my One X, the S3 was working out to be around an extra £150 over the length of the contract, and so I'm pretty happy with my choice.

Not entirely true. Don't forget the HTC One S, faster than the X in non-graphics intensive benchmarks, longer battery life too, all in a smaller more conventionally sized package. Doesn't have as nice a screen though, which is a bit of a shame but otherwise a pretty excellent little phone.

I was hoping the new design would increase the phone's width 4-5mm along with a taller screen. I think that would have provided more of a happy medium over simply increasing its height. It would have meant lowering the DPI unless they also changed the pixel width though (which would be problematic).

I would choose the S3. It tops the One X in almost every feature, except probably the casing. The casing of the One X definitely looks better, but for me the looks of a phone are not decisive for my choice.

I like the S3 better because it has a bigger battery which obviously lasts a lot longer and is also replaceable. The screen is supposed to be better in the One X, but I doubt that's noticeable.

To be honest: my true choice would have been a Galaxy Nexus. It seems to be the perfect phone to me, unfortunately it's got one major flaw: the volume and quality of the sound. Since this is a PHONE, this is a deal breaker for me. The volume of my current phone both for ringing sounds and normal speakers is too low as well and I resent it for it.
So here's hoping there will be a new Nexus phone soon. I don't really care if it's quad core or not, but I would like to see it use ARM's Cortex A15 instead of Cortex A9.

I got the S3 in the end. The screen is basically perfect.

I'm probably going to get the S III in the next week or two (if not today)...

This is an interesting video to see. It seems the Apple iPhone 4s and the Samsung S3 use the same camera module. This clip is made as a split-screen with on the one side the S3's image and on the other the iPhone 4s' image. They also constantly switch between devices for audio so you can also clearly hear the difference in audio quality.

I must say the Apple's image looks better to me, but that didn't really surprise me. What did surprise me is the enormous difference in audio quality... the Apple sounds a whole lot better ; I didn't expect that. I must say Samsung disappoints here. (and I'm no Apple fan, I just want the best product for the best price).

I don't think Android has caught up to iOS when it comes to cameras. That's okay, though, because my point and shoot destroys the images taken on either platform anyway...

Hmmm... parsing that double negative, I don't doubt that that isn't what you meant to say.

tanstaafl.

So bought the Samsung yesterday. Mostly pretty happy with it so far.

A bit peeved that the "16GB" version only has 11.35GB usable. I realise part of this is gibibytes vs gigabytes but that only accounts for about 1.1GB of the used 4.65GB.

Pentile screen is noticeable but not an issue really.

Still playing with it...

Cool stuff.

My One X has 25.23GB of space (I guess it is marketed as a 32GB phone?). Whatever, I don't really use it as a music device so 8GB would have been plenty for me.

Also, thought I would point out that after some time with my phone it is now giving me pretty decent battery life. Using it 'normally', a couple of phone calls and a few emails it has had between 50-65% reported battery remaining at around midnight bedtime.

How much of that is the battery bedding in (does that actually happen?) or more likely its just that I am not playing around with it quite so much... Either way I am quite pleased with the whole thing.

Hmm, my Galaxy Nexus is 32GB and shows 28.13 available. I suppose part of that is used for the OS, right? Perhaps the difference in storage usage with the HTC phone is Sense? It's pretty graphics heavy, after all...

So some more thoughts:

1) The Samsung supplied headphones produce a nasty glitch when pressing the inline buttons. Seriously, did anyone think to try this or they did and just thought: "yeah sure, that's good enough...". Not quite as bad as my HTC HD2's inability to play its intro tune without skipping though.

2) The power button is a bit awkwardly placed relative to the volume buttons on the opposite side. When I want to press it to lock it, I naturally grab it on either side which means pressing the volume up as well. When at my office desk that's particularly a pain since it turns the sound back on (I have Tasker set it to vibrate when I enter work's Wifi range). Can probably get used to but it's not intuitive to lock.

3) iPhones have had the headphone port on the top ever since always. The SGS III is the same. My HTC HD2 is on the bottom. When I put my SGS III in my pants pocket that means it's the right way up with the headphone cable at the top. But when I grab it, I grab it by the top and so pulling it out means I'm holding it by the top. So I have to rotate it in my hand. With the HD2 I just pull it out by the base and I'm holding it in the right location.

4) Pressing the home button takes what I consider an unreasonable amount of time to hide the current app and show the home screen. Probably my biggest gripe at the moment.

5) Face unlock works quite well but takes a bit long to turn the camera on (need to try it with a photo but I don't really use it for security) as does the Smart Stay face detection.

6) Direct call is a nice feature once you remember you have it.

7) Battery life isn't bad on the second charge. I hope it gets a bit better though. A fullish day with a fair bit of data gets me to about 40%. Would always like more and will buy an extended battery if made available.

8) The wide screen is almost too wide. The keys like Q and P on the onscreen keyboard take a bit of getting used to.

9) It noticeably lags on some things already. I didn't expect this.

10) The Samsung apps don't intrude really.

11) S Voice is a gimmick like Siri and for some reason only works on 3G and doesn't work on my home network. I haven't investigated why yet though.

12) Sliders for things like answering the phone or snoozing/turning off reminders are a bit unintuitive to look at whilst sliding. The sliders don't move with your finger. They just disappear and an outer ring lights when you've slid far enough.

Some of these first few are simple usability/use case things but I do find it a bit hard to believe these situations are out of the ordinary and I'm the only one who thinks this?

I really dislike hand held anything with the audio jack on the bottom.

The first gadget where I realized this was a problem was my Kindle 1. It could play music while reading, but I did't like being poked in the belly with the audio plug body.

Kindle is a bit different since it's only real use is holding it to read but I get what you're saying. A right angle headphone plug works wonders too.

Yeah, like he said, the way I used a Zune (which had the jack on the bottom) and the way I'd hold a Kindle are VERY different. I'm with Christian in that I've had that exact same annoyance taking my phone out of my pocket. When you're listening to podcasts and constantly taking the phone out to fast forward or something, it's helpful to not have to turn the phone around every time, needing two hands.

Of course, this is all moot for me now that I have these.

Wouldn't putting Cyanogen on the phone rectify that problem? Of course, in most cases that means rooting the phone, but I would do that anyway just so I could put CM on the phone.

Do both of these phones have micro-SD slots?

Is there a (good) email client that will talk IMAP to any arbitrary email server, or are they locked to gmail?

Thanks!

The new HTC One S and One X phones do not include MicroSD slots, all of the others do.

None of the phones are locked to GMail, they include a GMail app but this can easily be disabled of you don't use it. All of these phones also include an Email app which can talk POP3, IMAP and Microsoft Exchange, and from what I hear they are quite acceptable. Plus, you can install something else (like, K9 Mail for example) if you don't like it.

Okay, so the Samsung S3 does have micro-SD ?
(too lazy to re-research the specs just now).

Yes, the S3 does have MicroSD.

In what way? I don't think CM can move the headphone socket Do you mean flip the screen 180?

Yes the One X doesn't have any upgradeable memory slots.

As for IMAP, the built in email client supports Exchange, IMAP and POP3 no problem. I haven't really used it that much since I host my personal email address with Google now but from what I've seen it works fine.

There are some paid for email apps too.

Yes, I mean flip the screen 180.

Buttons end up at the wrong end though.

Last week, I ended up with the AT&T LTE variant of the Galaxy S III (SGH-i747). What I typically do with a non-vanilla Android phone is flash a third party ROM immediately. My usual choice of CM9 and CM10 were available. I flashed CM10 which was/is a very early preview build with quite a few show-stopping bugs.

I can live with unstable wifi, broken bluetooth, and a laundry list of other things for a while. However, there is one problem that may force me back to the trusty Galaxy S II for a bit...

Is anyone else's SGS3 losing sync with Google when the phone screen is locked and on cellular (not wifi)? I'm interested in hearing from stock TouchWiz users in addition to anyone using a custom ROM. It's like no notifications get delivered until I turn the screen on. Then they all come in at once.

I'm trying to determine if it's a modem firmware issue or just something wrong with the early ROM.

I have noticed something like this I think. It seems to stop getting push emails. When I wake it up, some emails come through. I wouldn't say it happens all the time though and so far it hasn't bothered me too much.

Other services still seem to work OK like facebook notifications.

Stock SGS III ROM, regular 3G version.

Interesting that Google notifications don't seem to work for you, while the notifications from other apps do. I always assumed that all notifications flowed through Google somehow, but I could definitely be wrong.

For me, turning on the screen will often let loose a deluge of gmail, foursquare, and yelp notifications. I will keep an eye on Facebook, but I don't get too many notifications there.

Weird. Got an email notification from Matt but the post is non-existent here.



True, I would expect that too. But I've certainly experienced a similar symptom. I've just not done much about it and it certainly doesn't always happen.

I don't have foursquare or yelp. Only really gmail and facebook (which I'm probably going to turn off actually) as regular push type notifications. Tapatalk is off since it was coming too often and seemed to mess up the last logged in parameter.

Heh, yeah, I deleted that because you responded as an S3 owner so I figured you were in a better position to answer the question

It's a fair comment regardless. I will pay a bit more attention to it in the meantime.

Yeah today in the office (where there is Wi-Fi but only for work machines - I use Tasker to detect it and silence my phone in the office only) it is definitely not getting Gmail in real time.

I wake it up and a 5-10 seconds later I get an email or two or more (or I force a Gmail refresh). At home as far as I can tell it is instant i.e. my Outlook on my laptop and my phone alert basically happen simultaneously. The facebook alerts are pretty rare. Maybe I'll temporarily put an alert on one of my more prolific friends on facebook to test.

Without signing up to some other social networking site what else can I try? Maybe installing an app from Google Play?

It doesn't appear to happen instantly i.e. put phone to standby by pressing the power button and send an email a few seconds later. It vibrates and Lightflow flashes to signify an email as expected. Not sure at which point it stops but I'll take a guess and say somewhere around 5 minutes.

I've been doing some experimentation and maybe figured it out, at least with my phone.

On AT&T in the US, if you have an LTE data plan, you have access to an alternate APN. It's actually the only preloaded APN on AT&T-branded LTE phones, and CM9 and CM10 use it as the default on this phone. When I switch the phone to use the old 3G/HSPA+ APN, notifications seem to be getting through with the screen off.

I don't really know what to make of this finding. Perhaps when on the LTE APN, the phone uses more juice and goes into some hibernation mode? There is no selection for that kind of behavior in CM that I can see, so hopefully this is tweaked over time.

Maybe there is a problem with the LTE APN itself or maybe the way the phone hunts for LTE signal? My area is mostly HSPA+, but I have tasted LTE over the weekend. Hopefully I won't have to keep it disabled for too much longer:

This seems like a good theory. LTE as currently implemented is data only, and in most phones (can't find conformation on the S III) it's a completely different chip. The phone must remain on the 3G network for voice, but may only keep LTE active when it believes the user is actively using the device. It's likely something that needs to be tweaked in the custom rom to ensure proper fallback to 3G, including registering with the push servers what IP the device has. Or forcing LTE on all the time, which will likely result in a heavy battery drain due to two independent radios being up and running full time.