Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
So today was my first real attempt to Guage battery life. I'm on the road a lot so normally it's on the charger, and this being a new phone I've used it a bunch, but today I purposely kept off the charger and used it more or less like I normally would. This includes about an hour and half of streaming video (today it was YouTube but in the fall it's hulu) plus some light gaming, listening to and watching podcasts, and a lot of Web surfing.

Battery life was pretty good, my 6 plus still beats it, and the android battery champ still belongs to the Note 2, but this was about what I got with my Note 4, so I'm happy.

23a291b97cf32437f678e36184244759.jpg
3108dbe6116e89b38dea96f5088270b4.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: jamezr
http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/0...nd-tasks-decreasing-multitasking-performance/

Note 5 users, what's your opinion about this video?
Does it really bother you on your everyday use of the phone?

IMO the video shows app refreshing happens after :
1. Lot of apps has been opened, or
2. Home button is pressed.

This does not happen to me on my Note 4, but I never open that many apps. Now with that being said, I cannot express enough how much this is a non issue for "normal" users. I know of at least three S6 Edge users at work, and not a single one even noticed this. I'm guessing it's because normal users don't give a hoot. And if something like this is so much of a deal breaker for you, that it makes you choose a less luxurious and a less premium crafted phone, then more power to you. BTW, I like how on the apps with a comments section, refreshing was the better option as it showed new comments. So the Nexus user would have had to hit refresh in the app to see the new comments anyway. :rolleyes:
 
Last edited:
This does not happen to me on my Note 4, but I never open that many apps. Now with that being said, I cannot express enough how much this is a non issue for "normal" users. I know of at least three S6 Edge users at work, and not a single one even noticed this. I'm guessing it's because normal users don't give a hoot. And if something like this is so much of a deal breaker for you, that it makes you choose a less luxurious and a less premium crafted phone, then more power to you. BTW, I like how on the apps with a comments section, refreshing was the better option as it showed new comments. So the Nexus user would have had to hit refresh in the app to see the new comments anyway. :rolleyes:

The old "if I don't see it it doesn't matter" excuse ;)

By using this as an excuse, your nonchalance and apathy, condemns all users to poorer performance than we should accept on as you describe a 'premium' device. Especially one with 4gb ram in 2015.

We constantly hear moaning from yourself and others about giving other OEM's a pass, and yet you are doing exactly that by excusing this.

The Note series was conceived for power users. It has seen a regression from the Note 2, 3 & 4 in this area. Fact.

Stop excusing it, accept it shouldn't happen. What incentive is there to fix or sort out Touchwiz in this regard if your excusing it?

You can love a device and enjoy it - but still accept and acknowledge its faults.

Touchwiz has improved undoubtably - but in this particular area it's 2015 flagships have seen a regression and in devices with 3 & 4gb of ram (the fastest variety) we should be expecting and seeing better memory management.

Acknowledging this doesn't mean you hate Samsung or devalue your admiration for a device, but using the excuse that casual users won't notice is just absolute nonsense and a joke.
 
Last edited:
Personally I do not mind. I'm just curious.

The essence of multitasking is to do many things simultaneously.
I can't imagine someone needs to 'manipulate' 10 apps at the same time.
For instance, in the middle of browsing in chrome, then open app 1 to app 9 which correlate with previous chrome app, then open chrome again.
I can understand the annoying of app refreshing if it refresh when I open 3 - 5 apps.

If limiting the running background apps can save more battery & give me more speed/smoothness, I'm all for it as long as I can still do "normal" multitasking.
That's why I asked current note 5 users about their experience in this thing.
 
Personally I do not mind. I'm just curious.

The essence of multitasking is to do many things simultaneously.
I can't imagine someone needs to 'manipulate' 10 apps at the same time.
For instance, in the middle of browsing in chrome, then open app 1 to app 9 which correlate with previous chrome app, then open chrome again.
I can understand the annoying of app refreshing if it refresh when I open 3 - 5 apps.

If limiting the running background apps can save more battery & give me more speed/smoothness, I'm all for it as long as I can still do "normal" multitasking.
That's why I asked current note 5 users about their experience in this thing.

Killing apps and having them force refresh more often would actually put greater increase on power & resources than if a device can handle them properly in memory.

It's not saving any battery in that regard.
 
The old "if I don't see it it doesn't matter" excuse ;)

By using this as an excuse, your nonchalance and apathy, condemns all users to poorer performance than we should accept on as you describe a 'premium' device. Especially one with 4gb ram in 2015.

We constantly hear moaning from yourself and others about giving other OEM's a pass, and yet you are doing exactly that by excusing this.

The Note series was conceived for power users. It has seen a regression from the Note 2, 3 & 4 in this area. Fact.

Stop excusing it, accept it shouldn't happen. What incentive is there to fix or sort out Touchwiz in this regard if your excusing it?

You can love a device and enjoy it - but still accept and acknowledge its faults.

Touchwiz has improved undoubtably - but in this particular area it's 2015 flagships have seen a regression and in devices with 3 & 4gb of ram (the fastest variety) we should be expecting and seeing better memory management.

Acknowledging this doesn't mean you hate Samsung or devalue your admiration for a device, but using the excuse that casual users won't notice is just absolute nonsense and a joke.
Exactly!

I hate it when the "normal users" excuse is used. What does it mean? Should we wait until it is so bad that they also start complaining???

There is no point in excusing a multi billion dollar company's product, if it has taken a step back in key features, they need to be called out.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MRU
Personally I do not mind. I'm just curious.

The essence of multitasking is to do many things simultaneously.
I can't imagine someone needs to 'manipulate' 10 apps at the same time.
For instance, in the middle of browsing in chrome, then open app 1 to app 9 which correlate with previous chrome app, then open chrome again.
I can understand the annoying of app refreshing if it refresh when I open 3 - 5 apps.

If limiting the running background apps can save more battery & give me more speed/smoothness, I'm all for it as long as I can still do "normal" multitasking.
That's why I asked current note 5 users about their experience in this thing.
You may not realise it, but one uses many apps throughout the day.

I know with me, I will use Tapatalk, Chrome, Opera Mini, Twitter, FB, Instagram, Gmail, WhatsApp, LinkedIn and maybe Angry Birds 2.

Even on my old Galaxy S4 with 2GB RAM, those apps would stay in memory and I close them when I want, it made multitasking very fluid and dependable.

What I am seeing on the S6, S6 Edge, S6 Edge+ and Note5 is multitasking that is not dependable on. I'd not trust a Note5 to keep an article I am reading in Chrome while listening to music when I suddenly see something I want to take a pic of, as when I launch the Camera, it seems the phone has a 50% chance of closing Chrome, and then I lose my place in the article.

The above happens a lot, and at 4GB DDR4 RAM, heavy multitasking should not even be a discussion, it should be something the phone does with incredible ease. The LG G4, Nexus 6, Note 1, Note 2, Note 3, Note 4, S4, S5 etc etc ... All do it with ease, the newer Samsungs should to.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MRU
Exactly!

I hate it when the "normal users" excuse is used. What does it mean? Should we wait until it is so bad that they also start complaining???

There is no point in excusing a multi billion dollar company's product, if it has taken a step back in key features, they need to be called out.

Exactly. And in doing so, contrary to some folks opinions, it doesn't mean you hate them or their products. Genuinely if you 'love' their products you should be wanting them to fix what is clearly broken.

Whether it's the new ram in the current flagships or some element of Touchwiz that's been banjaxed causing this aggressive ram issue, something has clearly gone astray.

Calling them out, demanding a fix for this should be seen as a positive because if we get that fix 'ALL OF US' benefit.

Burying head in the sand at same time as declaring your passionate about their products is logically utterly counter productive.

I have spent well over $2500 in Samsung devices in the last 12 months. Calling them out for something is not 'wrong of me' as some would like to portray it as - like life is somehow black & white. That criticism somehow = hatred.

This is an issue, all of us deserve better whether enthusiast, power user or casual - and we all deserve a proper fix for it.
 
http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/0...nd-tasks-decreasing-multitasking-performance/

Note 5 users, what's your opinion about this video?
Does it really bother you on your everyday use of the phone?

IMO the video shows app refreshing happens after :
1. Lot of apps has been opened, or
2. Home button is pressed.
That's the software issue.

Sadly it would be a flawless device if it wasn't doing this. It's a joke Samsung have allowed this to happen.kind of makes 4GB of ram pointless.

Dissapointing

It's a great phone but certain people refuse to point out its faults. When people point to this an obvious fault it can't just be ignored. There is no excuse for this on a premium device
 
  • Like
Reactions: MRU
Exactly. And in doing so, contrary to some folks opinions, it doesn't mean you hate them or their products. Genuinely if you 'love' their products you should be wanting them to fix what is clearly broken.

Whether it's the new ram in the current flagships or some element of Touchwiz that's been banjaxed causing this aggressive ram issue, something has clearly gone astray.

Calling them out, demanding a fix for this should be seen as a positive because if we get that fix 'ALL OF US' benefit.

Burying head in the sand at same time as declaring your passionate about their products is logically utterly counter productive.

I have spent well over $2500 in Samsung devices in the last 12 months. Calling them out for something is not 'wrong of me' as some would like to portray it as - like life is somehow black & white. That criticism somehow = hatred.

This is an issue, all of us deserve better whether enthusiast, power user or casual - and we all deserve a proper fix for it.
Yep

I've spent about £2,500 the past two years also on Samsung products and it's a joke that they are allowing this to happen and it isn't hate for saying it's not good enough from a company to allow this
 
  • Like
Reactions: MRU
http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/0...nd-tasks-decreasing-multitasking-performance/

Note 5 users, what's your opinion about this video?
Does it really bother you on your everyday use of the phone?

IMO the video shows app refreshing happens after :
1. Lot of apps has been opened, or
2. Home button is pressed.
That is just so sad to watch, the Nexus 6 did exactly what I have been used to in Android....the S6 Edge+ on the other hand did what I see on my iPad 4 after opening 3 Safari tabs, that is just annoying and slows down productivity.

What exactly was the point of 4GB RAM in it? Samsung could have just cheaped-out and gone with 1GB RAM if they wanted a 2015 smartphone with 4GB RAM to act like one with 1GB RAM.
 
That is just so sad to watch, the Nexus 6 did exactly what I have been used to in Android....the S6 Edge+ on the other hand did what I see on my iPad 4 after opening 3 Safari tabs, that is just annoying and slows down productivity.

What exactly was the point of 4GB RAM in it? Samsung could have just cheaped-out and gone with 1GB RAM if they wanted a 2015 smartphone with 4GB RAM to act like one with 1GB RAM.
If it's doing this it is like it has 1GB of ram in.

Does this happen on the iphone 6/ 6 plus with 1GB of ram?
 
That's awful, the Nexus 6 is clearly faster and smoother then the S6 Edge Plus, so the Samsung TouchWiz is still not perfected even now? And having lots of apps in the background is EXACTLY the scenario many normal uses will do, my Mum will generally have about 8 things open on her IPad as she never closes them, she like many normal users just presses the home button and opens another app, so I would say this memory management is going to degrade performance for the majority of customers, not that they will notice until they try their friends 6S Plus no doubt.

Let's see if Samsung improve on it because for 4 Gb ram it's a bit of a joke. Android is supposed to be all about multitasking.
 
Last edited:
http://www.androidpolice.com/2015/0...nd-tasks-decreasing-multitasking-performance/

Note 5 users, what's your opinion about this video?
Does it really bother you on your everyday use of the phone?

IMO the video shows app refreshing happens after :
1. Lot of apps has been opened, or
2. Home button is pressed.

I'm a big Android Police reader, they are a very well respected and trustworthy site.

This video has put the brakes on me selling my Nexus 6 for the Note 5.
 
Happens on both my colleague's 6 and 6 Plus. Apparently the iPad Air 2 multitasks very well thanks to 2GB RAM though.
Hopefully this issue is solved with the 6S and 6S plus...no issues with my iPad. 2GB helps a lot clearly
 
And having lots of apps in the background is EXACTLY the scenario many normal uses will do, my Mum will generally have about 8 things open on her IPad as she never closes them,.

Exactly. We're not even talking about third party apps here. You can have a myriad of apps open that you would overlook (not pay a second thought about)

Dialer
Contacts
SMS / Messaging
S-Planner
Email
Clock

You'd be up at 6 apps with just those. You only need to add one or two more common apps like Facebook or a music player app and you would soon reach the aggressive refreshing point. Your doing nothing special or overtly taxing. Especially on 3 & 4gb devices.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: apolloa
Samsung, you make the best Displays, and amazing hardware. But god damn, Touchwiz is still a bloated mess and unoptimized.

They just need to scrap the current Touchwiz, and start all over with a fresh new UI build on the Galaxy S7 next year.

Would love too see how stock Android would run on the Note 5 ? Wish they still offered GPE devices. A Note 5 GPE would be crazy cool.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MRU
They just need to scrap the current Touchwiz, and start all over with a fresh new UI build on the Galaxy S7 next year.

I've been saying that for a long time ...

The annoying thing is the Tizen whilst certainly not an android replacement - shows that if they optimised and rebuilt from scratch they do indeed have the ability to create a very optimised OS.

Samsung had unarguably the best hardware on the Android hemisphere. Hardware that shines in benchmarks - which if anything teases us with the potential 'raw' power of the hardware. But it's software is letting it's hardware down and hindering it from truly shining. It never reaches the potential it so clearly has.

Each year they rely on more and more muscle power to sort out the software issues, rather than focus entirely on software experience and rebuild it to produce a vastly optimised experience across the board.

Indeed by doing so - it would translate to a better experience across the whole of Samsung's range of devices whether low, mid or high end. A boost that would translate into having tangible benefits to all, from low end to stepping up to greater benefits to the mid and greater still high end devices.

We would have not only hardware that shines but a software experience that lets it do so.
 
Dear Samsung,

it was you that built the roms for this GPE S4 that I've enjoyed for 2 years (google actually just stamped approval on GPE with a set of conditions with the rom actually built by the OEM ). We know you can make efficient software builds. Please do it..

Thanks.
 
  • Like
Reactions: tbayrgs
Ok, I just did a mini test on the multitasking to see how far it goes before it refreshes. Basically I set up a list of apps on my home and started with one, loaded it and navigated a screen into the app, then hit home and opened up the next then started back with the first app. Basically I opened the apps like 1,1,2,1,2,3,1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4,5,1,2,3,4,5,6. Until I saw the reloads. The app order was angry birds 2, chrome, gmail, angry birds 1, duck tales remastered,Dropbox, amazon, and pocketcasts.

Basically once I hit angry birds 1 chrome would reload everytime, so 4 apps in, but angry birds 2 didn't reload until I hit dropbox. After dropbox, everything but gmail reloaded and at Amazon it started reloading too.

So it doesn't seem to set on an order but on what apps your multitasking since they started reloading at different spots. I guess this is why you see some people not effected at all and others pulling their hair out as it depends on the apps running.
 
  • Like
Reactions: azhurvadal and MRU
Ok, I just did a mini test on the multitasking to see how far it goes before it refreshes. Basically I set up a list of apps on my home and started with one, loaded it and navigated a screen into the app, then hit home and opened up the next then started back with the first app. Basically I opened the apps like 1,1,2,1,2,3,1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4,5,1,2,3,4,5,6. Until I saw the reloads. The app order was angry birds 2, chrome, gmail, angry birds 1, duck tales remastered,Dropbox, amazon, and pocketcasts.

Basically once I hit angry birds 1 chrome would reload everytime, so 4 apps in, but angry birds 2 didn't reload until I hit dropbox. After dropbox, everything but gmail reloaded and at Amazon it started reloading too.

So it doesn't seem to set on an order but on what apps your multitasking since they started reloading at different spots. I guess this is why you see some people not effected at all and others pulling their hair out as it depends on the apps running.

I think people see it but just prefer to ignore it and forget it exists.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.