Getting the TouchWiz Calendar on the Google Nexus?

[fuzzybabybunny]

I just import International phones and use it on AT&T. (International SGS2/SGS3 being an example) International phones tend to also get better dev support/faster updates without having to go through provider (AT&T/Verizon/T-Mobile and such).

Last I heard, Jelly Bean update for SGS3 international is within 2-6 weeks.

How is the international S3 better? Seems like it has 1GB less RAM and a slower processor than the North America versions.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

it's just the fact that 850/1900 is used in more places in the world. it's at least used in all of latin america, australia, thailand, and maybe a few scattered regions.

we got shafted a lot in the beginning by HTC and Samsung for not having 850/1900. a lot of times we'd have to wait for Canadian versions, but it seems they're at least picking up 850/1900 in quad band phones or making variants that have the right frequencies. 1700 just stands little chance. I suspect Google was being nice to T-Mobile because of their previous Nexus devices. OTOH, Samsung really doesn't care about its SGS3 including 1 more band just to satisfy like 0.1% of potential customers?

Gotcha. Man, being in the US sucks then for cell phones.

The rest of the world uses 850/1900 but only *one* of our providers uses it, and that one doesn't have the best prepaid plans. The other three use a stupid CDMA network or uses GSM, but not a band that anyone else uses.

 

[AstroManLuca]

How is the international S3 better? Seems like it has 1GB less RAM and a slower processor than the North America versions.

The processor is slightly slower in tasks that don't take advantage of more than 2 cores (i.e. everything on Android so far). Theoretically it could be faster if anything actually used 3-4 cores. The GPU is about twice as fast in benchmarks, although from a practical standpoint that doesn't make much difference since the Adreno 225 in the US version is still more than enough for mobile gaming. As for ram, opinions are split. Some say you don't need more than 1 GB on Android, and that is probably true for stock Android, but the extra ram probably does help for resource-hogging TouchWiz.

 

[cronos]

Gotcha. Man, being in the US sucks then for cell phones.

Hahah when I said that exact same thing the first time it was 1999

 

[zerogear]

How is the international S3 better? Seems like it has 1GB less RAM and a slower processor than the North America versions.

Having used both, it doesn't matter which one you use, they basically operate exactly the same for everyday tasks. If you are running benchmarks, International SGS3 ranks slightly higher. Having 2GB RAM doesn't help much (for now, but will probably be nice for future Android versions). One major point for me was that International SGS3 has Wolfson DAC, where as the US version doesn't.

...but the extra ram probably does help for resource-hogging TouchWiz.

Nature UX TouchWiz is actually responsive and quite nice, I usually flash to a custom ROM as soon as I get a phone, but so far, I am still running stock and it's met/surpassed my expectations out of TouchWiz interface. It adds much more tweaks + usability to Android. And, no it doesn't slow the phone down having 1GB.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

The processor is slightly slower in tasks that don't take advantage of more than 2 cores (i.e. everything on Android so far). Theoretically it could be faster if anything actually used 3-4 cores. The GPU is about twice as fast in benchmarks, although from a practical standpoint that doesn't make much difference since the Adreno 225 in the US version is still more than enough for mobile gaming. As for ram, opinions are split. Some say you don't need more than 1 GB on Android, and that is probably true for stock Android, but the extra ram probably does help for resource-hogging TouchWiz.

Having used both, it doesn't matter which one you use, they basically operate exactly the same for everyday tasks. If you are running benchmarks, International SGS3 ranks slightly higher. Having 2GB RAM doesn't help much (for now, but will probably be nice for future Android versions). One major point for me was that International SGS3 has Wolfson DAC, where as the US version doesn't.

The 2GB of RAM I see as a possibly huge benefit? I can't tell you how many times I have 5 tabs open in Chrome and I go to another app, go back to the tabs, and then they have to *reload*. This is really problematic if I was working on filling in some form data in any of those tabs. The reload wipes out my progress on those forms. If there were 2GB of RAM couldn't the system just always keep the pages in memory without having to reload? You could work on a long forum post, go play a game/answer emails/my a call/facebook and then go right back to resuming the forum post.

What's special about the Wolfson DAC?