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I am thinking about upgrading from S2, can someone with both phones compare - what advantages (if any ) / disadvantages Note has over S2 ?
Obviously Note has bigger screen - but screen aside - did you notice any other area where Note triumphs S2 ? (GPS, wifi, battery life with screen turned on, sound quality, camera, sotware issues...) How about heat problems ? S2 can get pretty hot under high workload, is Note any better ? (afaik it basically runs the same chip just clocked higher which makes me wondering)
Also regarding the screen - are the colors / brightness / outdoor visibility etc. the same and the difference is only in size / resolution / ppi ? And finally: is there someone who tried both and actually preferred S2 ?
They're almost the same. For me the major difference is battery life and spen ... I love to sketch. So I switched. Battery is superb.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using XDA App
I don't own either, but from what I've seen the battery is way better on the Note than basically any other Android phone. Colors will be slightly less vibrant because it's not a SAMOLED+ display, it's just SAMOLED. But honestly, who cares? It's 720p!
Yumunum said:
I don't own either, but from what I've seen the battery is way better on the Note than basically any other Android phone. Colors will be slightly less vibrant because it's not a SAMOLED+ display, it's just SAMOLED. But honestly, who cares? It's 720p!
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Click to collapse
The colors are amazing. I find them just as vibrant as the S2. The only real difference is the pentile display, but the dpi is so high you can't even tell. I find the screen to be far more useful than the S2 with the extra size and resolution.
Battery life wasn't great at first but once I turned off latitude and froze a few samsung apps it got MUCH better. Oh, and using minimum brightness is a major factor too. I wasn't too happy about turning the brightness down but after a day you don't notice it. I just have a widget on the desktop so I can quickly turn up the brightness if I need to.
After using the phone for a bit more, the Note is better in some ares:
-GLONASS satellite system allows it very fast lock in and response, although its not as precise as GPS, maybe 5-10ft off, but realky isn't an issue at all.
-Better PPI, but can see grains if eyes 6" from the screen.
-Screen is slightly brighter.
Cons: Can't operate it one handed at all due to size.
Sound quality is the same, not bad but not great. Same camera I think. Both can get pretty warm, but a case helps.
battery life: qualitatively it seems note lasts longer.
sound quality: equally good but note louder esp on speaker.
heat: i suppose any phone will heat up under stress e.g. video, charging but by and large i have never felt much heat from either.
camera: this is one area note is better than S2. S2 had weird pink hues but this is less noticeable in note. the screen seems to respond better in camera mode for note too.
in short, unless size and portability are major concerns, note is a better get. hope this helps!
comrad said:
I am thinking about upgrading from S2, can someone with both phones compare - what advantages (if any ) / disadvantages Note has over S2 ?
Obviously Note has bigger screen - but screen aside - did you notice any other area where Note triumphs S2 ? (GPS, wifi, battery life with screen turned on, sound quality, camera, sotware issues...) How about heat problems ? S2 can get pretty hot under high workload, is Note any better ? (afaik it basically runs the same chip just clocked higher which makes me wondering)
Also regarding the screen - are the colors / brightness / outdoor visibility etc. the same and the difference is only in size / resolution / ppi ? And finally: is there someone who tried both and actually preferred S2 ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Allrighty.
I currently own both, and can help you out with answering a few things.
I'll start off with something that I haven't seen many if any even, touch base on:
Typing is a dream. I used the stock Gingerbread keyboard on my Galaxy SII as it was the most comfortable one for me, but found it a tad cramped at times and landscape was just too wide to type anything on naturally. On the Note using the same keyboard, I personally had fewer mistakes and found that my typing speed had stayed near dead on to my thumbing on the smaller brother. I'd say it hits that sweet spot for completely comfortable portrait typing.
The sound quality in call is right on par with that of the GSII, dare I say even a little bit better. In any of the time I've spent talking on it, I haven't had an issue and it's clear on the other end.
Battery life is most certainly better. It's not worlds better, but I have no worries that I won't kill my battery come the end of my day and get home, whereas there were days were I was cutting it too close for comfort on the GSII. I'm a light to moderate user, with locally stored music playback anywhere from 1-7 hours, screen on time around 3-4 hours, bluetooth always on (for MBW-150), and no wifi every day.
I've found the software for the camera to be improved. It's not Nexus-fast in terms of snapping off a photo, but it's easily much faster at taking a photo on the Note than the GSII. Image quality and detail is on par with the GSII's snapper.
The Note is the same as the SII in terms of heat. That hasn't changed, but this is only if you're actually working it by playing games or watching HD video. Likewise, it stays cool with regular use, as does the SII.
Screen saturation is almost that of the SII's screen, but not enough to fret about. I've found the colour on the Note's screen to be a touch warmer, but that could very well be because it's a newer screen with less on time than my GSII. Outdoor visibility isn't an issue, at my usual screen brightness of 25% I have no problems making out what's on the screen throughout the day, even in near direct sunlight. This was the same case with it's smaller sibling, so no real differences here.
As a note about the Note's screen (pardon the pun), the screen is fantastic. Flat out. Text, images, and video are easily more crisp and enjoyable to view on the Note than the SII. Because of the high pixel density, you can't even make out the sup pixels while reading unless you bring the phone less than 6" away from your face and even then it's difficult.
I absolutely love my Note. Everyone I've showed it to has had the same reaction: "Wow. It huge!". So it most certainly stands out if that might matter to you. There are times where I miss the GSII for it's size and general 'feel'. It's definitely been tamed and feels a touch more responsive while moving through the OS, and the light weight was always a plus. There have been times where my hand was slightly fatigued from holding the Note, but again this really is a two handed device.
To sum it all up, I bought my Galaxy SII in August. I just got my Note about a week ago, never handling or seeing one in real life and I feel it was a worthy enough upgrade. My reasoning is of course biased for my wants in the device, but chances are if you're looking into getting this device, you'll surely be impressed.
It is interesting to see different experiences with SGS2 and Note. I own both, and here is my quick comparison.
Screen - I like the bigger format ( I love the bigger format) but the screen is not as bright as SGS2. White is little bit grayish. Colors are pretty much same, I don't see the problem with RGB or pentile display. So Note: 1 point.
Sound - I absolutely love the sound, all notifications are louder, in call volume louder, speaker louder and more bass. Note: 1 point
Wi Fi signal: I tested SGS2, Note, Galaxy Tab and my wife's Iphone 4G wifi signal strength in my house, I have latest Linksys router, super fast cable internet with latest modem capable up to 100 mbps, in real I am getting 54 mbps. Note performed worst of all of them. Around 16 mbps versus 22 for SGS 2 and iPhone. Very dissapointed with wi fi signal strength as well, loosing signal in places where SGS2 and iPhone still works ok. Note: 0 points, SGS 2 : 1 point.
Camera: oh boy, much much worse than SGS 2, I couldn't believe how bad this camera is. I will post later side by side pictures from both phones with same settings, you will be surprised. Not focusing as quickly as SGS2, white balance off, takes ages refocusing between light area and dark area, etc... SGS 2: 1 more point here.
Stylus: since SGS2 doesn't have it, Note gets 1 more point here, because I find this feature very useful for my business and it was one of the main reasons I bought this phone. (screen and Stylus)
Scrolling between home screens is little bit laggy, much more noticeable than SGS2. Stock browser scrolling is jerky, not iphone smooth as SGS2. Wake up screen delay is 1.5 sec from pressing any button ( home or power) compared to almost instant screen on with SGS2.
Both phones running stock firmware, SGS2 is on UK unbranded 2.3.4 rooted, Note is on 2.3.6. German firmware not rooted.(yet)
Using it on USA AT&T carrier. Phone signal more less same,somewhere SGS2 performs better, somewhere Note has better signal, but I am satisfied with both phones performances.
Overall I prefer Note right now, it may be because of it's novelty versus my "old" SGS2, but it will be very hard for me to go to smaller size screen phone after using Note. Probably the best phone I ever had so far. I bought Note without seeing it in real from Amazon.de and I am not dissapointed with the purchase.
enjoy it, life is short.
Well thanks everyone, my general impressions from what has been said are:
1.) Screen is much better
2.) Battery is much better
3.) Pen is a potential advantage (I almost forgot about the pen)
4.) Experience with remaining features can vary (probably due to manufacturing differences ?) but overall they are all more or less comparable to Galaxy S2
5.) With one exception being GPS, at least based on this video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=arOYNNux_mg
it seems the Note's GPS should be quite superior (it may be the best GPS in any phone yet ?)
So if screen, battery life and GPS are improved over S2 then it's probably good enough for me. However it would be much cleaner cut if there would be more horsepower under the hood as well I'd love some faster CPU, 32GB of storage and faster stock sd cards. (Actually I'd love to see some SSD on it You can put SSD into a netbook so why not to a phone ? )
Also one thing I would probably prefer is to have 16:9 (720 height instead of 800) display and about 4.8 - 5" big, slightly more portable and less funny looking while making a call. Maybe they've opted for Note's aspect ratio as to give better support for note taking ?
ive had my galaxy note for a month. just picked up a free galaxy s2 today on vodafone AU's $29 cap. personally, i think i'll stick with the note. everything about the note is just more convenient for me. bigger screen makes portrait keyboard awesome, higher res makes everything look better. battery life is only better on the note with gaming and video watching, both are on par for web browsing battery life due to the weakness of samoled.
gps is much much better on my galaxy note. locks down fairly well when im indoors whilst the s2 cant even lock after running it for half an hour in navigation mode.
as for the screen ratio, samsung havent made a phone that uses 16:9 screen ratio for a fair while (if they have made any at all, cant seem to think of any). the slightly wider/taller (depending on how you look at it) makes portrait keyboard useful, but i must agree, the extra pixels are wasted on videos. if you want a 16:9 screen ratio, look towards the lg nitro hd and galaxy nexus.
one thing the galaxy nexus has that these phones dont seem to have is the correct positioning of the 3.5mm socket. the galaxy nexus has it positioned on the bottom, like my old n900. this is the perfect place for the socket since it means you can pull your phone out of your pocket when headphones are plugged in and it will be the right way up. it also means if youre plugging it into anything in your car, it wont have any silly cables coming out the top. its one of those little things that are nice and much appreciated. but im digressing a bit here.
overall, the phones will be similar, with the screen being the main difference and the unique advantage of the note will be the S pen. but that may be a bit of a downer in terms of update speed. for the galaxy s2, all samsung need to do is refine the experience, add touchwiz, and its all ready. for the note, they need to add touchwiz and then modify the S-Pen apps to run correctly as well. shouldnt delay the release of ICS for the note by too much considering samsung should have gained experience with ICS when working with the galaxy nexus, but its still a bit of a delay.
and i dont think SSDs will be needed on phones for a fair while. honestly, when will you need a read speed faster than 20mb/s? or a write speed faster than that? its only really useful when transferring files to and from a PC, but as to actual device usage, it has little impact. videos are encoded at what? 17mbps? thats still only 2-3mb/s of write speed needed. theres very little on the device that could take advantage of the added speed of an SSD. its just something that will drive up the product cost with very little benefit in realworld usage. apps load quickly enough so i dont think samsung would bother to consider an SSD for phones anytime soon.
Souai said:
and i dont think SSDs will be needed on phones for a fair while. honestly, when will you need a read speed faster than 20mb/s? or a write speed faster than that? its only really useful when transferring files to and from a PC, but as to actual device usage, it has little impact.
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Faster than 20MB/s - yes it's mainly for data transfer. But note also that while most android apps are small, some (especially games which can have couple of hundreds of MBs) should benefit from faster storage. And if you bench seq. write speed of S2 it's nowhere near to 20MB/s. It's more like 5-7MB/s - very slow for large data transfers (I don't know if Galaxy Note is any better). The internal memory of S2 is of course optimized for fast random reads/writes rather then seq. speeds. But if we can have high capacity USB3 sticks with read / write speeds above 100 MB/s and still very good random read/write speeds (e.g. 64GB flash for about 100€) then maybe to have phone with 32GB-64GB internal memory and 50/30MB/s and USB3 etc. could be done for similar price (which would be very fine with me).
Note seems to be well suited for video playback but with typical 720p movie at about 5GB I find the 12GB internal + 32GB external SD cards quite limiting in capacity as well as in transfer speeds (esp. considering that I need permanently at least 16GB for my music collection and lot's of free space for 1080p video recording) Surprisingly most netbooks have comparable RAM capacity and CPU speeds (at least for non floating point tasks) to those of highend smartphones, yet the storage capacity and seq. transfer speeds on netbooks is order of magnitudes higher.
I got it today ! It's very big AND unfortunately the side panel has annoying squeaking problem. It's only on one place - below the volume button, exactly where I tend to leave my fingers. Anyone else with the same problem ? Never had any squeaking problems on SGS2.
Is there a possibility that the back cover has not been clicked in place properly? I get squeaking too when that happens.
I have both phones.
When I got the Note I wanted to sell the S2, even had a buyer for it.
But after I used the Note for a day I start to have serious second thoughts.
The S2 is so much smoother ... Honestly, in this respect the Note is much closer to SG1 than SG2.
Hey mates
I have both of these phones myself, and I'm just wondering is there any possibilities to move memos from SGS2 to note??
Chagrim said:
Hey mates
I have both of these phones myself, and I'm just wondering is there any possibilities to move memos from SGS2 to note??
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Click to collapse
With the backup feature on the PC, with syncing them to google, with the option to back them up with MyBackup, there are a lot of options Probably the easiest would be go into the options of your SGS2 Memo app and sync it to google, and then just redownload them on the Note. I like everything OTA. I dislike having to plug everything in to get stuff done.
zkyevolved said:
With the backup feature on the PC, with syncing them to google, with the option to back them up with MyBackup, there are a lot of options Probably the easiest would be go into the options of your SGS2 Memo app and sync it to google, and then just redownload them on the Note. I like everything OTA. I dislike having to plug everything in to get stuff done.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok, now I feel myself really dumb! Thanks for that
holgalee said:
Is there a possibility that the back cover has not been clicked in place properly? I get squeaking too when that happens.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's not possible because I tripplechecked (by removing and putting back) the cover prior to asking here.
But there is more to Note than that: I saw videos of Note compared to S2 etc. on youtube I saw pictures in reviews etc. but nothing could prepare me to how big it actually is in real. I will be probably in minority here but I can't avoid thinking that it's actually too big - for calling it a phone at least. At the same time I could live with larger screen and res than S2 (mostly for comfortable video watching) So I think if I could spec and ideal phone for me, based on interpolation between S2 and Note it would have display comparable to Galaxy Nexus (1280x720 ~ 4.7" - 4.8", 120g - 140g) that should be a perfect balance between display usefulness and overall portability. Too bad they've crippled Nexus with missing SD slot and missing flash support. Hope that Galaxy S3 will hit it all right (I already can't wait ) Btw any chance Note's awesome GPS making it to other Samsung phones ? (can it be put to any phone regardless of it's size ?) As far as GPS goes the difference is stunning (basically a toy like implementation vs. state of the art awesomeness)
Now I have hard time deciding what to do with Note: I should probably return it but then the screen is so awesome that it's very tough to just return it, even when I don't need it Btw about the screen and pentile vs. non-pentile debate: there were only few occasions when I noticed there was some grain on the Note without looking for it, e.g. the red birds in Angry Birds Rio and orange balloon in Samsung demo video (from 0:36) On galaxy2 I never noticed any grain (even when looking for it), so yes Superamoled Plus would be even nicer but for 99% of practical cases it doesn't matter to me.
Where are those comparsion photos that someone mentioned. Has anyone had the camera perform poorly?
I own both, well I gave the S2 to the missus when I got the Note.
The Note is equivalent too, or better then the S2 in everything. I would find it impossible to have an S2 as my main phone now after having used the Note for almost a month.
You will hear a lot of negativity about the size of the Note, I kept hearing it is too big, it is uncomfortable to carry etc etc. Nonsense. It took me a day (max) to get use to the size, it fits in all my pockets comfortably and is very portable. Dare I say it I think it could even be a tad bigger, maybe 5.5" All other phones now seem tiny to me, and this has become the standard. I don't think I will be able to go back to a small(er) phone after using this.
I have found the camera and video recording similar to the S2. GPS on the Note is amazing, I get a lock in seconds, it beats every other satnav/phone I have ever owned. The screen... wow. One month on and it still impresses me. Games, Videos, Satnav, Internet Browsing even Ebook reading is all a joy on the Note, it is the ultimate all in one device imo.
Hi all,
I'm interested in what people think of their phone? I'm an interested buyer and know that talking to people here can be very useful before a purchase!
I bought a cool phone a few months ago but it has one terrible point - the battery is crap (1320mha). The S3 Mini has 'only' 1500mha but I notice in reviews it ranks really well for battery, more like a 1800-2000mha battery. I'm also very interested in AMOLED which doesn't use an LCD backlight. (more vivid colours, black uses tiny battery, white uses a lot).
Why I like this phone and might buy it:
- battery performs very well in online reviews, especially for web browsing which I need
- the latest Android, good specs for future upgrades
- AMOLED screen doesn't use battery-killing LCD backlight
- Good size for one hand, I'm a grown man but not a bear, my hands are not huge
Anything anyone would like to say about their phone?? Anything annoy you about your phone?
GSM Arena S3 Mini Battery Test:
http://blog.gsmarena.com/samsung-ga...hes-our-battery-tests-the-results-are-inside/
GSM Arena S3 Mini Specifications:
http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i8190_galaxy_s_iii_mini-5033.php
I love this phone! Was after a decent upgrade for my Desire S and this is perfect!
My only real gripe is the power button...stupid place to put them on the side, as I sometimes turn it off when it's in my pocket! Never happened when it was on the top with my DS.
Also got over the low PPI which isn't actually THAT bad.
It's fast and is perfect size IMO.
My only real problem with this phone (coming from a Dream, a Cliq, a Vision, and a Doubleshot) is the lack of a hardware keyboard. Other than that, this device is great. Cyanogen just needs to leak us the recovery source code.
Would I recommend this phone to a new user? YES
Good Points
------------------
Great Battery (with moderate usage I can get a day and a half out of it)
Front and Back cameras (Excellent for video calling)
Jellybean
Quick and responsive
Bad Points
-----------------
No notifications LED
Poor positioning of power button
Low internal storage (but fixable)
No flash (but fixable)
Poorish screen resolution (but not a big issue)
Awful email client
Bugs in jellybean
Lots of Samsung bloatware
Although there seems more bad than good with this phone once you root the phone you can sort out a lot of them. You can use bloatware remover to delete samsung's bloat. The internal storage limit can be fixed so instead of your apps being installed to the internal sdcard they get installed to the external sdcard. You can download flash for ICS from adobes archives. The main gripe I had was the lack of a notifications LED meaning you don't know if you've had a missed call if the screen is off. There is an app called NOLED which addresses this and other apps that flash your cameras LED. There are quite a few things I had to sort out before I was happy like getting a 3rd party keyboard as the inbuilt dictionary was rubbish and an installed widget called zoom messaging kept on crashing.
One problem the S3 Mini has is people will compare it to its big brother the S3. This is Samsung's fault for trying to pass this phone as a smaller version of the S3 when it is not. However it is still a very good phone in its own right.
You don't need to install additional apps to get flash light. There is widget called "assistive light" for it.
Sent from my GT-I8190 using Tapatalk
My old Nokia N8, also amoled, had the screen 'always-on', but almost black and with the clock shown in dark grey so it used very little battery. This was a great idea imho, considering doing a mod to do the same on the S3 mini. This could integrate well with 4.2 and the lock-screen widgets.
xd.bx said:
My old Nokia N8, also amoled, had the screen 'always-on', but almost black and with the clock shown in dark grey so it used very little battery. This was a great idea imho, considering doing a mod to do the same on the S3 mini. This could integrate well with 4.2 and the lock-screen widgets.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey buddy. Yeah, that fits in very well with what I read about AMOLED, I read up on it recently as I because semi-convinced that the backlight in LCD screens are evil An organisation of companies involved in AMOLED production and development have a free PDF online which explains the technology simply and why it's better than LCD in their opinion. They did say that black on the screen uses very, very little energy but white uses a LOT of energy. So we would properly feel the benefits of the darker UI on Android with an AMOLED screen, whereas LCD would use the same amount of power regardless of the screen, so they claim.
I will definitely take your handy tip on the black screen and simple, grey clock...wish I could do that to my mobile broswer!
Does anyone use this phone as their main music player? How do you like it? My current phone has a music player that sounds much better than my iPod but the phone battery is terrible.
Also, would I be right in saying most people get about 1 day and a half out of the battery? I would like to use the phone for about 1hour-90 minutes of news reading, a couple of emails, 1 hour of music with earphones, 5 minutes of calls per day. With that my current phone cries like torture.
yes this are mid range phone and will update in lime pie someday
good battery bcoz of the novathor chipset.
Sent from my GT-I8190 using xda app-developers app
I have the gs3. I love the phone. It is still a good phone just like I miss my old htc evo. I was thinking about upgade to the GS5. What better than specs. The look and feel is the same. I mean the software. It nothing different. What you think pro and cons. im iffy on picking another galaxy or might go back to htc.
I understand your situation, I more or less was in the same place as you. I had the HTC one S and it was a great phone, built quality and the ui was superb. I went then to the S3, good phone not as good as the one S( the lag ?) but it had more features.
I went for a upgrade last week and I was in between the One M8 and the S5, the HTC is more snappy and it looks beautiful but then again I choose a galaxy, why? Well.... The features and camera but essentially the removable battery...
I guess in the end you will have to go through the same process and see which features you value more, what fits me may not fit you and I guess there no right or wrong here.
Sent from my SM-G900F using XDA Free mobile app
I have the SGS3 too and am looking to upgrade.
The SGS5 feels more of the same Samsung experience, and I want something better.
I would choose another brand: HTC, Motorola, LG, Sony...
I hate the build quality of the SGS5, the AMOLED screen (I hate saturated colors), the hardware home button and capacitive buttons instead of on screen buttons, the annoying USB flap cover, the chrome bezel that will wear off and look terrible in 2 years just like in my SGS3, TouchWiz is still the worst skin (looks and performance and it takes a LOT of RAM compared to other skins), etc.
I'm looking to buy the X+1 or maybe Moto G2.
I had the S3 and S4, and now the S5.
I liked each one more than the previous one, and each one had better battery duration than the previous one.
I felt a better upgrate from the S4 to S5 than from the S3 to the S4.
I love the S5 camera, and the samsung software and apps.
I think you will like it a lot, personally i am already wanting the S6, (Hopping for at least 20MP camera, would love more ), i will keep my S5 as a tablet and spare phone, since i like it a lot.
I use it with touchwiz and havent rooted it yet, i will after i get the S6, since i will only need root for tablet functions i will use.
Sensamic said:
I have the SGS3 too and am looking to upgrade.
The SGS5 feels more of the same Samsung experience, and I want something better.
I would choose another brand: HTC, Motorola, LG, Sony...
I hate the build quality of the SGS5, the AMOLED screen (I hate saturated colors), the hardware home button and capacitive buttons instead of on screen buttons, the annoying USB flap cover, the chrome bezel that will wear off and look terrible in 2 years just like in my SGS3, TouchWiz is still the worst skin (looks and performance and it takes a LOT of RAM compared to other skins), etc.
I'm looking to buy the X+1 or maybe Moto G2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What are you talking about? GS5 has THE best screen as of today. If you choose the cinema mode, you get perfect color saturation.
If I want to get picky, then here it is...
HTC : hate camera and fugly internal build (they use too much tape)
Moto : also hate camera, old hardware (i don't care how optimized the software is, I'm not paying for old hardware), no sdcard, no removable battery.
LG : too large for my taste.
Sony : hasn't come out for VZW. no removable battery
G3 cons
Screen
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2797810
http://anandtech.com/show/8169/the-lg-g3-review/2
http://www.ixbt.com/mobile/images/lg-g3/vs-black-angle-alt-l.jpg
http://www.ixbt.com/mobile/images/lg-g3/vs-pict-angle-l.jpg
http://www.ixbt.com/mobile/lg-g3.shtml#display-test
Camera
s5
g3
http://pp.vk.me/c618826/v618826401/95e9/7bw7hDlOdSg.jpg
http://pp.vk.me/c618826/v618826401/95e2/NMeVKQWoFs0.jpg
http://pp.vk.me/c614824/v614824401/15efd/3awlVBQMNfo.jpg
http://pp.vk.me/c614824/v614824401/15ef4/hCockYiBow4.jpg
http://pp.vk.me/c619218/v619218401/ad50/vZosnbAwfNo.jpg
http://pp.vk.me/c619218/v619218401/ad49/TX4mRgFNq3I.jpg
http://www.phonearena.com/reviews/C...one-5s-LG-G2-Sony-Xperia-Z2-HTC-One-M8_id3728
http://blog.gsmarena.com/weekend-poll-lg-g3-vs-samsung-galaxy-s5/
http://www.phonearena.com/news/Sams...hird-time-in-a-row-LG-G3-close-second_id57178
Plastic body
No waterpoof
Lags
Pros
Thin bezels
OIS
S5 cons:
No OIS
PWM (240 ghz flickering at medium and low brightness) (perhaps fixed in LTE-A)
Not good calibration (In LTE-A almost fixed, in Galaxy Alpha even better than LTE-A)
Plastic body (fixed in Galaxy Alpha)
Oversaturate and rosiness in some situations in camera (fixed in Galaxy Alpha)
pros:
Oled (ideal response time (good in video), ideal black color, ideal contrast, ideal viewing angle, all much better than lcd)
Isocell (better detailing and awesome ideal colors if the firmware is normal (Alpha)
Waterproof
I have both, If you want FLUID, GS5 my S5 is as fluid as hell... Very nice experience, touchwiz is basically the same but speed and zappiness is much better, Screen quality is AMAZING, and camera\video? LOL you will laugh when you compare the S3 with the S5
I was in same place. Felt tired after my S3 with samsung. But in end wasn't impressed with HTC, windows options were pants and apple? Rather eat glass.
Got the S5 and haven't looked back. Faster, better screen and way better battery. As for the size. You quickly get use to it. Fits in my pocket fine. Holding S3 now, just feels tiny.
I've had the S5 since it came out and upgraded from the S3. The two biggest differences for me are the camera and screen quality. Those two things alone made me satisfied with the upgrade. Its also noticeably faster than the S3 and the water resistance is also nice. I haven't had a chance to play with any of the newer HTC phones so I can't offer any information there but overall I'm happy with the S5.
I have a sgs3 and the touchwiz is kinda laggy and also the preinstalled apps of samsung. My question is did samsung make any improvement in the touchwiz on kitkat? Did you see any difference? Is it any faster than the s3? Im thinking buying the note 4 but im worried about the touchwiz beeing slow and laggy
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patriotaki said:
I have a sgs3 and the touchwiz is kinda laggy and also the preinstalled apps of samsung. My question is did samsung make any improvement in the touchwiz on kitkat? Did you see any difference? Is it any faster than the s3? Im thinking buying the note 4 but im worried about the touchwiz beeing slow and laggy
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I think touchwiz definitely runs better on the S5 compared to the S3. I also rooted mine soon after buying it and removed most of the preinstalled stuff, so that helped as well.
santa_claws said:
I think touchwiz definitely runs better on the S5 compared to the S3. I also rooted mine soon after buying it and removed most of the preinstalled stuff, so that helped as well.
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Click to collapse
How about the gallery app does is it still slow?
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I'm completely in agreement with santa_claws the touchwiz experience is much more fluid. I too graduated from the s2 > s3 > s4 > s5 and with each upgrade I've come to expect more from Samsung. To my surprise they outdid themselves with the s5.
Being a juice freak I am STUNNED at the battery life. The screen display? omg. The camera? Fagetaboutit. Upgrade bro. Trust me. It will alter your view of the universe.
diagnosedmanic said:
I'm completely in agreement with santa_claws the touchwiz experience is much more fluid. I too graduated from the s2 > s3 > s4 > s5 and with each upgrade I've come to expect more from Samsung. To my surprise they outdid themselves with the s5.
Being a juice freak I am STUNNED at the battery life. The screen display? omg. The camera? Fagetaboutit. Upgrade bro. Trust me. It will alter your view of the universe.
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Click to collapse
+1 :good:
I love the S5 camera, and the fact that its waterproof
I had the S3 when it came out 2 years ago, I don't miss it at all. I'm coming from the Nexus 5 which was smooth as hell. You need some light mods on the S5 to make it even. Beside that, it's probably the best device I've owned. Awesome camera, waterproof, got plenty of videos underwater when I was in the south. Good battery life way better than the S3,you have air gesture, etc...
diagnosedmanic said:
I'm completely in agreement with santa_claws the touchwiz experience is much more fluid. I too graduated from the s2 > s3 > s4 > s5 and with each upgrade I've come to expect more from Samsung. To my surprise they outdid themselves with the s5.
Being a juice freak I am STUNNED at the battery life. The screen display? omg. The camera? Fagetaboutit. Upgrade bro. Trust me. It will alter your view of the universe.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah the camera and screen are pretty impressive. Before buying the phone I looked at some sample shots and didn't understand what all the hype was about. But then I realized that I was viewing the pics on my S3 with a lower resolution screen, lol. Once I viewed them on a decent quality screen I saw the huge difference.
And you are spot on about battery life. Much improved although I still carry an external battery with me for days of heavy use.
Lol yes that would definitely play a factor. Shoot I went a step further, I force fit an extended battery with an otterbox Defender case by cutting out a portion of the hard plastic. Works great and battery life is outstanding!
diagnosedmanic said:
Lol yes that would definitely play a factor. Shoot I went a step further, I force fit an extended battery with an otterbox Defender case by cutting out a portion of the hard plastic. Works great and battery life is outstanding!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I usually carry the external to charge my other devices (bluetooth headphones, tablet) but thats only when I have my bookbag with me. For the times I'm without my bag I like your idea. Would you mind posting your battery stats with your setup? Maybe I'll give it a try.
Thoughts on upgrading from the S6.
I have been an iPhone user since the first iPhone but started using the Galaxy S6 soon after its release. I had wanted to use android for sometime but I was always disappointed by the cameras — until the S6. To me the S6 camera was so good that it has been hard to justify switching back. However, the battery life of the S6 was/is just below my tolerance level and I was hoping for a slightly larger screen (I was using an iPhone 6+). I was getting about 3:15 screen on time and in general 20 hrs max of total charge time regardless of anything I tried. I figured the slight increase of the Note 5 was enough to move to the other side of my tolerance point and so I ordered one from AT&T. I've noticed a number of subtle improvements that were noticeable and important to me so I figured I would share these in case one of you is considering an upgrade. So here are some random thoughts/observations:
Cruft: I was concerned enough about the AT&T junk on the S6 I had moved to an unlocked version, but that led to a hit in battery life (slight). I ordered the AT&T note 5 so I could get it sooner and hit the right radios (or whatever). On the AT&T S6 there was a lot of stuff I could not even disable, which pissed me off. After rooting I could disable this crap, but I knew I would not be able to root the Note 5 (at least not for now). Fortunately, the vast majority of the bloatware can easily be disabled. The only thing I could not disable is AT&T remote support. Overall this was an improvement.
Battery life: I have had the note for a few days. I saw some outlandish battery life on an early reddit post (7 hrs SOT). I have seen the battery life go from ~20 hrs total charge time w/ 3:15 max screen on time, on the S6, to ~24 hrs total charge time w/4:40 max screen on time. I would say this is a tad higher than just added capacity, but certainly in that range. Overall, this is about what I had hoped for when making the switch so I am happy, but I have not noticed what some people have experienced.
Details: I use the Google keyboard and on the S6 there was this constant switch input method icon that would pop up in the upper left part of the status bar. And while I could not prove it I swore this was causing some jank lag when starting up chrome. The reason I felt this way is that when I removed all keyboards but the Google one that lag went away. Regardless, on the Note 5 this alert isn't there. I can use my Google keyboard in peace. Also, I do not notice lag starting up Chrome.
When I shot video with the S6 I was getting some pretty bad OIS wobble, but that is MUCH improved here. This could just be a batch thing, but I noticed it on both of my previous S6s. I still think it is a batch thing however.
Both of my previous S6s had the iscocell camera sensor. My Note 5 has a sony.
The screen is the same but blown up. However, I notice that I get a wider range of viewing angles before the screen goes noticeably green. Overall I like using the screen on the Note 5 better, even though it is the same panel I imagine. Another thing is that I think the resolution of the screen makes more of a difference at this size.
I was worried that the phone would be too big. However, it feels great in the hand. I really like the size and I think the form factor helps the usability a great deal. The only thing I plan to do is add a dbrand skin (when the Note 5 versions come out) to the back to make it less slippery.
I actually find the S-Pen useful, especially the screen off write feature.
RAM/Lag: RAM usage has been pretty consistent as far as what is earmarked for system/apps/free and the amount cached. I am getting (in GB) ~1.6 reserved for system, ~0.47 for apps and ~1.6 ‘free.’ When you factor in cached things that has been (in GB) ~2 system, 0.88 apps and 0.73 free. The total RAM is actually 3.663 GB not 4, but this isn’t too surprising and consistent with the S6.
Overall I noticed random lags all the time on the S6, even with early usage of the phone. Everything so far on the Note 5 for me has been super smooth. I am even using a theme from the store. I am very happy with whatever improvements Samsung has made to their 5.1.1 build.
Audio: There is a new UHQ upscalling feature. Using decent headphones (akg 545) I notice a pretty dramatic improvement in audio quality. Specifically, separation and soundstage improves. This is a nice and unexpected feature.
I would say if you were on the fence in wanting to upgrade to the Note 5 from the S6 you will be very happy you did. However, I wouldn’t if you are happy with your S6. For me it came down to the fact that I was just slightly too frustrated with the battery life and lag and was hopping to get a bigger screen. In the end I am very happy with the jump.
I'm upgrading from an S6 Edge to the Note 5. I think the S Pen offers more functionality and value than the Edge features. I'll be getting my phone in the mail today so the things you mentioned makes me very happy. Thank you
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so ram issue seems to be fixed? i am frustrated with my s6. i play spotify over bluetooth and launch maps and the phone just crawls
Lockeskidney said:
so ram issue seems to be fixed? i am frustrated with my s6. i play spotify over bluetooth and launch maps and the phone just crawls
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Click to collapse
So far so good, but I am three days in. On my s6 I was always very low on ram, specifically when you examined cached processes and I was getting apps closing all the time. It didn't matter if I used a debloated rom or not. I still have yet to think about rebooting the phone. I don't know how much of the 'fix' is software optimizations and how much is throwing an extra GB of RAM at the prob, but I am happy. You might consider trying the note5 rom port floating around on your s6. If it is true Samsung optimizations that should help.
If you want to use S Pen Stylus than you can upgrade but if S Pen stylus is not the major preference, I suggest you don't and stay on S6 as there is no major difference!
I already upgraded s6 edge to note 5 and I am very happy with it..
sigma24 said:
If you want to use S Pen Stylus than you can upgrade but if S Pen stylus is not the major preference, I suggest you don't and stay on S6 as there is no major difference!
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Click to collapse
Sigma, you are certainly right that most people don't need to upgrade. However, there are other clear demonstrable changes to the Note5 that might be of interest to some S6 users beyond the pen. For instance displaymate documents quite clearly that the Note5 screen is different than the S6 in some ways that will appeal to people like me who are overly anal about screens:
http://www.displaymate.com/Galaxy_Note5_ShootOut_1.htm
Further, there are some minor software improvements like better RAM management etc. Again, this may only be of interest to a few, but it is overly trivializing to say there is no difference beyond a pen.
I have to buy a phone for my wife and my maximum budget is $250 (maybe even $275).
The S5 mini is available exactely for $250!
Would you recommend me this phone (for $250)?
Pros:
- I like that it has a fingerprint scanner (my wife previously always used a pincode)
- water/dust-proof
- supports new Android versions
- the design is familiar since my wifes previous phone was a Galaxy S3.
Cons:
- I'm reading bad things about battery life and speed.
- gps problems
Do you recognize these pros en cons?
Can anyone give me their recent experience (and maybe recommendation)?
Thanks!
weslyr said:
I have to buy a phone for my wife and my maximum budget is $250 (maybe even $275).
The S5 mini is available exactely for $250!
Would you recommend me this phone (for $250)?
Pros:
- I like that it has a fingerprint scanner (my wife previously always used a pincode)
- water/dust-proof
- supports new Android versions
- the design is familiar since my wifes previous phone was a Galaxy S3.
Cons:
- I'm reading bad things about battery life and speed.
- gps problems
Do you recognize these pros en cons?
Can anyone give me their recent experience (and maybe recommendation)?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pros:
- The fingerprint scanner is OK but not the best in the market,because it's a swiping scanner and not a on tap scanner. So it can sometimes not recognize your finger because you swiped bad and it can be sometimes not comfortable.
- The water proof isn't intended to take hours into water to use it normally. It's only for these moments when accidently you drop it into the water.
- "new Android versions" isn't so correct, because at the moment the newest Android version is Marshmallow and it won't release for S5 Mini. The last update is Lollipop 5.1.1 but it's very slow and with some lags.
- I don't think that the design between S3 and S5 Mini is similar.
Cons:
- Battery life is quite good for my utilization. (my utilization is normal and not so intensive) But it depends from people.
- Never had a GPS problem.
I'm running an 800H (Qualcomm) with KitKat.
Performance and battery life are very good.
Camera is excellent in bright light.
Phone size and weight are perfect for me.
Touchwiz is not bloated
Fingerprint scanner is a joke compared to iPhone and Nexus 5x
GPS is not very fast at updating location when driving.
Camera hazy in low light without flash.
fingerprint scanner is like in the films (really) : "swiping?"
GPS is very bad, sometimes it does not fix in open air
flash is good, but camera is not good at dark, it does not have any image stabilization (optical-digital)
but i'm rooted and 5.1.1 works very good, and i debloated it myself, on a overclocked (1.4 to 1.6 ghz cpu, 320 to 600 mhz gpu) but its not heating
note: sorry for my english
I ended up with a Galaxy J7, because of the better battery life and screen size.
The fingerprint was the only thing going for the S5 mini, but it didn't seem all that good so it fell out of choice.
Thanks for the input all!
For that price (50 less) the Huawei honor 4X is a MUCH beter choice!