New to the Galaxy S3 - Couple of questions

[TooNice]

Well, I carefully followed the guides, rooting, backing up and flashing CM10 nighties. Unfortunately, it seems that GPS doesn't work nicely on it (I had no problem at all before on the official ICS, but now Google Maps complains about not being able to find my current location, or something to that effect, and the GPS logo keeps blinking. Besides, not only can't I be bothered to keep up with daily releases, it is simply something I can't afford to do during my trip (no PC access for 1.5 months, limited internet connection). And a working GPS is critical in case I do get lost (not unlikely).

So I think that I'll stick with the stock ROMs for now.

I've found a guide to manually install Jelly Bean here: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/38...te-release.htm

Can this guide be used while I have CM10 installed? Or do I need to somehow remove it first (and if so, how?).

Thanks.

[capt_cornflake]

Odd you were having GPS problems, as it works fine for me..
In any event, flashing over CM using Odin should be fine. Just make sure you do a factory reset afterwards.

[TooNice]

Switching back to stock (but updated JB) sorted the GPS issues, so I guess that I'll stick with this for now. I just ordered a 64GB memory card for it (my Googling shows that the phone should work with it). Once it's here, is it just a matter of copying the file over and switching cards, or do I need to do anything else?

[TooNice]

No takers? Surely someone else must have upgraded SD card at some point?

[capt_cornflake]

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking?
The SD card generally contains media etc. and not anything system related. I guess you can store your apps there, but I don't think that would cause problems either.
Just copy the files over it shouldn't affect anything.

[TooNice]

That's all I wanted to make sure of (that the phone doesn't save some kind of system files on the SD, or for some reason would not work via a simple copy.

Anyway, with the phone largely set up (just need to re-root as I haven't since installing JB), I'll just go about using the phone for the next 1.5 months (while I am on the road), and report back my impressions good and bad. For the good, I've already mentioned elsewhere that it's the external SD and swappable batteries I've found most useful so far (well, more the later, as I may be overestimating my storage requirements - we'll see).

As for the negative, there will probably be things that really nags me that I'll eventually get used to or find a way around, but I think that it is only fair to point it out. For today (06/11), it's the shutter sound that can not be switched off (without silencing the phone completely). A quick Google shows that *some* phones have a setting enabled, but it seems that my International version is one of those that do not. Workarounds seem to *require* a rooted phone. Something I am about to do, but a negative nonetheless.

Edit 1 (06/11): The international version of phone lacks native Japanese input, and the two highly rated apps one (one from Google) still have their quirks (e.g. when inputting English in one, the shift key acts like a caplock, you lose the T9/decent autocorrect), and frankly not as good/convenient as what Apple offers.

Edit 2 (10/11): That keyboard issue is getting to me as I frequently switch between English and Japanese. I am going to try more apps, but it is just far more fiddly than it should. The best Japanese-English dictionary I've found is also significantly weaker than the iOS app I've been using so far in many ways. It was my main concern in switching to the Android platform, and it's looking like my iPod Touch will stay with me for a long time.

Now it's not all gloom, I do like how easily I can transfer music to an external microSD card. I've never transferred music to my iPhone due to it's low capacity, but doing it on my iPod Touch as we speak is definitely more fiddly than I'd like. I thought that there would be drag and drop solutions on a jailbroken iDevice, but it turns out that I will need iTune or at least the device drivers from it, even if I wanted to use third party tools (but really, I just want to drag and drop). That said, it turns out that if I wanted to use the internal storage of the S3 it's not a simple case of drag and drop either. Still, I'll give the nod to the S3 thanks to the microSD card.

Edit 3 (02/12): After a couple more weeks of use I have to reiterate that being able to slap a fat battery is awesome when you make heavy use of the phone the whole day. With the fat battery and the way I use the phone, it lasts about 15h. Even if the iPhone 5 can beat the S3 with the stock battery, I doubt it'll last the 12 hours I need minimum.

In terms of durability, between the S3 and iPod Touch 4G, I'll give it to the S3 hands down. Does seem that the 4G cracks easily if dropped and while I hardly drop my things, it did happen in this trip when I was using different bags/pockets. I dented the back case of fat battery of the S3 but the screen intact, while the 4G isn't so pretty.

On the down side, I can now confidently confirms that the Japanese-English dictionary applications are far superior on the iOS than on the Android platform. The most actively developed and well received app on Android is clearly just a clone of an online dictionary. That in itself is not surprising, that online dictionary database is very widely used and even the application I rate very highly on the iOS is based on it. However, the iOS version has been tweaked to give better far better results which is why I often use the iPhone/iPod Touch to look for words even in front of the PC. And as previously mentioned, Japanese input is still better on iOS even though I managed to resolve some of the issues I had on the Android.

Another issue I have, is the auto-orientation. First it seems to auto-orient when I do not want it to more often than it did with the iPhone and present iPod Touch. It also take too long to react when I tilt the screen to get it back in the right orientation. Yes we are talking very short time here, but very noticeable especially when I am doing it because it wrongly auto-oriented in the first place.

I am also not a big fan of the volume control: it would be much better if you can feel the separation of the two buttons and lock the volume when the device is locked. Many times have I reached for the phone (or reinsert the phone back into my pocket) only to press the key and get a blast of loud music in my ears.

[aaronpco]

Best backup solution would be a combination of SMS backup and restore, titanium and clockworkmod for nandroid

[capt_cornflake]

I'd recommend carbon over titanium backup, and it can do sms as well