Finally understand the "lag" thing...

[JaySoul]

So I've been on an LG G3 since just after it came out. I love the thing, but am selling it whilst the price is decent.

Picked up a cheap Z3 Compact yesterday as an interim device and wow. Just wow. I FINALLY understand what certain posters have been talking about with the dreaded LAG.

Using the devices side by side is just a night and day difference. This is using the exact same parameters, Google Now launcher, and I even took the micro SD card from the G3 and put it in the Z3C.

The Z3C is SO much faster, and what I thought was just "the occasional tiny bit of lag" on the G3 is actually not the case, I understand the complaints now. The Z3 Compact just flies in comparison, the only thing that is slightly slow is the camera, still figuring it out.

But OK, I get it, I finally get it! Has anyone else had any similar awakenings?

 

[MRU]

But OK, I get it, I finally get it! Has anyone else had any similar awakenings?

No some of us have known all to well for a long time - but are often told were 'just imagining it' if we complain ...

The biggest difference I saw was when I had both the Galaxy S4 with TW and GPE. The difference in performance / ram management / lag and fluidity - was astronomical.

 

[JaySoul]

My S4 was definitely quite laggy, but it's just so interesting how massive the difference between the super flagship G3 and the Z3 Compact.

The S6 Edge was very fast and responsive, but in a more horsepower way, and doesn't seem as naturally light/quick as the Z3C.

 

[epicrayban]

In actually going to pick up the z3 this week and compare it to the s6 before my grace window closes. I imagine I'll see the difference too as I already feel the difference between the s6 and the one plus. Touch wiz lags more often than it should. Things just hang <-- that's really the best way to describe it. Keyboard hangs, backspacing hangs, sometimes launching the app switcher hangs, sometimes launching apps hang. Etc.

Those that claim zero lag... like never.... I don't know what you guys are doing differently than I am. It may be leagues better than previous touch wiz but lag is still there more often than it should be. And likely more often than closer to stock OSes like one plus or z3.

Such a shame because there's a lot to really enjoy on the s6. The screen is utterly sublime for example.

 

[Zaft]

In actually going to pick up the z3 this week and compare it to the s6 before my grace window closes. I imagine I'll see the difference too as I already feel the difference between the s6 and the one plus. Touch wiz lags more often than it should. Things just hang <-- that's really the best way to describe it. Keyboard hangs, backspacing hangs, sometimes launching the app switcher hangs, sometimes launching apps hang. Etc.

Those that claim zero lag... like never.... I don't know what you guys are doing differently than I am. It may be leagues better than previous touch wiz but lag is still there more often than it should be. And likely more often than closer to stock OSes like one plus or z3.

Such a shame because there's a lot to really enjoy on the s6. The screen is utterly sublime for example.

The Is weird, didn't Samsung say it doesn't lag like 5 times at they s6 conference ....

 

[Heavy Fluid]

I experienced it big time. Went from the original Moto X to a Samsung Note 3. Touchwiz kind of bogs the phone down. Same settings as far as Nova Prime Launcher go and it still lags a bit. I deal with it because I love the Note 3. It is there, don't let anyone tell you it isn't.

 

[jamezr]

The Is weird, didn't Samsung say it doesn't lag like 5 times at they s6 conference ....

its is weird...my S6 edge doesn't lag at all. Neither does my Note 4.
I have had lag on my 6+ and so has others here and in the iphone section...weird how that works.....

 

[HiDEF]

I've been a user of both OS's and never really experience this "lag" everyone talks about.

However, I was thinking, could it be the difference of animation that creates an illusion of lag? Apple has a fade-on-to-screen animation when opening an app while android varies depending on launcher?

I truly wonder why some experience it and others don't.

 

[AppleRobert]

its is weird...my S6 edge doesn't lag at all. Neither does my Note 4.
I have had lag on my 6+ and so has others here and in the iphone section...weird how that works.....

Using nova with my Note 4. It truly is faster than light.

 

[Zaft]

its is weird...my S6 edge doesn't lag at all. Neither does my Note 4.
I have had lag on my 6+ and so has others here and in the iphone section...weird how that works.....

Why do you always get defensive and throw in iPhone 6 into everything

 

[jamezr]

Why do you always get defensive and throw in iPhone 6 into everything

Really? you of all people have to ask?

The Is weird, didn't Samsung say it doesn't lag like 5 times at they s6 conference ....

----------

I've been a user of both OS's and never really experience this "lag" everyone talks about.

However, I was thinking, could it be the difference of animation that creates an illusion of lag? Apple has a fade-on-to-screen animation when opening an app while android varies depending on launcher?

I truly wonder why some experience it and others don't.

I think you're right.....I think IOS is more optimized than Android and is better at hiding it's imperfections. And ALL OS's have imperfections....

 

[gotluck]

IMO all devices 'lag' in different ways.

touchwiz generally suffers when having to reload apps that should still be cached in ram and it is just resource intensive in general

stock android devices generally do not have the best possible hardware (at least as good as samsung)

ios generally either makes you wait until whatever needs to load is finished, or for example, if you start scrolling a safari webpage, it will stop loading further until you stop scrolling.

FWIW lag to me is network issues, I would call all of these 'issues' just how the system is loading/processing

 

[Fernandez21]

IMO all devices 'lag' in different ways.

touchwiz generally suffers when having to reload apps that should still be cached in ram and it is just resource intensive in general

stock android devices generally do not have the best possible hardware (at least as good as samsung)

ios generally either makes you wait until whatever needs to load is finished, or for example, if you start scrolling a safari webpage, it will stop loading further until you stop scrolling.

FWIW lag to me is network issues, I would call all of these 'issues' just how the system is loading/processing

I agree, there are several different types of "lags" that different people are more sensitive to than others. I know for myself, the type of lag that bothers me is framerate drops, and I notice this more on Android devices over ios, but to other people, they can't stand slower scroling, and to them ios lags and android is better. You really have to try and pinpoint what type of performance hiccups you can deal with and which ones you can't and get a device accordingly and only take the reports of others with a grain of salt, realizing that what they're seeing may not be what you see.

 

[jamezr]

I agree, there are several different types of "lags" that different people are more sensitive to than others. I know for myself, the type of lag that bothers me is framerate drops, and I notice this more on Android devices over ios, but to other people, they can't stand slower scroling, and to them ios lags and android is better. You really have to try and pinpoint what type of performance hiccups you can deal with and which ones you can't and get a device accordingly and only take the reports of others with a grain of salt, realizing that what they're seeing may not be what you see.

Those are words to live by......

 

[Billy95Tech]

But OK, I get it, I finally get it! Has anyone else had any similar awakenings?

Not me yet.


I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 and it has not been laggy at all even with TouchWiz.

 

[epicrayban]

So is this considered lag?

I get a pop up notification that I have a hangouts message. I want to go to the app so I tap on the notification pop up. The device hangs for a good 2 seconds (quite literally) before finally switching over to hangouts. I was in chrome.

Is that lag? Cause that's what just happened to me. Galaxy s6.

 

[gotluck]

So is this considered lag?

I get a pop up notification that I have a hangouts message. I want to go to the app so I tap on the notification pop up. The device hangs for a good 2 seconds (quite literally) before finally switching over to hangouts. I was in chrome.

Is that lag? Cause that's what just happened to me. Galaxy s6.

Hangouts is slow to load for me, I would blame hangouts in this case, but my device is slower too. Depends if this is lagging prior to loading hangouts or if it is lagging because it is loading hangouts. First launch if not cached in ram definitely takes at least 2 seconds for me, once cached it's quick.

Touchhwiz takes up a good bit of ram, if you are multitasking you may end relaunching hangouts more than you'd think

 

[epicrayban]

Hangouts is slow to load for me, I would blame hangouts in this case, but my device is slower too. Depends if this is lagging prior to loading hangouts or if it is lagging because it is loading hangouts. First launch if not cached in ram definitely takes at least 2 seconds for me, once cached it's quick.

Touchhwiz takes up a good bit of ram, if you are multitasking you may end relaunching hangouts more than you'd think

So it's not lag?

 

[Dmunjal]

So it's not lag?

That is definitely lag. And may be due to Samsung memory management. I noticed a big difference when moving from TW to GPE on the sale GS4 that I had. Nexus gives the same lag free experience.

Lag doesn't bother me as much as microstutters (frame drops). They ruin the fluid experience.

 

[gotluck]

So it's not lag?

I don't really know what to call it, it's all semantics

I would say its similar to safari tab refresh on 1gb devices on iOS, but here the problem is exacerbated by a slow loading hangouts app

 

[Fernandez21]

So it's not lag?

That is definitely a type lag, my point was that to me that type of lag isn't as bothersome as frame rate drops, so I may look at it as being no lag, but you would. That's how we can have those arguments where one person claims no lag and the other claims a lag fest, it's all in our perspective.

 

[v871305]

I've had "lag" with pretty much all the devices I've had. I've gone from the Galaxy S2 to iPhone 5 to HTC One M7 to Nexus 5 to HTC One M8 to iPhone 6 Plus - and the only one that has been lag free is the 6+, but give it a few more months and it will "lag" just like the others.

I have to say though, there is a difference in "lag" between iOS and Android, as far as I can tell. Android lag seems more "animation" based lag - although this seems to have been largely corrected with Lollipop (although this could be wrong considering my experience is only a few hours of use with the Nexus 6 and SE6).

The lag I've seen with iOS is more "horsepower" lag it seems. Not sure if it makes sense, but Lollipop is the first version of Android that is on par with how smooth iOS is, but iOS still lags behind with functionality.

Overall, the Nexus 5 is still the best phone I've had - used Nova and it flew. Wish I'd kept it to see how Lollipop ran on it. The HTC M8 was the worst with lag and random hangs.

 

[epicrayban]

So the s6 lags pretty badly then if what I described is lag. It happens other times too.

And yeah I don't experience this sort of hanging lag on my one plus.

 

[JaySoul]

I've been a user of both OS's and never really experience this "lag" everyone talks about.

However, I was thinking, could it be the difference of animation that creates an illusion of lag? Apple has a fade-on-to-screen animation when opening an app while android varies depending on launcher?

I truly wonder why some experience it and others don't.

No that's not what I'm talking about, because that's easy to test - just turn the animations off

For me, lag is when you want to launch/relaunch an app and it takes 2-3 seconds on one phone, and 0.5 seconds on a different phone.

Or using Chrome, Facebook, Twitter etc just anything really.

I know epicrayban had a bad experience with the S6 but I think he just got unlucky with the unit itself, my Edge that I used for a weekend was very fast.

I also wonder if certain settings slow phones down - on this Z3 Compact, I didn't have Location turned on. As soon as I turned it on, the whole phone actually slowed down noticeably.

 

[Robisan]

For me, lag is having to open apps in iOS to get the same info available via widgets on an Android home screen. Same thing for having to access control/notification menus to toggle something that's one-touch on-screen in Android. I'm constantly checking NBA scores on the Gametime app widget. It would drive me nuts to have to open the app every time to do the same in iOS.

...adding, my Moto x 2014 on VZW Lollipop is virtually lag free, with only the occasional home screen re-draw (running Nova launcher).