My observations of the ATIV S after 6 weeks of ownership. These are MY observations and relate to ME; YMMV and all that. . .
Pros
Nice looking if not outstanding
Removable battery
SD-CARD slot
great screen
large capacity battery
Cons
buttons - volume button could do with a little dot on to help feel it - for me its a bit too flush with the body of the phone.
buttons - stupid positioning; volume on opposite side to the power button resulting in volume being changed when switching phone off. Net result over a few hours is that volume is left a very low levels. Missed calls and reminders. This is one of the most irritating things about this phone. The power button should have been on the top or the volume buttons should be on the same side as the power (like the Lumia 920)
headphone socket - in normal use I put my phone top down into my pocket (so when I take it out its in the correct orientation for use) - having the headphone socket on top of the phone means I can't do that (like I did with my HD7)
no audio DSP - seems like a glaring ommission. How can anyone make an audio playback device of any kind that doesn't give you audio settings (base and trebble at an absolute minimum)?
no offline navigation - although this is now solved to an extent by Nokia Drive Plus and isn't really Samsung's fault per se. Drive plus is a far cry from the likes of Tom Tom or Co Pilot, on android or windows mobile but at least its there and is offline.
SD-card problems - may be a WP8 issue, but this is my biggest bugbear with this phone. It has soured my experience of it completly. One of the two main reasons I bought the thing is the sdcard slot (the other being the removable battery) and its all but unusable. If I get away without sdcard "corruption" ** for more than two days I feel like I'm living on borrowed time until it craps out and lets me down. **its not corrupt just seems to have the "removed unsafely" bit set and the only way to fix this is have a Windows PC scan it. PITA.
Slippery! - solved by putting a ($30!!) Zagg invisible protector on the back so it no longer wants to slip out of my hand every time I pick it up.
Camera lense - this just confuses me in that I cannot for the life of me figure out why they built it like this. . . when you put the phone down (on its back as you will because face down is chancing scratching the screen!) the thing that protrudes the most from the phone is the plastic cover for the camera lens!!!! Why is this not recessed to avoid surface contact (like and HD7) and thus damage/scratching? Its not like Samsung have never built a phone before . . . are all their phones like this?
Would I recommend this phone to anyone else? No I wouldn't. It doesn't live up to my expectations. That being said, I will stick with it in the hope that MS/Samsung fixes this seriously irritating sdcard issue and because there's nothing else with similar specs that has a removable battery (I find just having two fully charged batteries at my disposal a much better and easier way of dealing with battery life issues. It saves the usb port, hunting for charger, will it make morning with this charge? issues. I guess a Lumia 920 with charge plates at work, home, in car etc would do but that's a higher cost and not as portable as just carrying a couple of batteries.
So overall, love WP8 but don't like the phone. Perhaps I'll try a Lumia 920 and see how I get on with that....
-Griz
Pros
Nice looking if not outstanding
Removable battery
SD-CARD slot
great screen
large capacity battery
Cons
buttons - volume button could do with a little dot on to help feel it - for me its a bit too flush with the body of the phone.
buttons - stupid positioning; volume on opposite side to the power button resulting in volume being changed when switching phone off. Net result over a few hours is that volume is left a very low levels. Missed calls and reminders. This is one of the most irritating things about this phone. The power button should have been on the top or the volume buttons should be on the same side as the power (like the Lumia 920)
headphone socket - in normal use I put my phone top down into my pocket (so when I take it out its in the correct orientation for use) - having the headphone socket on top of the phone means I can't do that (like I did with my HD7)
no audio DSP - seems like a glaring ommission. How can anyone make an audio playback device of any kind that doesn't give you audio settings (base and trebble at an absolute minimum)?
no offline navigation - although this is now solved to an extent by Nokia Drive Plus and isn't really Samsung's fault per se. Drive plus is a far cry from the likes of Tom Tom or Co Pilot, on android or windows mobile but at least its there and is offline.
SD-card problems - may be a WP8 issue, but this is my biggest bugbear with this phone. It has soured my experience of it completly. One of the two main reasons I bought the thing is the sdcard slot (the other being the removable battery) and its all but unusable. If I get away without sdcard "corruption" ** for more than two days I feel like I'm living on borrowed time until it craps out and lets me down. **its not corrupt just seems to have the "removed unsafely" bit set and the only way to fix this is have a Windows PC scan it. PITA.
Slippery! - solved by putting a ($30!!) Zagg invisible protector on the back so it no longer wants to slip out of my hand every time I pick it up.
Camera lense - this just confuses me in that I cannot for the life of me figure out why they built it like this. . . when you put the phone down (on its back as you will because face down is chancing scratching the screen!) the thing that protrudes the most from the phone is the plastic cover for the camera lens!!!! Why is this not recessed to avoid surface contact (like and HD7) and thus damage/scratching? Its not like Samsung have never built a phone before . . . are all their phones like this?
Would I recommend this phone to anyone else? No I wouldn't. It doesn't live up to my expectations. That being said, I will stick with it in the hope that MS/Samsung fixes this seriously irritating sdcard issue and because there's nothing else with similar specs that has a removable battery (I find just having two fully charged batteries at my disposal a much better and easier way of dealing with battery life issues. It saves the usb port, hunting for charger, will it make morning with this charge? issues. I guess a Lumia 920 with charge plates at work, home, in car etc would do but that's a higher cost and not as portable as just carrying a couple of batteries.
So overall, love WP8 but don't like the phone. Perhaps I'll try a Lumia 920 and see how I get on with that....
-Griz