First impressions. (iPhone 5/Samsung GS3)

[Southernboyj]

Thank you.

I have to put in a caveat with regards my "If I had to pick one now" comment, if I had asked the same question after 4 hours of owning the SGS3, I would have picked the iPhone 4S that I was used to at the time.

Edit;
I have copied this post to my original post for completeness.

I know how you feel! The day I switched from iPhone 4S to GS3 I felt a little buyers remorse.. as if I wasn't sure if the GS3 (or Android) was right for me. A month later I have completely adapted to Android and the GS3 and I love it. TouchWiz on it is very good (better than the other skins imo) but I am currently running CM10.

 

[daveathall]

Day 2

The iPhone is working flawlessly, looks great and got many an admiring glance at work. I do still miss my S3 though.

I am starting to miss the ease of use that my S3 has, Tapatalk has widgets for each account (Mac rumours etc) that I have and are easily accessed straight from one of my Android pages, the Flipboard widget on my S3 is replaced by an app in iOS that needs opening, toggling functions straight from the notifications bar is also a big omission.

The back button is probably the most missed thing so far, I don't know how many times I have come completely out of an app by pressing the home button on my iPhone. I miss being able to customise my home screen.

TBH, everything takes longer, to change anything I have to go into the long settings menu, for those that haven't tried Android, honestly, it's much quicker.

Keyboard is tiny compared to the S3, Swype is so much easier as well.

Admittedly these are all small points but they all add up to frustration.

I have said that I will give this phone a month, I will stick to that so that I can give a fair assessment against the S3, I didn't miss the iPhone 4S one bit when I changed from it to the S3, I am missing using my S3 now though.

 

[Mrg02d]

Once the iPhone charm wears off, you are left with a very basic phone. It looks nice on the outside, but on the inside its just boring iOS. I had a 4s, gave it a few days, and then traded for GS3. Ive got an iPad 3 so I know iOS plenty well.

I love the eye candy of the S3 and the horsepower to do it smoothly. (JellyBean of course). It doesnt look or feel cheap, but deffinately doesnt look as high end as the iPhone either.

If the IP5 had all the eye candy as well, id consider the smaller screen.

I think youll miss the gs3 too much to stick with IP5.

 

[daveathall]

After 24 hours.

The iPhone 5 looks like a quality product, I do believe however that those that associate quality with heft will be disappointed, I am not one who subscribes to this thought. In all respects the fit and finish of this phone IMHO, is superb. It feels very nice in the hand, my 4S felt really outdated, heavy and slab like compared to my S3 after only a couple of days, the iPhone 5 corrects this and feels up to date and comfortable.

I still have not got used to the smaller screen size, with my S3 the transition to a larger screen took less than a day, this is compounded by the fact that only a very few apps are ready for the larger screen on the iP5, I realise that this is a bit unfair on my part and that app developers will be working to upgrade their apps soonest, in particular, large companies like Sky TV in the UK should be looking to enhance an already good service with the larger screen real estate now available, Tapatalk will also benefit from taking advantage of the larger reading area.

I miss the back button more than I imagined I would. The lack of the simple feature of pulling down the notification bar to toggle wi fi, bluetooth etc on and off is also something that I find annoying. I miss widgets but this is not a deal breaker.

It is nice to have the Apple TV and 1 Password Pro app available on my phone again, the first being absent from Google playstore, the second being unworkable (for me) on Android.

Reception seems about the same with both devices, the same can be said about call quality.

It would be unfair to compare battery life as at the moment I am using it more than normal as I strive to get used to the phone.

I have only had this phone for 24 hours and fully recognise that all the above are criticisms of something that at the moment seem strange to me, the same can be said when I swapped my iP4S to my SGS3 and fully expect my findings over the coming weeks to change somewhat as the phone becomes more "normal" in my hand.

I will have had the iPhone 5 for a week tomorrow.

My thoughts haven't changed much from when I had the phone for a day, some minor points to add though.

I have not had any of the reported wifi problems on my iP5.

Battery is on a par with my S3, I don't use maps that often but when I do, I prefer street view, but that is not a deal breaker. I also prefer to have a notification LED. The keyboard is tiny and I still miss the ease of Swype on my S3.

I can't help feeling that I will be switching back to my S3 after a month, TBH, it may well be sooner. After one week of having my S3, my iPhone 4S was relegated to the cupboard until I sold it, I never gave it a second thought. I cant say the same this time, as good a phone as the iPhone 5 is, apart from the more up to date case and look, it is IMHO too close to being a 4S, nothing much (for me) has changed.

 

[onthecouchagain]

I've hopped between Android, iPhone, then now currently back to Android.

Before, there was good reason to switch back to iOS. Today, there isn't, or at least not enough to offset the reasons to stay with Android. Stock Android has really gotten to a point where it's good enough to stick around long term.

I still use iOS on my iPad, and I gotta say, lack of back button, lack of dedicated settings/menu button in apps, lack of so many useful functionality in iOS makes the experience a bit frustrating. Thankfully, I don't require much with my iPad other than leisurely browsing and playing games, so it's not a big deal.

But from my smartphone that is with me all the time the demands are more. The flexibility goes a very long way in making the phone experience more pleasurable and usable.

Stay the path, OP, if Android's the way for you.

 

[daveathall]

I have had the iPhone for a week now. I was going to keep it for a month, but I now see that it would be a waste of a further 3 weeks. IMHO the iPhone 5 is very close to its predecessor, the iPhone 4S. As previously stated I had swapped my iPhone 4S for a Galaxy S3 because (for me) it was a better phone. Nothing new that I have seen from the iPhone 5 changes that opinion.

I have supported Apple through my previous purchases of iPhone 3GS, 4, 4S, MBP, Apple TV, iPad and 2 iPod classics and was really hoping that this new iPhone would blow the competition out of the water, hell even if it was close, I would have forgiven it its shortcomings and gone with it because of my reliance to the Apple ecosystem. I really wanted to like this phone but can't, as good a phone as it is (and it is a good phone) I enjoy my S3 better, nothing has changed in that regard.

I am not technically minded and have not jailbroken or rooted any of my phones, I just find that even with a basic knowledge, one can customise (in minutes) the S3 to ones personal preference a lot better. I think I can sum it up like this; If both phones were TVs, the iPhone 5 would have a smaller screen, which in some cases isn't too bad, but tellingly, it would have fewer channels.

I think that there are a lot of myths spun when it comes to Android phones that might have been true in the past, however, IMHO, these tired old arguments are continued to be used by people that have not experienced the newer generation of Android but want them still to be true, or have spent only a couple of minutes using a shop display model, this is a shame, because those opinions nearly influenced me to not even bother with the S3. But I did, I bought the S3 and expected to be huddled over an instruction manual with a slow buggy phone that I couldn't get to work satisfactorily, and even when I could, the battery life would have been so bad that it would not last the day out. My experiences are the complete opposite, and convince me that some are blinded by a misguided loyalty to a single company or phone and would do well to sample other products and then to comment, good or bad. Some may be surprised.

I have the opportunity to pick from what I regard as he best two smart phones on sale at the moment. I have them physically to hand as I type, my decision is not based on others comments, but my real life experience of both phones. I will be selling the iPhone 5 and keeping the SGS3.

All the above and previous posts are of course, just my opinion and are how I use and want my phone to work. Both the S3 and iP5 are superb phones.

 

[atrampus]

Great write up - I bought a SGS3 when they first came out, and quickly put it away, and reverted back to my trusty 64Gb i4s.

I then jailbroke the phone etc, but low-and-behold, when the mess (to me at least) that is ios6 came along, I whipped out the SGS3 again. I have been using it for the last 2 days, and I absolutely adore it - the screen size is E*P*I*C, and I love the swype keyboard function.

I don't know if I'll upgrade to the Note2, but I will definitely upgrade to the S3 4G in 64GB (if / when it comes).

Like you, I will be selling my iPhone now.

 

[Achillias]

Got a Samsung Galaxy S3 aswell after selling my iPhone 4S. Wouldn't trade it for the iPhone 5, the Samsung Galaxy S3 is such a great smartphone.