My Galaxy S3 started acting strange about a week ago. It kept shutting itself down and restarting, freezing, etc. Never had this problem until last week. I uninstalled the only 2 apps that I had installed in the past 2 months. Unfortunately I didn't do a factory reset.
Well, sure enough, on Sunday morning my phone would not boot up anymore. No matter what I have done, I cannot get it past the first screen with the white text "Samsung Galaxy SIII"
Tried hard reboot using the up volume, power and home keys, and it will not even turn on or buzz like it's starting up at all.
Tried booting into download mode using down volume key, but the moment something appears on screen, I let go of the keys in order to select an option, the menu disappears.
I took it to a store here in Oregon where I'm visiting family and don't know my way around town (without my phone...yeah, this is a fun vacation). The store's tech said nothing they could do, but they kindly offered to sell me a new phone for $500. Ummmm, no, Christmas budget has already been spent, thankyouverymuch.
What are my options here? I have heard T-Mobile has stopped the over-the-air push of the 4.3 update because it's so unstable that it is causing a high % of phones updated to brick like this.