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Is lag unique to Galaxy S? Maybe not...


Guest DistortedLoop

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Guest DistortedLoop

I was just listening to This Week in Google with Leo Laporte. At the beginning of the show he's complaining to the other hosts that his Motorola Droid X, which he usually raves about, often lags when opening apps and he gets force closes a lot.

I never noticed anything like that on my Nexus One, or on the EVO 4G I tested for a month, but a Google search shows complaints of lag on the EVO as well. It makes me wonder if the newer Android 2.1 phones might all have issues with this? Could it possibly be something that's changed in Android itself?

I just find it a bit too coincidental that all three of the hottest new Android phones have lag issues.

Any thoughts?

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Guest Andrew Luecke
I was just listening to This Week in Google with Leo Laporte. At the beginning of the show he's complaining to the other hosts that his Motorola Droid X, which he usually raves about, often lags when opening apps and he gets force closes a lot.

I never noticed anything like that on my Nexus One, or on the EVO 4G I tested for a month, but a Google search shows complaints of lag on the EVO as well. It makes me wonder if the newer Android 2.1 phones might all have issues with this? Could it possibly be something that's changed in Android itself?

I just find it a bit too coincidental that all three of the hottest new Android phones have lag issues.

Any thoughts?

I used to work at an Apple reseller, and the reality is, you will find plenty of people to whinge about every aspect of every product. The lag is overrated in later builds. You must remember that people such as Leo Laporte probably become obsessed with some devices, rather than just using them. And when that happens, you start to care about the tiny things (like all the geniuses with Firefox complaining about non-existent memory leaks).

I no longer use the lag fix and the device is working for me fine for everyday use (other than the GPS). But lag will exist on every device (even computers when they start swapping).

I think the big issue is that people just need to sit back, and start using their phone rather than nitpicking. And remember, it is just a phone.. Ask yourselves, does the lag in recent builds actually affect you in everyday usage? In my case... Not really.

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Guest Cometer

If you're a power user you will find lag, force closes in any smarthphone. Be it an Android based one, Windows Mobile or iPhone. Why? Simply put because any platform that lets you run third-party apps and connect multiple different peripherals suffers from this. This are software bugs. It is impossible for a phone maker to test every single bluetooth headset. As well as install every single application to exaustion on any and all devices. Bugs will always exist that will create uneeded use of resources. Background services can eat your battery, your data plan and your smarthphone performance if they're not implemented properly. Thank fully Google has created a bunch of developer services to avoid developers creating their own badly developed versions.

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Guest DistortedLoop

Agreed about LaPorte and power users, but the lag, pre-fix, on my SGS was clearly noticeable, whereas it's not on my Nexus One. I have an iPhone 4, but don't use it enough to form an opinion, but I'd say that as you used the earlier versions of Apple's OS, the phone got laggy unless you rebooted.

I think it's true that some will whine about everything, and its easy to get a skewed point of view by reading forums since most people don't come to forums unless they have a problem, but I think there's a bit more to the SGS lag (on firmwares prior to the latest builds at least) than power-user whining.

Even my Mac needs an occasional reboot these days to speed it up - this is new to Snow Leopard, though. My Mac Pro desktop went over 300 days before I turned it off/rebooted once, and generally went for months between reboots until Snow Leopard came along. Now it needs a reboot every few days it seems. My MacBook Pro similar.

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Guest lexmeister2

While some people are just picky, I don't believe that is the case with the Samsung. I came from an HTC Desire which had no similar problems, the Galaxy S was useless straight out of the box, and if I hadn't have found the lag fix on here I would have sent it back.

Now the phone is fine, and I don't have any problems. To be completely honest, if there was a way to get rid of the Samsung rubbish and just put stock android 2.1/2.2 on it that's the way I'd go.

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Guest Kilack

I came from a nexus and never saw lag like I do on the galaxy.

Was annoying at times when someone called and you were waiting for the phone to show the answer screen so you could actually answer the phone.. at the point you know its an issue....

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Guest aditya_t90
I used to work at an Apple reseller, and the reality is, you will find plenty of people to whinge about every aspect of every product. The lag is overrated in later builds. You must remember that people such as Leo Laporte probably become obsessed with some devices, rather than just using them. And when that happens, you start to care about the tiny things (like all the geniuses with Firefox complaining about non-existent memory leaks).

I no longer use the lag fix and the device is working for me fine for everyday use (other than the GPS). But lag will exist on every device (even computers when they start swapping).

I think the big issue is that people just need to sit back, and start using their phone rather than nitpicking. And remember, it is just a phone.. Ask yourselves, does the lag in recent builds actually affect you in everyday usage? In my case... Not really.

Firefox does have memory leaks. It's a well documented problem after 3.something

Use Firefox for a few hours and have a look at your task manager.

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Guest fredphoesh
I came from a nexus and never saw lag like I do on the galaxy.

Was annoying at times when someone called and you were waiting for the phone to show the answer screen so you could actually answer the phone.. at the point you know its an issue....

I dont know about the nexus one, but my wife's 3gs has NO LAGS EVER. I dont know what iOS does so differently, but in that regard, android is way behind... and yes, missing a call like I did today, because the damned phone is "laggy" is really irritating.

Mark

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Guest AXIS of Reality
I dont know about the nexus one, but my wife's 3gs has NO LAGS EVER. I dont know what iOS does so differently, but in that regard, android is way behind... and yes, missing a call like I did today, because the damned phone is "laggy" is really irritating.

Mark

I've never had it lag out of a call :) . I only really 'noticed' the lag when I saw everyone complaining about it on XDA.

As for iOS, here's the reason why: no true multitasking.

Android uses full multitasking, meaning there's usually lots of stuff happening in the background. On iOS, it pretty much drops everything it's doing when you start an app, and then when you exit it cleans it entirely out of the RAM and CPU.

Even for iOS 4 it mostly uses saved-state multitasking, which isn't actually true multitasking. Basically, when you switch to a different app it saves what the program was doing and then stops processing, so when you open it from the multitasking menu it just boots back to where it was but with nothing done since this. There are some Apple-approved apps capable of using true background multitasking, but only for certain elements (eg: music can keep playing when you exit). Whether this is better or worse than true multitasking is debatable, so here's the good and bad:

PRO FOR TRUE MULTITASKING (Android, WebOS, Windows Mobile 6.5):

+ Will keep working when you switch, so for example if you're loading an internet page it'll keep doing that.

+ (for Android) don't need to remember to close apps

- Big performance hit, which is why an iPhone 3GS can seem speedier despite being far less powerful

- Got to have good automated memory management to keep it speedy

PROS FOR SAVED-STATE MULTITASKING (iOS4, Windows Phone 7)

+ Far better performance for the power (since it's not processing in the background)

+ Virtually unlimited number of apps able to be 'open' at once

- Doesn't actually work in the background, or very limited

- Can take a while to reopen each app, as they unload most of themselves when you switch.

- You've got to remember to close each app yourself

For PC it would be ridiculous to use saved-state, but for mobile it depends what you want. I like being able to instantly jump between apps and have them work while I'm doing something else (eg: instant messaging programs, internet browser) but I would like Google to add a WebOS-style full list of EVERYTHING open in the background so we can actually fully exit apps when we've finished.

Android just needs a nice big efficiency cleanup, which Froyo obviously started, and to make the multitasking more visible to the user so they know what's going on at any time. Maybe in the notifications panel it could have all active apps listed?...

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Guest DistortedLoop
I dont know about the nexus one, but my wife's 3gs has NO LAGS EVER. I dont know what iOS does so differently, but in that regard, android is way behind... and yes, missing a call like I did today, because the damned phone is "laggy" is really irritating.

Mark

I disagree about the iPhone. Maybe not iOS 4 so much, but I don't use mine enough to speak intelligently to it, but the 3G and earlier phones definitely suffered from lag after extensive use. Reboot or jailbreak so you could run an app to free memory was the only solution for me.

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Guest fredphoesh
I've never had it lag out of a call :) . I only really 'noticed' the lag when I saw everyone complaining about it on XDA.

As for iOS, here's the reason why: no true multitasking.

Hi

Im not convinced Android really does have true multitasking, I have had a number of situations where apps stop doing what the are doing in the bg. But the other thing is that if Android is running NO other apps it still has lag... so there is some way iOS is written that is more efficient for the interface which has nothing to do with multi taskinig... I really dislike having ANY lag when it comes to answering a phone. Missing a call makes me want to smash my SGS against the wall, it is a phone after all!

Mark.

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Guest fredphoesh
I disagree about the iPhone. Maybe not iOS 4 so much, but I don't use mine enough to speak intelligently to it, but the 3G and earlier phones definitely suffered from lag after extensive use. Reboot or jailbreak so you could run an app to free memory was the only solution for me.

SGS suffers lag after no use. I just have to browse apps, and you can see the jerkiness. Apps generally take about 10 secs to load, about 2 secs on iOS. SGS also can take a whole while to unlock. I am no fan of apple or their proprietory control freakery, but you do have to admire the smooth user experience. It really makes android phones Ive used feel second rate.

Mark.

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Guest DistortedLoop
SGS suffers lag after no use. I just have to browse apps, and you can see the jerkiness. Apps generally take about 10 secs to load, about 2 secs on iOS. SGS also can take a whole while to unlock. I am no fan of apple or their proprietory control freakery, but you do have to admire the smooth user experience. It really makes android phones Ive used feel second rate.

Mark.

Hmmm, if you say so. I don't recall lag on my SGS out of the box, but I hacked it pretty quickly so can't be sure. I suspect some of the lag is the TouchWiz interface. You might want to try ADW launcher or Launcher Pro out of the market to see if they improve that experience.

I won't argue that there are some aspects of the Apple experience that put Android to shame, there are. It's easy to give a user experience that's "smoother" when you limit the user's ability to do things they want.

What Android phones have you used? I've used an EVO 4G, a Nexus One, and the Galaxy S i9000. The EVO and N1 certainly had no lag issues, and are FAR from a second rate experience compared to the iPhone. The N1, EVO 4G, and even the SGS with the lag fix and ADW launcher are, for me, top-rate experiences that make the iPhone, even jailbroken, feel like an ancient, restricted third rate experience in most regards.

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Hmmm, if you say so. I don't recall lag on my SGS out of the box, but I hacked it pretty quickly so can't be sure. I suspect some of the lag is the TouchWiz interface. You might want to try ADW launcher or Launcher Pro out of the market to see if they improve that experience.

I won't argue that there are some aspects of the Apple experience that put Android to shame, there are. It's easy to give a user experience that's "smoother" when you limit the user's ability to do things they want.

I have to agree here, TouchWiz seems to have some issues because even before I started fiddling with new firmwares just changing the launcher made a difference. Same goes for some of the TouchWiz/Samsung widgets because getting rid of them also changed the situation somewhat. I also suspect that maybe its simply some of the phones that lag worse than others because people seem to have very different experiences with their SGS's.

For me the lag was very noticable right out of the box. After I started installing different apps and such it didn't get worse but it definately didn't get better either and I would've sent my phone back if not for XDA and this forum where temporary solutions were created. Right now I'm very happy and actually quite impressed with my SGS but I honestly wouldn't recommend it to anyone else based on my own experience, not everyone wants to install unofficial firmwares or root their phone or even understand what partitioning your memorycard means. Even though it's fairly simple to do it shouldn't be required to have a working smartphone.

Smoothness is one thing but lagging when recieving calls, opening the contacts, opening the dialer, opening the settings menu, opening the apps menu etc. isn't what I'd call even remotely smooth and while it doesn't make the phone useless it does prevent you from actually enjoying it; something which is quite disappointing for a device that on paper should put all other devices to shame.

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Guest DistortedLoop
Right now I'm very happy and actually quite impressed with my SGS but I honestly wouldn't recommend it to anyone else based on my own experience, not everyone wants to install unofficial firmwares or root their phone or even understand what partitioning your memorycard means. Even though it's fairly simple to do it shouldn't be required to have a working smartphone.

Yes, same here.

My friend is due for a phone upgrade this week from his iPhone 3G. I had initially told him the SGS was what I'd recommend, but I'm not so sure now. He'll want a subsidized phone, which means the AT&T Captivate. I'd have to hack it for him, and I don't want to be responsible for maintaining his phone, which isn't even the same as mine, so it's learning two new phones and the hacks. Too much work for a phone that shouldn't lag out of the box.

I wonder if the Captivate has the same lag issues. Seems there are a few posts by Captivate/Vibrant owners here looking to use the fix. /sigh

I may have to suggest the iPhone 4 to him, easy, functional, he's familiar with it, and no hacking needed...though mine is jailbroken. Maybe I'll just sell him mine. LOL

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Guest fredphoesh
Yes, same here.

My friend is due for a phone upgrade this week from his iPhone 3G. I had initially told him the SGS was what I'd recommend, but I'm not so sure now. He'll want a subsidized phone, which means the AT&T Captivate. I'd have to hack it for him, and I don't want to be responsible for maintaining his phone, which isn't even the same as mine, so it's learning two new phones and the hacks. Too much work for a phone that shouldn't lag out of the box.

I wonder if the Captivate has the same lag issues. Seems there are a few posts by Captivate/Vibrant owners here looking to use the fix. /sigh

I may have to suggest the iPhone 4 to him, easy, functional, he's familiar with it, and no hacking needed...though mine is jailbroken. Maybe I'll just sell him mine. LOL

well ive installed another rom now, and did a complete reformat of fat32, ext4 on the external sd and reformat of internal sd, factory reset etc... Im now using the 1.9b samset rom (xda) and am finding it the best rom ive had so far. Within SGS there seems to be very little lag, just a bit slow loading apps and getting to the screen unlock after pressing power and then after sliding the screen there are a few seconds... but with ALL my apps loaded, I am very impressed with a near iOS slickness on the phone. Im using Launch Pro and also WidgetLocker for the lock screen. Now, again, I am very pleased I returned my iPhone 4 for this. Not quite as slick, but the advantages and openness way overweigh that.

as a side note, a few apps are "not found" on market, like National Rail, and Tungsten pro will not install successfully after many re-attempts... odd.

Anyhow, this is OT for here.

Cheers guys,

Mark. (happy bunny again, and 1768 Quadrant score!)

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Guest DistortedLoop
Hi

Im not convinced Android really does have true multitasking, I have had a number of situations where apps stop doing what the are doing in the bg. But the other thing is that if Android is running NO other apps it still has lag... so there is some way iOS is written that is more efficient for the interface which has nothing to do with multi taskinig... I really dislike having ANY lag when it comes to answering a phone. Missing a call makes me want to smash my SGS against the wall, it is a phone after all!

If an app stops processing in the background, it's either been shuffled to the back of the memory line and dumped by the Android, or there's something wrong with the app. Android multitasks, iOS4 sort of multitasks, that's not disputed by most anyone. Remember, these are small devices with limited resources, you can't expect a desktop/laptop like experience of multitasking on a phone, even an Android phone.

I have to agree here, TouchWiz seems to have some issues because even before I started fiddling with new firmwares just changing the launcher made a difference. Same goes for some of the TouchWiz/Samsung widgets because getting rid of them also changed the situation somewhat.

I just saw a thread on XDA yesterday that points the lag finger directly at the TouchWiz Daily Briefing Widget. I think overloading with too many widgets is always going to be a negative impact on the phone, but some are much worse than others.

well ive installed another rom now, and did a complete reformat of fat32, ext4 on the external sd and reformat of internal sd, factory reset etc... Im now using the 1.9b samset rom (xda) and am finding it the best rom ive had so far. Within SGS there seems to be very little lag, just a bit slow loading apps and getting to the screen unlock after pressing power and then after sliding the screen there are a few seconds... but with ALL my apps loaded, I am very impressed with a near iOS slickness on the phone. Im using Launch Pro and also WidgetLocker for the lock screen. Now, again, I am very pleased I returned my iPhone 4 for this. Not quite as slick, but the advantages and openness way overweigh that.

Samset sounds interesting from time to time, but I hear reports of an ugly orange theme. I should check out screen shots of it. I prefer muted colors on my phone. I never theme my phones to begin with, and I don't want some gaudy theme forced on me by the ROM developer, though the besting looking Android ROM I've ever seen is the Knag-o-Rama dark themed ROM on my Nexus One. Great fonts and dark look to the window shade.

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I just saw a thread on XDA yesterday that points the lag finger directly at the TouchWiz Daily Briefing Widget. I think overloading with too many widgets is always going to be a negative impact on the phone, but some are much worse than others.

Ditto. It is interesting though that a lot of the problems seem to origenate from the stuff Samsung has put in. While I love the fact they are releasing unofficial firmwares and apparently one of the JM's will even be on KIES in a while (at least the files are there, they just aren't accessible yet) they could be doing better or at least give an easy option to disable/get rid of TW without the KIES connection suffering since at least for now thats our only way to install official upgrades.

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Guest Compuse

"you can't expect a desktop/laptop like experience of multitasking on a phone, even an Android phone."

well my i900 was able to multitask just like a normal desktop would; if the amount of ram wouldn't exceed the ram available tho

This i9000 felt soh cheap on the multitasking side, apps get slowed downed and/or forced to shutdown/freeze when switching programs

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Guest ranblv

I don't consider Leo laporte to be the whining type at all, I think what he does is test every app he can download, and after a while you phone lags because a lot of applications load in the background even if you didn't start it on your own.

I use "Task cleaner" and every hour or so i get notices that it closed black listed apps.

I really like my I9000 but only after I flashed the JF3 Rom and repartitioned the internal card it stopped lagging without having to use 1GB of swap file from the lag fix.

Edited by ranblv
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Guest DistortedLoop
I really like my I9000 but only after I flashed the JF3 Rom and repartitioned the internal card it stopped lagging without having to use 1GB of swap file from the lag fix.

Repartitioned, or reformatted?

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