iPhone 5s or Note 3?


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Personally, I would look more towards the Moto X or a Nexus device.  Plain/vanilla android and will get the updates faster than any other OEM.

I find pure google to lack so much compared to an oem like HTC. I sold off my nexus 4 phone and will never do that again unless stock android improves.

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Ask yourself this:  Do you not mind having a gigantic phone that you can't comfortably fit in your pocket?

I'm sure the phone itself works well, but the shear size of the thing is the biggest reason I personally would never want that phone.

 

Think we are going back to these...

post-91978-0-95518600-1378927352.jpg

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Here is a mini review. 

 

I was never an apple lover or a android lover.  My first "smartphone" was a blackberry being that I had very bad experiences with the first touch sensitive phones (lg chocolate, for example, constantly putting the phone on mute whenever I put the phone close to my face). 

 

Last year, I purchased an Iphone4 (not a 4s) and got onto my first data plan that I had to pay for out of pocket (companies I worked for usually provided a celphone so I did not need one for personal use).  The iphone was rock solid, tons of free apps, tons of paid apps, itunes was meh (I could take it or leave it).  Able to do everything at ease, without issue.  Make phone calls, corporate email, personal email, text, listen to music, play games, etc.  It also synced with my car perfectly, no problems hitting the ipod button and it finding my songs that I wanted as well as my playlists. 

 

The guys at work teased me with my working phone explaining how superior the android phone was in every way.  So I decided to get an android to try it out.  Not just any android but the flag ship android...the Samsung Galaxy S4. 

 

When I received the S4, I bought it from amazon at full price due to my upgrade was not due, it didn't have a sim card.  No big deal I will go to the verizon store around the corner to get one.  When I go there I ask for a sim card and they want to charge me $25 for it, knowing that no one charges for sim cards I was a little taken back from it.  I said fine, just bring it out.  While he was in the back fetching the sim card, I looked it up online and someone said that retailers charge for sim cards, verizon wireless stores do not.  He comes out, and I ask if this was a retailer and he said yes.  Now why would I walk into a store that was a retailer vs a actual Verizon store, you may ask....because this is what their sign outside looks like (notice the very large verizon lettering, and the very very small wireless zone lettering)

verizon-wirelesszone_700x400-2-700x400.j

 

 

So I then say no thanks I will go to a real verizon store and get this done and save myself $25.  Go to a verizon store and get my free sim card, they transfered all of my contacts and calendar over to my new phone too, no charge what so ever.  It was about a 20 mi round trip that it cost me, but that is about $4 in gas (well less, but lets say it used a gallon). 

 

So now I have my brand spanking new phone.  It is great, so much larger than my iphone.  So many cool features to try out.  The contact call by simply going to the contact and putting the phone to your ear is great and wholly crap there is a barometric sensor too.  The ability to air swipe to move up and down the pages is great.  The ability for the phone to see my eye movements is great.  So great that the contact to ear worked once, the swipe to move up and down works when you don't wave your hand over the sensor as to reset in either the down or up position which just flicks the page back to where you were, and the eye movement works seldomly, and the app to use the barometric sensor eats your battery like a fat man at a all he can eat buffet where the buffet closes in 5 minutes and he just got there. 

 

Ok so all the cool features that make this phone the best are subpar.  At least I have a bigger screen and can listen to music in my car.  Syncs to my car as easily as my iphone did, oh good something going my way...or so I thought, try to play music...a big f u...hook it into the usb that is in my car, check usb device, so now I can't listen to music in my car.  Great at least I can make phone calls, text and answer emails, maybe even download some apps and play games.  So I go and try to text, my texts come out looking lisd thla basece tda kbaeard cntad pgarperly dveaect md kva pbha;erd (like this because the keyboard can't properly detect my key presses) that is what it looks like when I type on this far superior phone.  The only way to type on it is to use swype, which works great, but I am a typist and it has been a very hard transition to swype for me. 

 

So emails and text are out for this phone, the gizmos that made this phone great on paper suck, the ability to play music through my car speakers is not very easy, and the only thing that is left is being able to call.  Have no fear this phone does that quite well, it can make and take phone calls.  The iphone is smaller, yet the keyboard app is much more accurate at least for my large sausage like fingers, the iphone can play music in my car, the iphone can sync in my car, the iphone can text and send emails.  The galaxy s4 has left me very unimpressed other than its massive screen that is near useless to me. 

 

TL;DR: the iphone may be old tech but it works great.

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I find pure google to lack so much compared to an oem like HTC. I sold off my nexus 4 phone and will never do that again unless stock android improves.

 

Look in to the UI of the Moto X.  Also features will probably be in the next Nexus devices as well as the other new Moto devices.  And can always install a new launcher if you dont like the default Google UI.  New launchers have UI improvements/features.

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Think we are going back to these...

 

We were just joking about this in the office today.  I mentioned the old bag phone and had a good laugh over it.  The funny thing is that it is almost true.

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I find pure google to lack so much compared to an oem like HTC. I sold off my nexus 4 phone and will never do that again unless stock android improves.

 

You can change from stock to custom ROM or launcher for smoothness and improvement.

 

Look around and see if you find anything you like for your current phone.

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Other issue.  I don't use google services.  Everything I use is tied into microsoft/outlook.  I have is a gmail account but I don't use it.

 

I've had an Android phone since 2010 and don't really use any Google services on the phone. My email account is powered by outlook.com, the Android default mail client supports exchange active sync, so i get email / contacts and calendar sync perfectly fine.

 

I use Dropbox for cloud storage, although Skydrive has an official app on Android too, the Skype app on Android works great too.

 

If you have an Office 365 subscription you can download Office Mobile for Office 365 which has mobile versions of Word, Excel and Powerpoint for Android. I believe you can also get OneNote for free on the Android market.

 

I've never had any problems with Microsoft services on Android.

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Here is a mini review. 

 

I was never an apple lover or a android lover.  My first "smartphone" was a blackberry being that I had very bad experiences with the first touch sensitive phones (lg chocolate, for example, constantly putting the phone on mute whenever I put the phone close to my face). 

 

Last year, I purchased an Iphone4 (not a 4s) and got onto my first data plan that I had to pay for out of pocket (companies I worked for usually provided a celphone so I did not need one for personal use).  The iphone was rock solid, tons of free apps, tons of paid apps, itunes was meh (I could take it or leave it).  Able to do everything at ease, without issue.  Make phone calls, corporate email, personal email, text, listen to music, play games, etc.  It also synced with my car perfectly, no problems hitting the ipod button and it finding my songs that I wanted as well as my playlists. 

 

The guys at work teased me with my working phone explaining how superior the android phone was in every way.  So I decided to get an android to try it out.  Not just any android but the flag ship android...the Samsung Galaxy S4. 

 

When I received the S4, I bought it from amazon at full price due to my upgrade was not due, it didn't have a sim card.  No big deal I will go to the verizon store around the corner to get one.  When I go there I ask for a sim card and they want to charge me $25 for it, knowing that no one charges for sim cards I was a little taken back from it.  I said fine, just bring it out.  While he was in the back fetching the sim card, I looked it up online and someone said that retailers charge for sim cards, verizon wireless stores do not.  He comes out, and I ask if this was a retailer and he said yes.  Now why would I walk into a store that was a retailer vs a actual Verizon store, you may ask....because this is what their sign outside looks like (notice the very large verizon lettering, and the very very small wireless zone lettering)

verizon-wirelesszone_700x400-2-700x400.j

 

 

So I then say no thanks I will go to a real verizon store and get this done and save myself $25.  Go to a verizon store and get my free sim card, they transfered all of my contacts and calendar over to my new phone too, no charge what so ever.  It was about a 20 mi round trip that it cost me, but that is about $4 in gas (well less, but lets say it used a gallon). 

 

So now I have my brand spanking new phone.  It is great, so much larger than my iphone.  So many cool features to try out.  The contact call by simply going to the contact and putting the phone to your ear is great and wholly crap there is a barometric sensor too.  The ability to air swipe to move up and down the pages is great.  The ability for the phone to see my eye movements is great.  So great that the contact to ear worked once, the swipe to move up and down works when you don't wave your hand over the sensor as to reset in either the down or up position which just flicks the page back to where you were, and the eye movement works seldomly, and the app to use the barometric sensor eats your battery like a fat man at a all he can eat buffet where the buffet closes in 5 minutes and he just got there. 

 

Ok so all the cool features that make this phone the best are subpar.  At least I have a bigger screen and can listen to music in my car.  Syncs to my car as easily as my iphone did, oh good something going my way...or so I thought, try to play music...a big f u...hook it into the usb that is in my car, check usb device, so now I can't listen to music in my car.  Great at least I can make phone calls, text and answer emails, maybe even download some apps and play games.  So I go and try to text, my texts come out looking lisd thla basece tda kbaeard cntad pgarperly dveaect md kva pbha;erd (like this because the keyboard can't properly detect my key presses) that is what it looks like when I type on this far superior phone.  The only way to type on it is to use swype, which works great, but I am a typist and it has been a very hard transition to swype for me. 

 

So emails and text are out for this phone, the gizmos that made this phone great on paper suck, the ability to play music through my car speakers is not very easy, and the only thing that is left is being able to call.  Have no fear this phone does that quite well, it can make and take phone calls.  The iphone is smaller, yet the keyboard app is much more accurate at least for my large sausage like fingers, the iphone can play music in my car, the iphone can sync in my car, the iphone can text and send emails.  The galaxy s4 has left me very unimpressed other than its massive screen that is near useless to me. 

 

TL;DR: the iphone may be old tech but it works great.

Your first problem was believing Samsung's marketing BS actually made the S4 the "best phone". Your second problem was not learning how to use your new phone and getting frustrated when it didn't work just like your iPhone.

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I've had an Android phone since 2010 and don't really use any Google services on the phone. My email account is powered by outlook.com, the Android default mail client supports exchange active sync, so i get email / contacts and calendar sync perfectly fine.

 

I use Dropbox for cloud storage, although Skydrive has an official app on Android too, the Skype app on Android works great too.

 

If you have an Office 365 subscription you can download Office Mobile for Office 365 which has mobile versions of Word, Excel and Powerpoint for Android.

 

I've never had any problems with Microsoft services on Android.

 

I can't remember the silly argument between google/ms at the moment.  Is google dropping eas support for ms accounts on android phones, is ms dropping google eas support on wp8, is google dropping eas support for google accounts on wp8?

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Ask yourself this:  Do you not mind having a gigantic phone that you can't comfortably fit in your pocket?

I'm sure the phone itself works well, but the shear size of the thing is the biggest reason I personally would never want that phone.

You guys must wear skinny jeans or something.

 

My Note II fits in my pocket fine.  Heck, even a front pocket on a shirt.

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Your first problem was believing Samsung's marketing BS actually made the S4 the "best phone". Your second problem was not learning how to use your new phone and getting frustrated when it didn't work just like your iPhone.

I would want it to work as well or better than the iphone.  learning how to use your new phone, is that like learning how to walk in different shoes because I think that I walk the same in a pair of no name shoes as I do as name brand shoes.  I don't have to relearn how to walk if I switch shoe brands, typing on a qwerty keyboard should be typing on a qwerty keyboard regardless of brand.  True, learning how to use new features properly takes adjustment but things that are supposed to be based on normal daily activity should not require extra thought as it should come naturally.

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Ask yourself this:  Do you not mind having a gigantic phone that you can't comfortably fit in your pocket?

I'm sure the phone itself works well, but the shear size of the thing is the biggest reason I personally would never want that phone.

 

My Note 2 fits easily into either my back pocket or my front pocket. 

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You guys must wear skinny jeans or something.

 

My Note II fits in my pocket fine.  Heck, even a front pocket on a shirt.

I imagine most people on the Internet as hipsters. :laugh:

 

I would want it to work as well or better than the iphone.  learning how to use your new phone, is that like learning how to walk in different shoes because I think that I walk the same in a pair of no name shoes as I do as name brand shoes.  I don't have to relearn how to walk if I switch shoe brands, typing on a qwerty keyboard should be typing on a qwerty keyboard regardless of brand.

And it does, but to continue your analogy, your "mini-review" sounds like you had velcro shoes all your life and put some on with laces and tripped on your face then gave up. You DO have to relearn how to do something, or rather think different about how you do things because they aren't the same.

 

The keyboard is the best example. Most OEM's ship with god awful keyboards. However, if you switch to even the stock Android keyboard (which may or may not be included on your phone directly from the OEM), everyone considers it to be 1000 times better. Or you could move up to something like Swiftkey which is even better. But I already know what you're going to say "I shouldn't have to do that, it should just work", because you have an Apple mindset rather than realizing that Android allows complete customization to what works best for you, so there are plenty of keyboards to try and see what you like the most.

 

I use Swiftkey Flow (Swiftkey's Swype clone) at times when I'm one handed, but I type far faster without using two thumbs. I can easily type as fast as you can on an iPhone, which means it's all up to the user.

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I imagine most people on the Internet as hipsters. :laugh:

 

And it does, but to continue your analogy, your "mini-review" sounds like you had velcro shoes all your life and put some on with laces and tripped on your face then gave up. You DO have to relearn how to do something, or rather think different about how you do things because they aren't the same.

I am all for relearning, I am on week 3 with the phone.  I haven't put it down and said give my my iphone back.  I am trying to work with it.  However, that still doesn't fix the issue at hand. 

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I imagine most people on the Internet as hipsters. :laugh:

 

And it does, but to continue your analogy, your "mini-review" sounds like you had velcro shoes all your life and put some on with laces and tripped on your face then gave up. You DO have to relearn how to do something, or rather think different about how you do things because they aren't the same.

 

The keyboard is the best example. Most OEM's ship with god awful keyboards. However, if you switch to even the stock Android keyboard (which may or may not be included on your phone directly from the OEM), everyone considers it to be 1000 times better. Or you could move up to something like Swiftkey which is even better. But I already know what you're going to say "I shouldn't have to do that, it should just work", because you have an Apple mindset rather than realizing that Android allows complete customization to what works best for you, so there are plenty of keyboards to try and see what you like the most.

 

I use Swiftkey Flow (Swiftkey's Swype clone) at times when I'm one handed, but I type far faster without using two thumbs. I can easily type as fast as you can on an iPhone, which means it's all up to the user.

+1 S4 is keyboard is based of Swiftkey, LOVE IT!

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Ask yourself if you'd enjoy using a larger screen (5.7" vs. 4.0"). Then ask yourself if you want to use iOS apps and the iPhone 5S' fingerprint reader. Personally, I'd go with the Note 3 simply because the screen is larger. On top of that, the resolution is bigger (1920x1080 vs. 1136x640) and the pixels per inch is greater (386ppi vs. 326ppi).

 

After being an avid iPhone user,  iPhone 4, 4s and  5... I HATE iTUNES, i HATE iOS... so there. BUTT if you have an ecosystem built on apple?   BUTT from my point of view... after going to android "openness" I don't think I can ever go back to closed iOS :/

 

I personally think the note 3 is to big, i'd go for a LG G2, HTC one or SG4 :p

It's "but", not "butt". :p

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You guys must wear skinny jeans or something.

 

My Note II fits in my pocket fine.  Heck, even a front pocket on a shirt.

Size 34 waist, so I'm not exactly twiggy, but I do usually wear Khakis or something else business casual that isn't baggy.

When I had the GS3, it was pretty uncomfortable to have that thing in my pocket, especially sitting.  I would imagine the Note is quite a bit worse.  A shirt pocket or back pocket would would probably be doable, but not as convenient in all situations.

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What phone do you have now? If you have an iPhone 5, the 5S is only an incremental upgrade. If you have a 4S or below, it will be more significant. 

 

I prefer iOS to Android. I used Android for three years, from Eclair to Jelly Bean, on the HTC Desire, Galaxy S2 and Galaxy S3, and also have a Nexus 7 at the moment that I can use, although it's not mine. I like Android but iOS is just so much smoother and works better in general. 

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Ask yourself if you'd enjoy using a larger screen (5.7" vs. 4.0"). Then ask yourself if you want to use iOS apps and the iPhone 5S' fingerprint reader. Personally, I'd go with the Note 3 simply because the screen is larger. On top of that, the resolution is bigger (1920x1080 vs. 1136x640) and the pixels per inch is greater (386ppi vs. 326ppi).

 

It's "but", not "butt". :p

:laugh:

 

Agree, i'm not ever going back to iOS's cooky resolutions.

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I am all for relearning, I am on week 3 with the phone.  I haven't put it down and said give my my iphone back.  I am trying to work with it.  However, that still doesn't fix the issue at hand. 

Well, the way you wrote it sounded pretty defeated, so I assumed you'd mostly given up on it. If your main issue is keyboard, then definitely try some others from stock Android to Swiftkey. Your car depends on your car setup. It's not an iPod which is how most head units sync with an iPhone over USB. Simple USB will work on a head unit that allows you to list files by directory, but that's a pain in the ass. Bluetooth works too if you have that support. You aren't going to get it to work through iPod sync though which is what it sounds like you were used to. That is one slight disadvantage since so many people built for iPod and not for Android. Hell, I usually just opt for a 3.5mm aux cable instead of USB or wireless.

 

As for the software gimmicks on the S4, well, I've been saying they were gimmicks from day one but no one listened. I got the HTC One and I have little doubt in my mind it's the best Android phone on the market right now. I switched to Google Edition as well and I haven't looked back. You may consider the same on your S4 to get rid of the Samsung junk.

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Well, the way you wrote it sounded pretty defeated, so I assumed you'd mostly given up on it. If your main issue is keyboard, then definitely try some others from stock Android to Swiftkey. Your car depends on your car setup. It's not an iPod which is how most head units sync with an iPhone over USB. Simple USB will work on a head unit that allows you to list files by directory, but that's a pain in the ass. Bluetooth works too if you have that support. You aren't going to get it to work through iPod sync though which is what it sounds like you were used to. That is one slight disadvantage since so many people built for iPod and not for Android. As for the software gimmicks on the S4, well, I've been saying they were gimmicks from day one but no one listened. I got the HTC One and I have little doubt in my mind it's the best Android phone on the market right now. I switched to Google Edition as well and I haven't looked back. You may consider the same on your S4 to get rid of the Samsung junk.

I think there was a user here, who rooted and shared a script to remove all the s-crap whilst retaining touchwiz ( which he apparently liked) don't remember thread name though :P

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I think there was a user here, who rooted and shared a script to remove all the s-crap whilst retaining touchwiz ( which he apparently liked) don't remember thread name though :p

Well, I think a lot of it can be disabled, and with Titanium Backup you can remove a bunch of apps you don't want/need. I'm sure there are scripts to dig deeper to remove more, but by then I'd just start looking at some of the custom ROMs available. They usually end up being a lot cleaner than trying to rip it out of a pre-installed ROM. But there are a bunch of ways to go about de-bloating your device.

 

Unfortunately Samsung has turned into the HTC of the early Android years. Keep loading their phones with junk until they are laggy and buggy and start annoying people. I think they MIGHT take the hint from the S4 and dial it back next time, but I kind of doubt it. The next one will probably be worse. We need people to support phones like the Nexus and Moto X and Google Edition phones with more stock interfaces so these OEMs will get it through the heads that we don't want all their junk.

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