45 replies to this topic

[+patseguin]

Great advice guys. I think I'll wait for the Nexus 4 to reappear.

[+patseguin]

Well, my Galaxy is due to arrive today or tomorrow and the Nexus is MIA. Google does't say anything about when it's going to be available, just out of stock every day for about 2 weeks. I'm going to be really tempted to open that Galaxy. It does have LTE and an impressive feature set. Only thing is no Jelly bean 4.2 AFAIK unless they are readying it. Does Samsung really change the whole Android experience? I like the "pure" Android I got with the Nexus 7.

[+patseguin]

Well I have the Samsung Galaxy s3 in my hands right now thanks to Amazon. I have a chance to buy a Google Nexus 4 from Paypal for a slight premium but my question is, is the Nexus that much better that I should keep the Samsun sealed up and return it tomorrow?

[MurkWorks]

SharpGreen, on 18 November 2012 - 17:12, said:

The Nexus 4 isn't dated, it just doesn't have LTE supposedly because of the negative effect on battery life. I'd wait for the Nexus 4 to come back in stock simply because I (personally) can't stand devices that don't have an unmodified version of Android on them. Unless of course you want LTE.

The Nexus 4 does not have LTE because LTE is not standardized across carriers. Without LTE they can make one phone for all available markets.

[+patseguin]

So do you guys think the Nexus 4 is still a better phone?

[AJerman]

patseguin, on 19 November 2012 - 17:44, said:

So do you guys think the Nexus 4 is still a better phone?

Here's the basic rundown of the main differences:

Nexus 4 Pros:
Quad Core S4 Pro CPU (vs dual core S4)
Adreno 320 GPU (vs Adreno 225)
1280x768 true HD screen (vs 1280x720 pentile screen)

SGS3 Pros:
MicroSD slot
Removable Battery
LTE

So as far as horsepower, the Nexus 4 has the SGS3 beat. The SGS3 has some extra goodies though, so it depends on what's most important to you. If you were to ask me, I'd absolutely say the Nexus 4 is a better phone, but I'm pretty against the pentile screens and that alone turns me off of the SGS3. Another interesting note is that the Nexus 4 DOES have an LTE chip in it. Why it's not enabled is anyone's guess, and if it will be in the future by Google, or by third party, is also a big question mark, but I wouldn't buy it betting on that. More like a bonus if it does happen. Also, I have LTE on my One X, and while it's pretty neat and fun to show off on speed tests, HSPA+ typically got me about 10 Mbps and how fast does your phone REALLY need to be? What are you downloading on your phone that needs to come down at 30 Mbps? Besides, I have wifi at home, wifi at work, I'm only on my network's data when I'm out and about, which is even less of a time that I'd need 30 Mbps. The biggest advantage of LTE is that it lowers latency, which does make things load a bit faster, but I wouldn't say it's a MUST have feature to me.

[+patseguin]

What do you mean when you say "pentile screen"?

[+patseguin]

Played around with S3 and it's really nice. One big thing that will probably make me go with Nexus is having the latest Android.

Also, how do I sync so that all the apps that I got on my tablet are available on my phone? Ann all my live wallpapers?

[AJerman]

http://www.digitaltr...hould-you-care/

Some people say they can't see it on the HD SAMOLED, some people say they don't mind it. I had the SGS with a 4" 800x480 pentile screen, then the Infuse with an 4.5" 800x480 RGB stripe screen, and even the same resolution stretched out another half an inch looked better than the higher density pentile display to me. It makes text and lines look less crisp and gives an annoying slightly checkerboard look to the screen. It's not nearly as bad with a 4.8" 1280x720 screen as the 4" 800x480 of the SGS, but as someone who has used a phone with a pentile screen before, it's still noticeable to me. On the other hand, my One X with a 4.7" 1280x720 RGB stripe screen looks incredibly sharp and smooth. Some people care more about the screen than others, but this is something I won't deal with anymore. After the Galaxy Nexus with the HD SAMOLED (pentile) screen, I REALLY expected the SGS3 to have an HD SAMOLED+ with RGB stripe, but they failed to deliver. That's a big part of why I jumped ship to HTC this time around.

patseguin, on 19 November 2012 - 20:00, said:

Played around with S3 and it's really nice. One big thing that will probably make me go with Nexus is having the latest Android.

Also, how do I sync so that all the apps that I got on my tablet are available on my phone? Ann all my live wallpapers?

If you don't mind rooting and installing custom ROMs, the SGS3 will definitely have 4.2 soon. CM10.1 will be 4.2, and it's not a huge update over 4.1, so being that the SGS3 is already CM10 official, the jump to CM10.1 will be minor and should happen in the coming weeks now that AOSP code is released. Still, it's no Nexus and the Nexus 4 will likely get updates faster still, at least for the next version or two.

I don't have a tablet to be sure about syncing between the two. I know when you reset your phone, you should get your apps resynced like you had them before, but I suspect that doesn't apply across devices. Still, try going into the Play Store, clicking menu then My Apps, and swipe from right to left to go to the "ALL" tab, and you should see all the apps you've installed and be able to pick and chose which to install again.

[tsupersonic]

AJerman, on 19 November 2012 - 18:24, said:

Another interesting note is that the Nexus 4 DOES have an LTE chip in it. Why it's not enabled is anyone's guess, and if it will be in the future by Google, or by third party, is also a big question mark, but I wouldn't buy it betting on that. More like a bonus if it does happen.

Link. They might release a future LTE model, but not gonna happen with the current model.

[Javik]

patseguin, on 18 November 2012 - 16:54, said:

So are you saying the Samsung or Nexus is dated? The review I read said that the Nexus doesn't even support LTE.

The Samsung is dated. Having LTE support isn't as much of an issue as people make out. I like you once criticised Apple for not supporting it in their phones, but as I have researched it further I've found out that unless you're very close to the tower the average speed differences between LTE and HSDPA aren't even that great.

[tsupersonic]

Javik, on 19 November 2012 - 20:33, said:

The Samsung is dated. Having LTE support isn't as much of an issue as people make out. I like you once criticised Apple for not supporting it in their phones, but as I have researched it further I've found out that unless you're very close to the tower the average speed differences between LTE and HSDPA aren't even that great.

It makes a night and day difference for Verizon - going from 3G, where I would get a maximum of 2 Mbps down/1 Mbps up to 4G LTE, where I can now get 30-35 Mbps down/15-20 Mbps up.

[Javik]

Verizon obviously has pretty crap 3G coverage then because I get between 2 and 5 mbps with Giffgaff wherever I go, and 1-2 up.

[AJerman]

tsupersonic, on 19 November 2012 - 20:23, said:

Link. They might release a future LTE model, but not gonna happen with the current model.

I don't think it will happen either, but to say it won't is just as much of a guess as saying it will. The chip is there, if it's wired, it COULD be enabled with some work, but I've seen a lot of phones with extra chips that are never used and never unlocked for use either. A good example is US carrier's love of disabling FM chips on phones for some reason. A lot of times these are built into the other communications chips, but frequently they aren't wired up for use. But in a lot of those cases, the chip is there for something else and that feature is just disabled. It seems odd to me to spend the money on a chip and put it on the board, only to not wire it up. I don't agree with that article that it would be cheaper to re-use the same board and chip even if it's not used, because it would be very simple to not solder a chip on if you don't need it. Redesigning a board would be more expensive, yes, but leaving a part out, no, I can't imagine that. That's why the whole thing seems so odd.

As a somewhat related example, the Samsung Captivate was sold in the US on AT&T without HSUPA support, even though it had the chip for it. In that case, the chip was the same chip used for the rest of HSPA, so it just had some functionality removed, but I was actually the first to get HSUPA working on my Captivate, which was refined by a few other people on XDA, and from then on, the Captivate always had HSUPA, so like I said, to say it's impossible is as much of a guess as saying it is possible. In another related sense, I did this primarily by flashing the radio and RIL from the international version onto the Captivate, which, if this is the exact same board as they say to save cost, could be similarly possible on the Nexus 4, they primarily discredit it due to needing radio, though if it's missing antennas for it, that would make it far less likely without too many mods to be feasible.

Again, this is all still a LOT of ifs, and I do still stick to saying what I said before and not betting on someone getting it to work though.

tsupersonic, on 19 November 2012 - 20:35, said:

It makes a night and day difference for Verizon - going from 3G, where I would get a maximum of 2 Mbps down/1 Mbps up to 4G LTE, where I can now get 30-35 Mbps down/15-20 Mbps up.

True, but not really applicable since this is a GSM only phone. They left it out because GSM carriers mostly universally have HSPA+ or at least HSPA support, while only a handful have LTE support. If they had left it out and then made a CDMA version, then I'd agree.

[Muhammad Farrukh]

patseguin, on 19 November 2012 - 17:44, said:

So do you guys think the Nexus 4 is still a better phone?

Yes, it most definitely is