Worth it for me to upgrade from Rezound?

[Escobar]

I love my Rezound, but after 9 months, I can't take this battery anymore. I really want this phone. Is it worth my money? What about the screen issues? How's the battery life? Pressing questions here people. Reviews are great, but how does it hold up through a month or two of use?

 

[TisMyDroid]

Battery life is going to be about the same but it will be a great new phone to play with. You could get the extended battery for the rezound. The SG3 is still pretty new but from what I've read does seem to be a solid phone.

Sent from my DROID RAZR Maxx using Droid Forums

 

[k1ngr4t]

Coming from a Rezound, I can say the battery life is actually MUCH better. Sure there's still room for improvement, but my routine hasn't changed much from my Rezound, if anything it's gone up, and the battery life is still hands down better. With my moderate usage, 10 hours on my Rezound is about 18 on my S3.

 

[bsweetness]

What about the screen issues?

While there seems to be more reports than usual of cracked screens around here, I've not had any problems. Just keep in mind that it's large piece of glass that you're carrying around. Also, you have to remember that forums are where a lot of people go when they have problems, so the conversations in the topics you see will almost always be negatively skewed. Most users who don't have any issues don't come online all the time to start a new thread to say "I don't have any issues!"

How's the battery life?

It's definitely better than the Rezound, and in my experience, better than the stock battery of any other LTE device on Verizon except the RAZR MAXX.

Reviews are great, but how does it hold up through a month or two of use?

It holds up great. I've had no problems, and the phone still operates as smoothly as the day I received it.

Is it worth my money?

Only you can really know that. But in my opinion, the phone is definitely worth its price on contract and it's definitely worth paying up to retail price for off-contract. It's a great device.

I really want this phone.

Then what are you waiting for?

I'll add a couple other quick observations about the S3 versus the Rezound (which I used to have). The screen is half an inch larger, and you can definitely tell. If you like large screens, you'll love it. And even if you don't care for a screen that larger, the minimal bezel and thinness of the device go a long way in making the screen size extremely usable. Reception was noticeably better on the Rezound in areas with weak signal for me. The S3 definitely has much better reception than the Galaxy Nexus, but it's not quite up to the level of the Rezound. Samsung just hasn't quite nailed down the radio game as well as other manufacturers have. That said, the reception on the S3 was good enough for me to give up the incredible reception of the RAZR MAXX, so it has done well in my use. Call quality on the S3 also lags behind the Rezound a bit, but it's still above average. The camera on the S3 is a little better than the camera on the Rezound, but not by much, so it's pretty much a wash there.

 

[liteon163]

The Qualcomm S4 chipset in the North American version of the Galaxy SIII is superior to the S3 chipset in the Rezound in just about every way. This makes for an improved user experience simply by granting the phone higher performance and lower battery usage at the same time. Right now I'm at 25 hours of usage (1h30m screen time) and have 50% battery remaining.

The radios are not "Samsung," at least not on the S4 equipped versions, because the radios are contained in the integrated Qualcomm-made system-on-a-chip. I've had better reception than with the radios of my S3-equipped LG Spectrum. Granted, the signal strength appears lower but the S4 SoC is able to work wonders with that signal. That is most likely due to the integrated nature of the phone's radios.

Initially, I was a bit concerned about the Galaxy SIII screen being PenTile, but that has gone largely unnoticed now that I have had the phone for awhile. I only notice the difference between True RGB and PenTile only when I actively search it out. Under normal usage, I don't pay attention and I don't notice.

It all comes down to whether or not you really want to pay full retail for the phone. If you do, you will be getting a much better phone.

 

[bsweetness]

The radios are not "Samsung," at least not on the S4 equipped versions, because the radios are contained in the integrated Qualcomm-made system-on-a-chip. I've had better reception than with the radios of my S3-equipped LG Spectrum. Granted, the signal strength appears lower but the S4 SoC is able to work wonders with that signal. That is most likely due to the integrated nature of the phone's radios.

There's a difference between the hardware cellular radio that's included in the S4 and the software radios/baseband that makes the hardware work. Even if three phones from three difference manufacturers are using the same hardware radio, it's very possible to see difference in reception due to the software since that varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. Samsung typically lags behind most other major manufacturers when it comes to reception because of this.

It's easy to get confused by the similar terminology that's used for the hardware and the software components of cellular radios, but generally, when talking about radios on a cellular device, the discussion is revolving around the software.