Samsung Galaxy S3: A Ride On The Jelly Bean Side

I first purchased the Galaxy S3 from AT&T in October, before finally cancelling my account with the carrier and signing up with Sprint. So that meant going from the SGH- I747 model to the SPH L710, which immediately meant one thing to me, I had access to the Jellybean update before any of the other carriers. Sounds great right? Not really. Talking with the service representative after repeatedly trying to get a through-the-air update left me with feeling of lost hope. I was living in the world of apple, you know when everyone's phone gets updated on the same date. That wasn't the case with Samsung or Sprint. Apparently because there were so many different models (GSM/CDMA/WHATNOT) Samsung left the updates to the phone carriers, and the last thing that our carriers in the U.S. are known for is expediency. After repeated attempts of asking them to push me through an update they said : "This stuff gets rolled out in groups, so it could come today or tomorrow, but at the latest late January." I almost shat my pants.

  I wanted to see what this little phone was capable of but 4.1 Ice Cream Sandwich wasn't cutting it. ICS on the S3 sucked... It reminded me of the restrictions they placed on muscle cars during the gas shortage of the 1970's in the US. There was all this raw power under the hood, but 4.1 was the restrictor plate placed on the phone. Those ponies were begging to go out for a run.


After a few Google searches I found that there was an exploit people had found that if I manually put the install zip on a microsd card, place it in my phone, It would install after doing a few simple button pushes and I would finally have the glory that is Google Now.

How bout I IceCream in my pants. (This is actually Jellybean OS, I punned for a stupid joke)

It installed seamlessly in under 5 minutes, rebooted and I finally got to see what the full potential of the Galaxy S3 truly is...and I like it. But I do have some review points to go over.

Galaxy S3 (SPH L-710) with 4.1.1 JellyBean Review:

Pros:

• The camera is sweet, crisp and the colors are vibrant.
• Speaking of vibrant, have you seen this screen, the AmoLED technology has really come into it's own.
• Google Now, 'nuff said.
• Google maps navigation is really good and accurate, and includes free turn-by-turn.
• It's big and beautiful.
• It is fast, and I mean fassssttttttt.......
• Voice-To-Text conversion is nearly seamless.
• Voice commands even with S Voice are very good.
• NFC, S-Beam, and all the neat things that are ahead of the Iphone.
• 4G LTE

I said FAASST

Cons:

• Android doesn't seem to want to include an auto-correction keyboard for free. Instead you have to buy a 3.99 keyboard that is close to the accuracy of the Apple Keyboard. Why do I have to pay extra for this? 
• Web browsing has it's bugs compared to Apple's Iphone or Ipad, What the hell is with video playback from webpages, why do I manually have to go full screen?
• It has bugs. I have screen bugs on and off again. Sometimes the phone freezes. 
• Sprint sucks, but has moments of sheer brilliance. 

Overview: 

The Galaxy has a few drawbacks, most of which are overcome by the JellyBean update. Android isn't perfect and it shows, but it is really getting there and it's thinking is ahead of the curve. The phone is fast, but just like many other phones with optimization it could be much faster. The lack of auto correction included with the keyboard sucks, and we shouldn't have to pay for it in 2012. Web browsing needs improvement and video integration needs to be fixed. Google now is a necessity, so unless your carrier has updated to JellyBean, don't bother. This phone is feature packed and that is what you want, there are plenty of sales out there right now so you can get it cheaper than ever. If you go with Credo Mobile they are a Sprint reseller with unlimited data and give you 40% off your voice charges for one year, so you can find ways to save more, and don't have to settle on a carrier so easily. 

Verdict:

If you are an Android lover, buy the phone. If you are an Apple lover give it a try, there is a learning curve, but if I switched you can to.