Help me to buy Galaxy S3 in Canada.

[Mr_Alexander]

Hi guys.
I need your help to buy a Galaxy S3 for my girlfriend.
I am complete noob in terms of cell phones. I have old simple phone myself and never paid attention to cell phones market.
I found this one on Amazon.ca
http://www.amazon.ca/Samsung-GT-I930...cm_rdp_product

Maybe you guys have other suggestions where I should buy it.

I have few questions:
1. If I buy it will it work with Rogers Canada provider?
2. Do I need to install anything or it is ready to work out of the box. If not how complicated it is to make it ready.

Also I found a guy asking something about compatibility with Canadian carries. Here is his question.

I would like to buy this phone but want to make sure it comes with 4G (LTE) compatible with Canadian carriers (e.g. Bell, Rogers, Fido, etc.)
I called amazon.ca customer service, they asked me to call samsung canada. I called samsung canada and they said it was not manufactured by
samsung canada so they couldn't tell.
I called amazon.ca again and they said they had no further information other than what was on the product page.
The product page said "4G(dependent on market)."

It really doesn't help as I have no idea what market this I9300 model was supposed for.

Maybe someone here can answer.

Sorry for long post and thanks in advance.

[dcx_badass]

The GT-I9300 is NOT 4G (LTE), only the GT-I9305 is.

Why does it have no warranty, I have never seen that on an amazon product/page and I'd never buy anything electrical without a warranty anyway.

[Li4m79]

Originally Posted by dcx_badass

The GT-I9300 is NOT 4G (LTE), only the GT-I9305 is.

Why does it have no warranty, I have never seen that on an amazon product/page and I'd never buy anything electrical without a warranty anyway.

LOL @ the NO Warranty..

[Doug]

I don't think it's worth it to pay the extra loads of money for the SIII rather than the Nexus 4 now that it's in the open. They're basically the same, especially for your girlfriend, but the N4 doesn't look like a happy meal toy

[twtaylor]

Why not just see what plans Rogers have for one, I know they offer them.

Edit:

As a matter of fact:

http://www.rogers.com/web/link/wirel...16BLUR&N=52+11

[Doug]

Well, why? If hes buying the handset outright, N4 is 359$, GSIII seems to be $599. What do you get for that extra? (genuine question cos idk)

[twtaylor]

If he pays the $599.00 for it, he's not on a three year contract and he owns the phone outright. If he pays the $99.00, he's on a three year plan and owns the phone after 3 years.

[Doug]

Whats that got to do with paying $359 instead of $599? I meant buying N4 handset vs buying GSIII handset, no contracts

[Mr_Alexander]

Thank you for your replies. I would like to get unlocked one because she wants to switch from Rogers. I am kind of scared to buy that one on Amazon especially no warranty. Does anyone know other place to buy quad core that would work in Canada?

[Doug]

https://play.google.com/store/device...id=nexus_4_8gb

EDIT: the N4 has hidden LTE/4G... Works with Rogers

So how was LTE magically enabled on the Nexus 4? Users navigated to the Phone Info menu and changed the Preferred Network Type. The option to change network types is hidden, but it can be accessed by dialing *#*#4636#*#* (INFO) or using a free app called Phone Info.

Currently, the Nexus 4 only works with LTE networks that operate on band 4 (AWS 1700/2100). This includes Bell, Rogers, and Telus in Canada and many users have reported that their Nexus 4s are getting 4G LTE speeds. Brian Klug of Anandtech also tested the Nexus 4 and confirmed LTE was working on band 4.

http://androidandme.com/2012/11/smar...urce=pulsenews

[deltatux]

Originally Posted by Mr_Alexander

Thank you for your replies. I would like to get unlocked one because she wants to switch from Rogers. I am kind of scared to buy that one on Amazon especially no warranty. Does anyone know other place to buy quad core that would work in Canada?

Get it from your carrier that you'll be going to? All Canadian carriers (afaik; except Public Mobile) carries the Galaxy S 3....

deltatux

[dcx_badass]

I thought North America only had the fake Galaxy S3 though?

[deltatux]

Originally Posted by dcx_badass

I thought North America only had the fake Galaxy S3 though?

What's a "fake Galaxy S3" O.o?

Each region has their own Galaxy S 3 model. North America has the SGH-i747 (Rogers, Bell, TELUS, AT&T), SGH-T999(V) (Mobilicity, Sasktel, T-Mobile USA, WIND Mobile, Videotron), and then CDMA variants for US markets.

deltatux

[dcx_badass]

The dual core one, North America has a crappy dual core (relatively speaking), the rest of the world has a quad core, the main selling and advertised feature of the galaxy s3 and the one at launch was a quad core, anything else is just trying to use the name to market it to suckers.

Same as if you had a Ferrari F430, and then a VW Polo and slapped the Ferrari badge on it, it might be called the same, but it's not the same despite what the marketing team tries to say.

[deltatux]

Originally Posted by dcx_badass

The dual core one, North America has a crappy dual core (relatively speaking), the rest of the world has a quad core, the main selling and advertised feature of the galaxy s3 and the one at launch was a quad core, anything else is just trying to use the name to market it to suckers.

Same as if you had a Ferrari F430, and then a VW Polo and slapped the Ferrari badge on it, it might be called the same, but it's not the same despite what the marketing team tries to say.

Last check the dual core in the North American S3 has a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 "Krait" core. More cores != faster. That's just a myth, it's like saying an AMD Phenom II 1090T is faster than a Core i5 2500K because it has more cores.

The Krait core is a Cortex A15-class SoC while the Exynos 4412 found in the Samsung S 3 (I9300) is a Cortex A9 core. Also, the I9300 also only has half the RAM while the North American variants, Australian variant, Korean variants all have 2 GB of RAM as well.

deltatux

[dcx_badass]

I never claimed it was faster, the Galaxy S3 is and was marketed as a quad core phone world wide, just slapping a name on something doesn't make it one.

Also the international 4G LTE one, the I9305 has 2GB ram, LTE and a quad core. The australian one is the I9305.

[JEskandari]

Originally Posted by deltatux

Last check the dual core in the North American S3 has a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 "Krait" core. More cores != faster. That's just a myth, it's like saying an AMD Phenom II 1090T is faster than a Core i5 2500K because it has more cores.

The Krait core is a Cortex A15-class SoC while the Exynos 4412 found in the Samsung S 3 (I9300) is a Cortex A9 core. Also, the I9300 also only has half the RAM while the North American variants, Australian variant, Korean variants all have 2 GB of RAM as well.

deltatux

well as a matter of fact that Quad core Arm9 is faster than the Dual core Krait and also Mali 400mp4 that come with it is faster than Aderno 225 that come with Krait core.

don't forget that unlike the rest of Arm9 core Exynos 4112 is on a 32nm process not a 40nm one so it let Samsung to clock it higher while using less power

[deltatux]

Originally Posted by dcx_badass

I never claimed it was faster, the Galaxy S3 is and was marketed as a quad core phone world wide, just slapping a name on something doesn't make it one.

Also the international 4G LTE one, the I9305 has 2GB ram, LTE and a quad core. The australian one is the I9305.

It was never advertised as a quad core here. It probably was only advertised as such in places where it is a quad-core phone. It has always been advertised as being powered by a "1.5 GHz dual core processor" here. It has literally the same design of the other phones except that Samsung for some reason opted for a Qualcomm chip in their North American variant. Probably because of the American CDMA carriers.

Originally Posted by JEskandari

well as a matter of fact that Quad core Arm9 is faster than the Dual core Krait and also Mali 400mp4 that come with it is faster than Aderno 225 that come with Krait core.

don't forget that unlike the rest of Arm9 core Exynos 4112 is on a 32nm process not a 40nm one so it let Samsung to clock it higher while using less power

Ummm, you might want to check your sources again, I have yet to find a source that claims that the Exynos 4412 being faster than the Qualcomm S4 MSM8960. Also, all Krait cores are built on the 28nm process, the Tegra 3 is built on the 40nm process.

Only things I've seen is indeed the Mali 400 is faster than the Adreno 225 since the Adreno 225 is just a repackaged Adreno 220. That's one reason why I rather opt for the Adreno 320 in the Nexus 4.


deltatux

[JEskandari]

well if you put linpack aside in the resy of the test in this review the international version have better scores than the AT&T and T.Mobile version of the phone]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6098/l...uadcore-love/4

well this is a comparison on phones not the chip but it was the best i found

[deltatux]

Originally Posted by JEskandari

well if you put linpack aside in the resy of the test in this review the international version have better scores than the AT&T and T.Mobile version of the phone]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6098/l...uadcore-love/4

well this is a comparison on phones not the chip but it was the best i found

Basically, the benchmarks have to be properly threaded in order for the Exynos chip to excel. However, if you give it clock for clock, core for core, the Qualcomm S4 still pulls ahead as shown in several of those benchmarks.

Now the question is, other than benchmarking software, how much software out there is really properly threaded? This is still a conundrum in the desktop/laptop space and is even more so on the mobile space.

deltatux