Actually looked at SGS3 today. Unbelievably light. It was very fast with zero lag, but to me the screen seemed small. Guess thats because I use a Galaxy Note. Seemed like a nice phone though. Felt great in the hand, but it was so surprisingly light, I can see why some say it feels cheap.Didn't feel cheap to me though.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Phones iPhone 4S vs Galaxy S3
- Thread starter AppleTB
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Comparing these two phones makes no sense, only fair to wait until the iPhone 5 drops, if it ever does but then it still won't be better than the S3.
So when the iPhone 5 is released, then you'll all be comparing the iPhone 5 to a 4-5 month old phone
You must compared the iPhone 4S to the Samsung Galaxy S3 right now, because that's the best phone on the market. It makes no sense to buy an iPhone 4S now, because it's beaten by miles.
..but yet they listed the Gleam? WTF?! lol To me, that kills their credibility. They don't have the Maxx listed, yet they list some phone called the Gleam?
It's from Which UK. The Maxx hadn't been released in the UK at the time the chart was published (it only came out a few weeks ago in the UK IIRC).
Phazer
----------
He's correct, at least on the iPhone, as the memory bus to the USB controller is nowhere near the max throughput of a USB transfer.
I can't do even the simplest iTunes change in less than 7 minutes, most take over 30.
And that's a problem, as I don't leave my computer running overnight. It's a noisy waste of electricity.
I don't know the mechanics behind it but iTunes takes about three times longer to sync things to my iPad than simply copy/pasting onto my mounted S3. Both connected via USB2 so should be fair. Maybe it's because of optimisations that iTunes makes to content being sent over, but the optimisations aren't always wanted
Not really sure how people buy these Android devices such as the Galaxy SIII or the One X. I guess I have been spoiled over the last few years by the "pure" Apple experience, so the thought of buying one of those phones that are reliant on carriers for updates and come with all kinds of bloat ware seems like a step backwards.
At this point any move towards an Android device for me would have to be a Nexus.
At this point any move towards an Android device for me would have to be a Nexus.
You don't really have to rely on carriers. I bought an O2 branded device, but I've just flashed the official unbranded firmware update released yesterday by Samsung. It doesn't void warranty as it's an official firmware, and only takes five minutes to install (ten for me because I'm new at this so read everything twice.)
I don't even think there'd be any way of knowing that mine was bought as an O2 branded phone - there's no O2 logo on the phone itself and it's running unbranded firmware, which can now be updated over the air whenever Samsung releases an update.
It's painless
I got to spend a couple of hours with the AT&T model yesterday before the demo was set up. This was fresh out the box and mostly unmolested by human hands.
Observations:
It's light and thin but wide and generally too large. For easy one handed operation I prefer 4.3" maximum.
The screen is very dim even on max brightness. Compared to other AMOLED phones, it's one of the darkest on AT&T. Even the cheaper Focus 2 produced better whites and brightness.
The rendering of the UI itself is smooth but responsiveness has slight lag. For example if you have the browser open and hit the home button the iPhone 4S gets you home immediately, but the S3 hesitates.
Pebble blue is horrendous. White looks much better. That plastics used dont feel as tangible compared to the One X and Lumia 900.
I like Touchwiz more than Sense.
IPhone 4S takes better photos and overall is snappier in terms of responsiveness.
File sharing using NFC is a kick butt feature that has lots of potential.
iPhone 4S was faster on HSPA+ consistently. There is no AT&T LTE here yet.
Overall not a bad phone. Not enough to make me go back to android, but not bad. I wouldn't trade my 4S for one though. In terms of software and user experience it's better than the One X, but the One X has vastly better build quality and hardware. The One X also feels nicer in the hand.
Observations:
It's light and thin but wide and generally too large. For easy one handed operation I prefer 4.3" maximum.
The screen is very dim even on max brightness. Compared to other AMOLED phones, it's one of the darkest on AT&T. Even the cheaper Focus 2 produced better whites and brightness.
The rendering of the UI itself is smooth but responsiveness has slight lag. For example if you have the browser open and hit the home button the iPhone 4S gets you home immediately, but the S3 hesitates.
Pebble blue is horrendous. White looks much better. That plastics used dont feel as tangible compared to the One X and Lumia 900.
I like Touchwiz more than Sense.
IPhone 4S takes better photos and overall is snappier in terms of responsiveness.
File sharing using NFC is a kick butt feature that has lots of potential.
iPhone 4S was faster on HSPA+ consistently. There is no AT&T LTE here yet.
Overall not a bad phone. Not enough to make me go back to android, but not bad. I wouldn't trade my 4S for one though. In terms of software and user experience it's better than the One X, but the One X has vastly better build quality and hardware. The One X also feels nicer in the hand.
Last edited:
This is because of the double tap home to launch S Voice option. If you disable it, it's faster, presumably because it doesn't wait to see if you press it again.
Also, you can change an option so that animations use less frames, which speeds up the device in general and makes it appear snappier.
I agree with the rest of your post pretty much. Difficult to reach top opposite corner to whatever hand you use if using one handed. Prefer white to blue but don't think blue looks horrendous, just not as good. 4S takes better photos a lot of the time, but the S3 is better in some regards. iPhone takes better photos "out of the box" , but if you tweak the S3 settings it can provide superior image quality in some scenarios. Each have their strengths.
NFC is very useful, not just for transfers but also NFC tags.
The screen is indeed dimmer than other devices. I think this is because super AMOLED screens aren't very reflective, so they don't need to be as bright to be visible outdoors. Probably due to battery life concerns too.
Only 1 year later after the iPhone 4 was released (which I bought on release day) it didn't get the new biggest feature: Siri.
Two years later the iPhone 4 still doesn't get the new biggest feature: turn by turn navigation (and no flyover or 3D maps).
So only thing we would get is Facebook integration (already on android for years), new phone options for send sms when dismissing a call (already on android for 9 months), FaceTime over 3G (I think this one is not in the iPhone 4 either, but don't care since its the most stupid new feature announced. People laughed at Google for introducing a new "butter" feature and don't laugh at Apple for introducing FaceTime 3G TWO YEARS LATER AFTER IT WAS FIRST ANNOUNCED IN IOS 4. 2 years later!!).
So, as you can say, the iPhone 4, which currently is only one generation behind (after the 4S) is already obsolete and not getting the main new features.
With Android happens just the same. So there is no difference between both, except maybe on Android you can install a custom ROM and get ALL the new features.
Why would I have stayed with the iPhone 4 when Im not getting Siri and turn by turn and what Im getting are features android already has had for a long time? It makes no sense. Apple updates are not that good as you can see.
From the iPhone 3GS release in mid 2009, through to iOS 6, hundreds of features have been added. Of these hundreds, only three aren't on the iPhone 3GS - Facetime, Siri, and the new mapping system.
From the iPhone 4 release in mid 2010, through to iOS 6, hundreds of features have been added. Of these hundreds, only two aren't on the iPhone 4 - Siri and the new mapping system.
This includes all of the security updates, and all of the hundreds of thousands of apps that require the latest iOS version to run (upgraded APIs and such).
In contrast, 93% of Android devices cannot run Google's own Chrome browser. This is the price of fragmentation.
and 99% of those new features in iOS have been available in Android for years. This is the price for owning a phone with an inferior OS.
I have to disagree with you on photo taking. I have both a 4S and S3 and The S3 photo's and video's are much better quality. Lets see what the new iPhones brings to the table.
Despite the fact that he does troll here, you do have to admit that mbell has a point - Android has had a lot of the features added to iOS since the beginning, or very early on.
The first Android version I had was 2.1 Eclair, and that could attach any file to email, had voice commands, had a pull down unobtrusive notification bar, copy/paste, full blown multitasking, turn by turn navigation etc.
In many respects that version of Android was still more advanced than iOS 6 and that's about two years old now.
I'm sure those "hundres of features" were really great.
You have ignored 2/3rds of my argument, and are attempting instead to focus the discussion on the 1/3rd you find the weakest, even though my main argument would still stand without it.
A typical poster would respond by listing some of the hundreds of features (including under-the-hood improvements like API enhancements, which make all apps better), and show how even the iPhone 3GS will benefit greatly from this, but what's the point? You'll probably pick out another detail, on which the main argument does not depend, and say it sucks again, without supporting your statement with any relevant facts.
I agree, but mainly when I play with the settings. By default the iPhone sometimes takes clearer shots out of the box.
With ISO set to 100 and adequate light, the S3 stomps the iPhone.
That depends on your definition of "advanced". My Windows Mobile phone from 2005 was doing all of this, but I wouldn't label it as "more advanced" than my iPhone 4S. Shoot, that phone was doing things I don't think any current Android phone does. Does that make it "more advanced" than Android as well?
The iPhone has functionality that Android still to this day does not replicate, how do you show which phone is "more advanced" when they both have functionality missing in the other?
I consider the most advanced platform, to be the one with the most advanced software, and the current developer climate says that's iOS.
From what I've seen, the S3 does not have a good camera at all. The dynamic range is very bad, with highlights consistently blown out, where the iPhone 4S shows additional detail in those areas.
You tend to talk about apps as though they're iOS features; are you talking about apps available for iOS that aren't available for Android, or are you talking about iOS itself?
iOS does of course do things that Android can't, but in terms of core features it's clear that Android is ahead.
No, my post highlighted the fact that my argument stands unrefuted, as you have yet to offer anything to negate it.
The video shows otherwise and i trust that over what you would post since you arent open minded and use every camera app made.
How about using some different images?
I.e. ones that aren't hand picked to show the iPhone as the winner.
The mere fact that everyone is going back and forth on these things shows that both Android and IOS are both advance platforms that are very comparable to another. Whether one is better than the other at this point is purely subjective to the person and there tastes.