I, too, made the switch to the S3 yesterday from the Iphone (I've had the original iPhone, a 3Gs and a 4). Well, I say switch but I'm currently running them both until I decide which to stick with.
Some observations:
- Without rooting the S3, it's not quite as customizable out of the box as many would have you believe. You're pretty limited as to what you can show on the lockscreen in terms of notifications - e.g. when I wake my IP4 up, it shows me recent emails/Fb notifications etc on the screen. The S3 just shows me a tiny icon at the top (and flashes an LED which is like something I didn't use in the 90s never mind now). You can do all sorts with the UI when you root it but then, my IP4 is jailbroken and I'm fairly sure I could do just as much on that.
- I'm having real issues pairing the S3 to my car (Lexus IS220d) - it pairs, but when if i do anything else with bluetooth (e.g. stream music or copy address book entries), it loses the phone profile and won't reconnect until I remove the pairing and re-pair it. Googling and looking up various forums indicates that it's a common issue with no real fix yet.
- That said, it *is* nice to be able to send address book entries via BT - something my IP4 cannot manage without a JB app (to the Lexus at least)
- Google Play is ok to navigate through but the content is not a patch on the App Store, most of the apps i use regularly on iOS are there but I find most to be slightly more expensive.. I thought it would be the other way around.
- I do like that I can set default apps for specific actions - for example when I click on a url in any app, it asks me which browser I want to use (and can be set as default).
- The stock music app is "ok" but misses a lot of features such as gapless audio. AVRCP 1.3 is supported in the S3 but USB audio is not (at least until Jelly Bean and I'm not talking about USB storage file access but actually media streaming through USB as per iPod/iPhone).
- The samsung email app has issues with some exchange server configurations. I cannot get it to connect to my client's exchange server at all where my IP4/iPad has no issues. To get around it, I installed the leading Android Exchange client which was £12 - a touch pricey for something I take for granted as a built in feature in iOS.
- I agree that the plastic back does not feel as good as the IP4.. however, I consider that a small price to pay for being able to replace the battery (and even the back cover if I choose to).
- WiFi seems a little weaker than my IP4 - putting both side by side or swapping one with the other in the same location and the S3 seems to indicate a much lower signal strength. It might just be the way it's displayed but it does seem to drop the wifi connection way before my IP4 does.
- The quick access to various fuctions (flight mode, mobile data etc) from the drop down notifications (even when locked) is excellent - negates the need for something like SBSettings to avoid digging into iOS menus.
Looking up, I realise many of these are negatives towards the S3. However, I do actually like the device - the screen is very nice for pretty much any activity, it feels good in the hand and I've not experienced any performance issues. Battery performance seems to be roughly on par with the IP4 (still being tested though) and I way prefer having a MicroUSB connection to the proprietary Apple one (i can now share a charging cable between my Kindle, S3 and MyFi mobile broadband device).
My plan is to probably pass the IP4 to my partner (and she will retire the 3GS) and stick with the S3 until late fall and make a decision about whether to grab an IP5 or not.
