[Galaxy S III General] Hujbalo:
Dear all,

I am a somewhat half-way happy owner of a new Samsung Galaxy S3. As an upgrade from the iPhone 4, I was welcomed to an open eco-system where could customize the user interface in a way that suited me perfectly. I love the way that apps integrate into the OS – the gallery and sending images through whatsapp, Line, and other photo editing apps is amazingly great. I currently use the stock JB4.1.1 firmware and I am rooted in order to quarantine bloatware. I use the premium version of Nova launcher. First impressions by this point are very good!

Now to the bad: Whether it is just my experience or not, this phone just doesn’t seem to be able to handle some of the most simple user case scenarios.

Take this example:

I am working, listening to music at the office and doing occasional browsing. But sometimes I need to be on the move to see clients in faraway locations. So I get up off my butt and get to the car, switch on the GPS and blue tooth and set it to my car stereo. By this point, I am trying to input an address while the phone is heating up, lagging like crazy and generally unresponsive. The music is jittering and the phone itself becomes unusable. I then have to restart the phone to return it to a usable state.

This occurs pretty frequently, not just in this user case, but sometimes doing the simplest of tasks: Music>switch to browsing>youtube video>back to browsing>change track>whatsapp>send photo>facebok: *bam phone starts lagging*.

This phone is inconsistent. Sometimes it works smooth as ever. When it does I’m smiling and I’m absolutely delighted. The large screen is so great. But quite frequently the phone is far less reliable than my old iPhone 4. Even that handset could handle GPS, music and browsing just fine. Perhaps it’s the way iOS handles multitasking? I am relatively tech savy and am aware of iOS multitasking not being “true multitasking” but in honestly, it just works. Particularly with the Tomtom app.

I am not here to bash the Samsung GS3, I’m just here to share my user experience with the hope that someone here can provide some advice on how to better optimize the system. I’ve spent many days and nights trying to love this thing: constantly making efforts to optimize this phone. It’s a process I much enjoy and I sincerely love the customizability, flexibility of the OS. In truth, if it worked as well as it does when it does work, it is far superior to iOS. But the fact that the experience frequent lags and has reliability issues, I honestly am starting to feel the itch to sacrifice that extra power for that reliability I had become used to in iOS. Yes it’s less powerful, yes apps don’t integrate well into the OS, but hey – it works all the time. All the time I’ve spent wasting trying to optimize the phone (as fun as it can be), is starting to fade in its appeal when I actually want to use this thing.

Does anyone have any recommendations as to how best to optimize this system? I’ve rooted this thing and have quarantined all the bloatware. I’ve yet to try roms. I’m waiting for my mini-sd card to arrive so I can backup all my stuff there then try “slimbean” and some stripped down versions of jellybean. But is my user case common among other GS3 users using stock roms? Is there something wrong with my phone? Or is there something I can do to enhance my experience?

Cheers and thanks in advance for your kind input!