Discussion on:

10 things you should know before buying a Galaxy S III smartphone

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Really well written, well-informed piece!
I see so many reviews on phones that are obviously from Fanboy Country, or are from people who are clearly not as educated and even lacking phone-knowledge in some cases.
Thank you for knowing your "stuff" and putting information out into the world that will actually help someone make a decision. Well done.

I'm not sure that "7: No USB mass storage mode" is correct - It works fine for me on Windows 7 Home Premium (32-Bit). It comes up with a choice of Phone or Card showing the disc space remaining on each.

It appears to be valid information that somewhat corrects/somewhat clarifies what the author stated about her phone. I would think that finding out there is an easier way to at least access the memory--even if it is separated to card/phone--would be a plus to most people.

DWFields - I went to click + but clicked - instead. NO undo? Sorry!

I drive my IT guys nuts when they forget to differentiate between 32 bit and 64 bit systems . But thats another discussion!

I have no problem using my US Cellular SIII this way. It does not show up as a "Lettered" drive but as a connected phone (SCH-R530U)? I can read and write to both the SD and internal memory by cut paste, click and drag, etc. to copy a file or folder to the phone, but I cannot use something like MS Word to save a document directly. Must save it first to computer then copy to phone. Windows 7 Pro and XP Pro

@markbeckstrom I agree with this assessment, the device is more capable than suggested in the review. You can't map the drives or save/open files with an application from the MS Office suite, but the huge upside of this change, which isn't mentioned, is that using a micro USB to Type A dongle (I got one from Hong Kong for less than a buck, including shipping) you can plug and play a multitude of USB input and storage devices with the phone. If you use a hub, you can automatically access up to six external USB drives.

On my SG III when connection it to a Win XP box, Win Vista 32bit box, Win7 64bit box and OSX 10.6 & 10.7. Maybe the one the writer tested was a demo release or didn't know that you have to set SG III to USB storage before connecting cable. Also I have noticed some difference between carriers preloaded versions (att and tmobile)

It works sometimes on my Windows 7 Ultimate machine and sometimes it doesn't. Kies isn't too bad as long as you have nothing else really running like an internet browser. Also those USB OTG cables and an app will let you connect a controller for gaming (PS3/360), although on some versions the app isn't needed for connectivity. AT&T axed it in the I747 version of the phone but I believe Sprint left it in. Point is it was a native function.

He is right about storage mode. Without rooting UMS isn't available. Only MTP or PSM. For me under Linux this is a disadvantage, because current MTP support in Linux is not so good. But at least PMS is available out of box.

UPDATE: Linux users can try jmtpfs - http://research.jacquette.com/jmtpfs-exchanging-files-between-android-devices-and-linux/ In combination with minor udev tweaking file exchange via MTP (obviously, with S3 too) now work like charm (and fast) on my and colleagues Linux machines at work and home. Only troubling part was compiling, because jmtpfs DEB packages for Ubuntu and Mint are not ready yet. PM me, if you want details.

Hey ... we're talking about REAL smartphones here ... Stop trolling the thread with old and useless phones

I think that is going to be a common thread on all phones as we get more and more powerful smart phones. I have the same issue on my Nexus, even with the extended life battery. The phones are naturally going to be using more power and until we improve our battery technology, I don't see that improving...only getting worse.

I bought an extended battery for the SIII (Onite 3800 mAh). When I had that in on the first phone (that I returned), I had far fewer Wi-Fi dropouts than with the battery that came with the phone. It's a beast, although it doesn't really feel much bigger in the hand than an old iPhone, but the big battery lasts like an energizer bunny.

It depends on how much you use it. If it just sits in your pocket, it will last for a few days. If you use it a lot, you may have to recharge it more than once during the day. I keep GPS and data downloads turned off most of the time to conserve power, And I use a GO power saving app which may also help by keeping unused stuff turned off.

Juice Defender and several other apps can extend the life quite a bit. Also turning a few functions of when not needed help (like account syncing, screen brightness).

Most of the 'bad' stuff I figured them out after a month of usage also, still doesn't bother me.

For the Wifi my phone has no problem connecting it at all.

The Samsung photo and video editors are available through the "More Services" app / shortcut. (It looks like an orange price tag with a circle of white dots on it.) They both seem to be pretty full-featured and are either identical or very similar to those provided on my Galaxy Tab 10.1

I've had an Siii for a few months and the biggest negative, for me, is that it's pretty quiet. Turn the volume up to max and no-one is going to complain too much - which is a pity if you're using it to listen to music. This applies to both the external speaker and when wearing headphones. However, me being in the UK could mean that this is due to a European ruling on headphone volume rather than the device itself and non-Euro countries may not suffer with this issue.
The lack of running apps from the external card is mildly disappointing but hasn't been a particular problem yet.
Overall, pretty slick and a easy to use.

Try an app called Volume+. My S III is plenty loud for me but the Nexus was whisper soft until I installed V+. It was a must to be able to hear things like turn-by-turn nav.

Thanks for the V+ suggestion. One of my biggest issues with my VZW GNex is the lack of volume even at full volume. That and the terrible wifi reception.

I really liked the detail in your review, but was perplexed on the "wireless access trouble." The SIII has been the most reliable phone I've had - ever, specially when it comes to accessing wireless networks. Mine automatically detects when I'm "in range" of a network, and if I've provided credentials and enabled it to connect automatically, it does. My home experience in particular is a DREAM with the SIII. I also have no problem connecting with Windows 7 64-bit, just like a large flash drive, which allows me to off-load my photos en masse, so they can be Carbonite'd, etc. The camera modes deserve some attention too: The burst photo mode and "panormic" settings really do provide something special that I'm not sure all users and potential users are aware of. Cityscapes with the panoramic mode are something an entire blog website could be the feature of, and burst mode, particularly in great light, is just AMAZING to be witness to. We've got a full PERSPECTIVE REVIEW of the SIII coming up after a move to a new studio and I'll be sure to touch base with you. A great review that digs where most don't for sure! Many thanks!

As I noted, the Wi-Fi problem only happens with a small percentage of phones. If you do a search on "Galaxy S III Wi-Fi problem," you'll find it in the discussion boards. I ended up taking the first phone back and getting a replacement. The second one connects to the wireless network flawlessly and Wi-Fi is fast and reliable. I don't know whether this has anything to do with it, but there was a sticker on my second phone that said "Updated" and there was no such sticker on the first one.

Me and my coleague S3's has WiFi connection problems on WPA/WPA2 connections (mentioned above). Fixed by official OTA at 2012 december, which updated S3 OS version to 4.1.2. So far WiFi work without any problems.

... have problems out of the box. All it takes is for even one tiny component to be out of spec to throw the radio out of whack. The author did note that the problem is a common one, though not universal. It could be as much a hardware issue for her specific unit as a software issue for the whole line.

I have a pretty fast connection and maybe that's why I haven't had all the same problems with wi-fi, but I have seen the S voice connection error a lot. I chalked it up to server problems, I could be wrong.

Our home networking setup is FiOS Internet at 30 Mbps up/down and an 802.11n wireless access point. The replacement phone racks up 20+ Mbps on SpeedTest. The first one was crawling at less than 1 Mbps. Nothing changed about the network and the phone's configurations are the same. I believe the problem is caused by a defective radio.

My SIII has a few problems:
1)it does not access the web with 3G; probably timeout.
2)it does not accept downloads of apps included in the More Services button. This is most irritating, since it says its protected from downloading apps that do not come from the Android Store. I tried to download an App Monitor and it did not accept. And there is no provision to liberate the download in the security controls.

Hi Deb, I've had my Unlocked S3 for about a month now, and think it is extremely good. When you plug the USB into a windows PC it appears in the device list as a portable media player, but when you double click the icon, you are presented with 'card' and 'phone' storage drives (just like a USB device), so I'm not sure what you did, but this is as easy as it gets.
The WiFi works perfectly well on all networks I've tried connecting to, with no drop-outs. It even gives preferential connection to WiFi rather than 3G when it finds a network it recognises, and that saves me 3G quota.

I've been using this phone for a couple of months now. It works just fine when I plug it into my laptop or tower. It shows up as a hard drive just like my old windows phone. I also have no problems with wi-fi connections. I love this phone!

Does the warranty for this phone state that? That's enough for me not to buy, I think, despite some of the cool features. I really like the sound of the phone reject list (can it be set to globally reject non-disclosed numbers?) and the custom equalisation. I'd pay for a phone app that could do that.

Only the software warranty gets voided not warranty for the physical phone. The whole root voided warranty is greatly misunderstood. Again thats only the software warranty that gets voided. If your phone set itself spontaeneously combusts after rooty they still have to replace the phone.

When I plug in my iphone via USB, it shows up in Windows Explorer as a hard drive. ITunes isn't needed for this.

For #9, I downloaded an app called Picture Editor that ties in with the menu in the Gallery. When you take a picture, you can tap it at the bottom corner of the screen, go into the menu and select Edit. The editor takes the place of the default stock editor included by Samsung.

For #10, I have noticed the opposite on my phone. It does depend on where I am, but my WiFi connections work great. I don't use the stock browser, but I get disconnects and page cannot be displayed more often on 4G than I do on WiFi. I like the xScope Pro browser (there is also a free version) for browsing. You get tabs, can have it "request the desktop site" version and a number of other nice features.

Just my 2 cents worth.

I've owned three android phones and have yet experienced anything less than occasionally frustrating. My current Samsung is by far the best yet. No matter how good the hardware, the OS will always keep it from being stellar.

They don't call these things Smartphone for nothing. You have to be pretty smart to use them.

Smart indeed. Makes me thing of the smart car... well as I call it, the not so smart car.

Googles lack of consistancy to Android is keeping it for being stellar. But the real issue is the carriers blocking Google from doing that. "The carriers like to test the new updates/versions before roll out" is what several reps have told me. I chuckle and say "Are you sure that's it or is it because the devs need to figure out how to embed their monitoring programs to stop users from getting whats intended to be free. ie. tethering" They laugh and respond in a joking tone "yeah, that's it... Can i help you with anything else sir?"

I say if you want easy, go IOS. If u want potential, go Microsoft or Android. If you want control, power & functionality, go rooted custom Android.

4 and 9: I'm surprised you thought the camera took good pictures, this was the first thing that shocked me that it didn't do well since my S2 was clear was and a great camera even in low light. I found external apps Such as Instagram and Camera Zoom fx do a MUCH better job of taking photos. The issue are shots where flash is needed, the default camera and the flash don't seem to work very well together, the pictures seem like they are off, but it all works fine in other apps. And Camera Zoom FX has the editing tools.

6. You might mention that Android really wasn't designed to handle external SD cards well, it was an afterthought, so apps installed on that storage did run slower and you had no access to them when you plugged your phone into your computer and mounted the USB storage. With 32G or 64G available on the phone - not being able to install apps to the SD card are really a non-issue.

7. Yeah - that is a pain and you have to use the Kies app for any firmware updates (on T-Mobile at least) - I miss the OTA updates, BUT this app can back everything up on the phone AND thanks to Kies software I was able to get everything (photos, etc) off my S2 with the broken screen. I never could have mounted my USB storage on my S2 using the on-screen options because of the broken screen, so it does have a big advantage.

My experience with Samsung phones is dismal. First bought 2 Galaxy Nexus, trouble with both, had one replaced by Telstra. Replacement was Galaxy S3. At times audio sounds like the speaker is broken, sometimes I can wait up to 45 secs for it to finally dial selected number, disconnects my calls at random times so I have to call the person back. I will send it in to be repaired, but the mandatory 4 week turn around sucks. My joy at owning a Samsung phone is totally depleted.

Sorry guys my Galactic experience was not so wonderful. I bought a Gs3 and found it to be almost unusable. Returned it for a replacement and got the same disappointing performance and design flaws.
First and foremost, my reception and call quality was always poor. Side by side with my cheap old HTC MyTouch4G reception on the Gs3 was never as good, not even close. When reception edged into the fair range sound quality was so bad as to illicit regular complaints from whomever I called. I wanted to like this phone.
As for WiFi I would get excellent coverage on my ThinkPad or HTC and nearly no reception whatsoever on the Gs3. I wanted to like this phone, it was pretty, it was cool, I could actually see the web pages!
Speaking of design flaws, the on/off button on the upper right hand edge fell exactly where my index finger fell whenever I held the phone to talk. Switch hands, ok, oops ...now my thumb. Two times on the button and the phones shuts down in mid call. Bad JuJu in a business setting!
I wont go into the entire cheek dialing phenomenon. Has Samsung never heard of ergonomics?
Ok I replaced the phone and all of these problems persisted on the second handset. 2 unusable phones in a row. What a disappointment, I wanted to like this phone but back went the second phone and cancel the sale please.

Debra,

I don't think that a week of usage can give you enough experience to summarize the good and the bad of this device. Full reviews of this phone have been done for other journalists but they have spent more time with the phone.

I have been using my GS3 for 8 weeks now and, yes, I have found some issues that I do not like. Also, there are many many other things that I do like about this device. When someone ask me about my impressions I am cautious about the not-so-good things because I do not want them to think this is a phone they should avoid. They should get it because it's great!

I just hope you spend more time with your devices before giving a professional review of them.

PS: No wi-fi problems at all with my device.

I forgot to mention, Have only been able to get Kies to work once. And that's with three different phones using three different computers.

I joined this so I can learn how to use my new
Samsung Galaxy S III. keep posting new tips
I appreciate it.

Wow, I just read some of the other comments and the take away is that this phone release is subject to lots of quality control issues. Look back over the reviews eliminating the ones reflecting personal taste. What you find is a list of performance issues that point at poor quality control. WiFi, reception, 3G connectivity issues, its a list. Some good and enough bad to take notice
As for living with a phone longer before forming an opinion I would respond with a caution. Keep it that long and youll never get rid of an expensive piece of junk

I, too, must commend you on this article. Well written and fair, it seems you actually tried to figure things out and didn't just quickly dismiss as a failure anything that didn't go your way. And it seems you put each of the negatives into a proper perspective of relative importance.

(And for me, the microSD card treatment is a real deal breaker, so thanks for that bit of info. I'm glad my G2 is good enough for now. If I had to buy a phone now, I would lean toward the SIII, and my gut tells me this is not the phone for me. This just helps confirm that gut instinct. Sadly, there is nothing else out there that is really compelling for me.)

Thanks for a good article, and I look forward to reading more of your stuffs.

.. is a common "feature" on all devices running Android 4.0, as the internal SD card is now shifted to /data/media instead of /sdcard as before, so that the entire internal storage can be used to install apps, as is seen on the Galaxy Nexus as well as the Optimus 4X HD. So that is a feature you will have to live with on any Android smartphone that comes with Android 4.0/4.1 out of the box, as there is no way to mount the internal storage as a physical partition. More details are here: http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/11/18/impromptu-qa-session-with-android-engineer-dan-morrill-brings-to-light-reasons-behind-galaxy-nexus-lack-of-usb-mass-storage/
So I'm not really sure that should be included as a bad thing. Since the entire 11GB space is available for installing apps, that's quite good, though people will have to be told to keep the internal storage empty, haha. But again, that will be common on all new devices now that come with internal SD card. The external storage should by default be allowed to be connected in mass storage mode as it is still a physical partition, but it seems not everyone is allowing it to be.

Otherwise, great article.

I'm currently using Jellybean on my old MyTouch 4G, and I can say with certainty that once the S3 updates you'll be able to just use google's voice search for anything you want to do. Three days in and I have never once had it misinterpret my words, even on complex queries.

i like the article i will request you please to do one about the nokia Lumia 920 when it hits the market.

S3 Fanboy here. Its a great phone but gestures are just stupid, as is asking your phone dumb questions that you could type into google just as quickly and far more precisely. The flip to mute is the only gesture of any use to anyone I know. Pop up play, not found a use for it yet, too small. As a photographer I've tried most of the camera / post apps. Stick with stock, easily as good as anything else and way better than most. I've settled on Photoshop Express to manage the images and upload them to adobe.com, You can manipulate in the app but you will get astounding results using Lightroom 4, forget trying to render new images with no grunt, you're just jumping on an overcrowded and very droll bandwagon. WiFi is fantastic, best I've had. I can get a signal when the ipad is scanning itself flat although a Nexus 7 I saw was even better than the S3 - bargain of the year that surely. I use Airdroid to transfer files, no point using a cable. Connects in less than five seconds and is very fast

I assume it's still there. It was on my Galaxy S II and now on my Galaxy Note.

You don't need a cable. Just turn on wifi and all you need is an Internet browser in your PC, or even the browser in another phone! This will allow you to navigate and access all the files and folders in your phone.

WRT USB:
The phone works for me as a USB drive. I can push files onto it and pulls files from it. No problem.

WRT WiFi:
I have not had any problems with WiFi. It sees networks that my iPhone 4 didn't and connects without a problem and without dropping.

Yup, you must be doing something wrong. Plug the phone into my Windows 7 64 bit and it automatically shows up with 2 'drives', one for internal storage, one for the internal SD Card.

Svoice does stink. Actually most voice activation features I've tried on most phones isn't as efficient as homescreen shortcut options. That being said, the new Google voice to text keyboard is awesome

The Samsung Kies doesn't require you to install anything on your pc. You enable it on your phone and goto the url and port it assigns, then are able to access the phone via your browser. It is only accesable on your private wlan. I've used it and seems fine, can be slow if the phone is busy.
I also use an app called Light Flow. Pretty cool, it displays different color LED Notification lights based on the app .. so for example, gmail produces Green LED, Blue when bluetooth is on. I agree S-Voice is weak, but it's the same engine as Siri (vlingo).
Try Robin for voice asst (like s-voice and siri). The Google Voice to txt asst also works great .

Emails pile up; I think I have 300 or 400 that I haven't bothered to delete. Emails have to be individually deleted; you check the box & can do multiple screens at once but it's a real pain. They need a checkbox for "select all".

I'm with DaveTR. I haven't seen any problems with accessing either the sdcard or extSdCard folders on my computer in USB mass storage mode.

Ive noticed my S3 gets less cell reception than my wifes phone. She has a droid4, both on verizon.. In talking with verizon, I havent been to get a solid answer why, but they are blaming the cell towers needing to be upgraded in some way, but that doesnt make any sense.

Debra...I think I will keep my Galaxy S2, as it seems to do all that you wish the S3 doesn't do.

I have the Verizon Nexus.
I find the antenna is very weak in fringe areas, where I spend most of my time.
In a strong 4G area it works fine. In a weak 3G area nothing. I have to revert to my old Alias to make a voice call and my USB 720 for internet. The Nexus was supposed to replace both.
Is the S III any better?
Why doesn't any one review the the ability of these phones to actually connect. That is the MOST important feature of any phone, to me.

This is a well-done article. I would have to say that my experiences in several of the areas you talked about have been different. I don't have the problems with the web pages, nor do I have to use Kies to connect to my Windows 7 Home computer or my Windows XP computer. I have had it for nearly 6 weeks and myy battery life is good if I keep it on the power saver mode as well. These differences could be due to the user more than the phone itself.

The Verizon manual says "By default, files that you download, or that you create with
your device, such as pictures and videos you capture with Camera, are stored to your devices memory. For more storage capacity, you can set the memory card as the primary storage location for apps with the apps options." Could have sworn we verified this on a guys S III here in the office.

90% of the time i have this phone connected to WIFI and have never had any problems with WIFI connections. I totally disagree with your '....noticed that Wi-Fi was just plain wacky'.

Check the forums, hundreds of posts on it. I had one myself which they replaced no questions asked as soon as I told them what was wrong. A batch with bad wifi got out. You can disagree but it doesn't change the fact it's a reality. Be glad you got one with no wifi problems.

I am looking at S III for my phone but have not seen anything on video connections like Iphone (my kids have this). Any suggestions on what to use for compatibility and/or S III connections?

are you sure ? Samsung devices require that you select the mode before connecting the cable, after which you need to confirm USB storage mode (as others have mentioned).
As far as the wifi probs are concerned, are you using a Dlink router ? Have you tried a different wifi network and get the same wifi probs? If yes then you might have a faulty device ? I've not checked to see if this is a known fault with the SGS3. My Nook Color has the exact same wifi probs with my Dlink router but works fine on every other network. I added a Belkin wireless gateway to my network and the problem disappeared.

Agree with all the reviewer said, like all phones it has the odd problem for me:(1) Could Samsung put a slot in for the second simm card, the galaxy is so good I would like to use the one phone for both private and business?
(2) please please give us a better loading computer to phone system other than Kies!.
Why not have Bluetooth on Kies after all the phone runs Bluetooth! You need to be able to walk near the computer and it automatically updates. Also I have difficulty with the Kies system isolating all my email addresses and downloading them on to the phone as separate to my normal addresses, frustrating! Yep battery only lasts a day but with usb facility to charge I have plenty of options.

If you think your Texan accent is a problem, you should try my Western Australian one with this and other voice recognition systems!

1) Anything is better than using bloated iTunes!
2) With the issues Siri has had, you can't really complain that S Voice ain't great. At least [well sas of today, maybe not Wednesday] S Voice is a released product. siri is still listed as beta on the Apple web site [yes fanbois and fangurld, you are a beta tester for Apple and not paid for it - you are poaying].

My daughter has the Galaxy S III, and has experienced a few traumatic episodes of data loss.
The phone has a photo edit tool, and she had been playing with this on a couple of pix of her children, when she later went to access the photos, the originals and the modded ones had completely vanished. I ran some data recovery tools over the SD module and only discovered a few pix she had purposely deleted - but not the folder of pix she had wanted to keep.
And , no the Samung KIES app was also useless .
Also it appears the Galaxy S III has a problem with the SD card slot.
Have purchased a couple of different brand SD modules and only after a couple of days, it is showing errors trying to access the SD card.

You forgot to mention another not-so-good. The Galaxy S3 uses a micro SIM.
This might not be a problem for people migrating for an iPhone, but for the rest of us, particularly those of use with multiple phones, it is a real problem.

I can see why Apple sued Samsung - Samsung copy everything, even the bad stuff like the stupid micro SIM idea. The bloo#y things are so small you need tweezers to handle them!!

I have an SII rather than the SIII, but it was a recent, long-overdue upgrade from my Blackberry 8900. From a performance and features standpoint, it is a huge step up. Nevertheless, I assume the SIII has the same or better features as my SII, but the principal caveats I offer to anyone making that jump are these: Be sure and turn off your applications (including email and messaging) when you're not using them. I never worried about that with the Blackberry, but with AT&T, at least, those programs remain active on the SII and probably SIII in the background and chew up data from your plan. Further, don't succumb to the temptation to set the phone to check for messages/email constantly - same problem. Unless you have an unlimited data usage plan, this can get expensive.

Interesting article. I moved from a HTC Desire to the Samsung and found the hardware spectacular but the software not as intuitive as the HTC which was a real breeze to get a handle on.

Having used the Samsung for several months now, have worked out where settings are and it is great.

USB mode works fine for me on Win7 Pro.

Also no issues at all with WiFi, in fact the WiFi performance has been really good for me. Could it be your router?

As a suggestion I would ensure I checked on forums etc before presenting your experience of the device as a definitive reflection of the specification or performance. Inaccuracy on such things don't reflect well on a professional blog.

Three things...

1. The SIII DOES support mass storage onto the phone and SD card
2. It DOES support moving apps to the SD card.
3. WiFi issue? I'm positive this is not a common problem with the SIII. All I've sold haven't had this issue

Most of your bad points are invalid. GG

I use Samsung galaxy note. I was really worried when Samsung launched S3 as note technology is going to be outdated but when I compared both these devices, I really feel very relaxed as both technologies are like two different segment and they can't be compared.

1. The phones provided by different carriers are not the same. They have different groups of software (bloatware) installed and different features disabled and blocked, so the phones may behave differently in those areas and these might even affect other usages.
2. The phone service in different areas where I live differs greatly. Something that works great at my home may not twenty miles away, and vice versa.

So sometimes it's not a defective phone or even a defective user that makes a difference.

Since writing the article, I've discovered the Samsung Photo Editor that can be downloaded from the Google Play store. It is a pretty decent little app that supports many adjustments and special effects (I mostly wanted to be able to adjust exposure, contrast and color sat, but it does a lot more) and best of all, it integrates into the Gallery so that you have the Edit option from within a photo when you click on the picture in the camera app immediately after taking it. Maybe this comes preloaded on other carriers' phones but was not there on my Verizon model.

Ice Cream Sandwich is the culprit for the mass storage mode issue. Even my Galaxy S2 had this issue after updating to ICS. Connect your phone to a PC via USB, if you're having this issue you'll see a notification titled "Connected as camera...", touch that notification to change the type of connection to "Media device (MTP)", browse the phone as mass storage.

I didn't know TouchWiz 4 has added so many functionality but I have a permanent scepticality towards TouchWiz so I rooted my wife's unit and installed MiUi onto it. Although I did that I don't seem to experience anything about the WiFi connectivity, perhaps you should send your unit to your nearest Samsung Support Centre. About battery life, I think it applies to all smartphones but I kinda managed to fix them by installing custom Kernel and downclock it using the app SetCPU. And you have to manage what you sync and be aware of apps that actively give you advertisement in your notifications.

I found a useful tip for fixing the GS# wifi problems here:

http://galaxys3reviews.net/samsung-galaxy-s3-wifi-problem-fix

It involves turning off a power-saver mode for the wifi. It seems to have done the trick for me.

Encountered issues viewing photos received via text message. If there is text included, they appeared as a video. After a couple of hours with Tech Support at both Verizon and with Samsung, I was told that was a feature and a Android Operating System issue, but it only happens with Samsung phones. Resolved it by using Handcent for messaging.

I am not sure why someone that only has one week S3 experience should even think of writing a detailed review of pros and cons. I can understand if the review was about how it feels, how it looks but this one was an absolute failure. At least the author should have read some other reviews and technical specs before publishing this review and then trying to correct the review mistakes in comments. This article should have been published in MythRepublic not TechRepublic.

I still love my nexus better because i have the pure google experience and as for space everything is uploaded on google so what do you need space for? Voice commands work awesome on Nexus with Jelly bean...oh yeah S3 has no jelly bean and is running the ancient ICS OS on it. I got Jelly bean pushed to me 2 months ago and it changes everything for the better.

I will wait for another Nexus device before going S3. Don't get me wrong, its a great phone but I just love my custom Nexus car dock with 3 pin connection so I don't ever have to plug a cable in.

I just got this phone a few days ago, and had only minor issues with number 7. I plugged it in via USB, and while it was not recognized on my XP workstation, it was recognized on my Windows 7 workstation. I was able to easily transfer music files from my workstaiton to my phone. I've had only minor issues with WiFi, but it's similar to what I've seen on my android tablet, but not as bad. I'll turn on the wifi and it doesn't seem to recognize a signal, so I turn it off and back on, and it's running fine. An annoyance to be sure, but a relatively minor one compared to my android tablet.

To me this article seems more like pro iPhone, it has comparisons with iPhone in many places, I wish you also write about positive of using Samsung Galaxy s3 over all other smart phones(Not just iPhone).

Athar

I have my own Galaxy S3. It was working nice. But after sometime it used to create some problem in wifi connection, Was not working. I had checked my router setting also but the problem was in handset. But now I am glad to say that i got a solution which worked great for me at http://howmobile.net/samsung/2291-wifi-problem-galaxy-s3.html and I thought that I should also contribute from my side to help people Who having the same problem I had. Hope The given procedure will work.
Thanks!

this is such a nice and useful information for us...i appreciate urs word

http://www.ictvacaturemarkt.nl/Informatiemanager/

honestly i hate the phone my husband is in school for being a phone tec and it was hard for hm to root and then once we did i had the phone for 2 months and then the wifi quit working t wont even turn on it says my mac address is missing i can deal with that i got full 3g signal now my phone keep on goin to boot mode and then it will get stuck in boot load mode. i have had to factory data reset my phone 3x in a week how anoying so my opinon s im getting a new phone,

i think thats not gud mobile if we compare it with its compititors ......n ur point of view is tooo awesome.... if any body want to see other compitative mobile information as well jst visit http://mobileinindia.in

"You can pan (move the phone left or right or up or down) to move around a large onscreen image."
Oh my god, that is bizarre!! I had a dream that this was possible on this phone.
I've never even used an SIII or a high end smart phone ever. Never seen an SIII in person except in shop windows.
In the dream someone I knew had the phone and used the function, I thought it was cool and said I'd buy one after seeing that.
I feel like I need to buy one now hahah.