Phones Samsung Galaxy S8

[MRU]

I wonder if this is causing the lag my husband showed me on his S8+ last night when we were talking about our phones at dinner. We had stopped at a restaurant after a day of shopping at a mall for gifts school staff, and he said over time he has started to struggle with lag. He showed me the inexcusable delay it took for Samsung Pay to come up along with a few other native and downloaded apps lagging.

He didn't seem to have more than two apps loaded at a time when he demonstrated the lag to me. The lag was noticeable even to me. So he definitely wasn't being picky. Sadly he's got some annoying lag going on.

We both have the dreaded animation lag that I complained about before. I briefly got rid of it but it returned. I have grown used to it so I just leave it be. The animation lag is a completely separate issue from the app lag, but it contributes to a very jarring experience when the two are combined.

My husband uses his S8+ as his only phone and uses it extensively through the day. He would like to go back to his iPhone while he works through troubleshooting this lag issue, but ironically is now trapped in the Samsung ecosystem, because he loves his Frontier watch. He's got it set up beautifully to give him all the alerts and notifications he could want and very detailed sleep and health tracking. He definitely has bought into the smart watch concept but is not a fan of Apple's execution of it. He rarely wore his Apple Watch consistently but there is always a Samsung watch on his wrist now. Most often it's the Frontier, but he still wears the free Gear S2 Sport we got from AT&T.

He's also experiencing accelerated battery consumption compared to what he was seeing when the phone was newer.

I do not have any issues at the moment but I'm using the S8+ as a camera, Kindle e reader, telephone. I also surf the web, do most of my emails and read a little bit of news. I normally play hidden object and puzzle games on Android but I have not had time or energy lately. That's very light usage compared to my husband's. I am also using my iPhone. I flip between the two phones all day long. All messaging is now done through my iPhone.

Which reminds me, one day an entire series of texts I sent from my iPhone failed to reach his phone. But the test ones we sent to each other when he got home made it through fine. We have no clue what happened there.

He uses Facebook and news apps and his financial services apps. Plus a large variety of office productivity apps and one or two health and fitness apps. He does a lot with his phone so it's going to be tough tracking down any ornery apps.

I wont touch FB. And news apps cause me the most headaches on iOS and Android. I think it might be site ads that crash my apps and clog my browser whenever I surf for news.

Yep in many ways it feels like we have to fight with the device to deliver the experience it's specs give promise to/of. I notice the dropped frames / animation in Samsung's launcher. Resolved by Nova currently. But these things just should not be part of the equation on a €799 2017 flagship. It's simply frustrating.

 

[Roadstar]

Whatever the reason, it is still a solution and one that plagued the S6 series and sub-par for a device in 2017.

Android 7.1.1 if it ever arrives best fix this or it will be the reason why I get rid of the device. Apps reloading as often make the device feel slower than it ever should.

The S7/S7E Exynos didn't have the issue.

Thanks for reporting this MRU, you might have saved me from making an expensive mistake. It was just this weekend when I was considering that if the OnePlus 5 disappoints, I'll just get myself the S8 so I'll still have a good camera and a waterproof phone. These reports combined with the unpleasant surprises I got when trying out my S7 Edge with my new car (and googling that it's most likely the same with the S8) are making me consider staying with the iPhone 7 at least until the Note 8 and the next iPhones come out (unless I end up pulling the trigger on the OnePlus 5). I already went and purchased the overpriced Belkin adapter so that I can both charge and listen to music/podcasts from my iPhone 7 in my car. That setup with the bulky adapter looked such courageous

 

[mib1800]

Thanks for reporting this MRU, you might have saved me from making an expensive mistake. It was just this weekend when I was considering that if the OnePlus 5 disappoints, I'll just get myself the S8 so I'll still have a good camera and a waterproof phone. These reports combined with the unpleasant surprises I got when trying out my S7 Edge with my new car (and googling that it's most likely the same with the S8) are making me consider staying with the iPhone 7 at least until the Note 8 and the next iPhones come out (unless I end up pulling the trigger on the OnePlus 5). I already went and purchased the overpriced Belkin adapter so that I can both charge and listen to music/podcasts from my iPhone 7 in my car. That setup with the bulky adapter looked such courageous

If having more than 6-8 apps stay in memory without reloading is more important than the design, screen, camera, water proofing, sd card, iris scanner, Samsung pay, then don't get the s8. Op5 is a better buy at much cheaper price.

 

[MRU]

Thanks for reporting this MRU, you might have saved me from making an expensive mistake. It was just this weekend when I was considering that if the OnePlus 5 disappoints, I'll just get myself the S8 so I'll still have a good camera and a waterproof phone. These reports combined with the unpleasant surprises I got when trying out my S7 Edge with my new car (and googling that it's most likely the same with the S8) are making me consider staying with the iPhone 7 at least until the Note 8 and the next iPhones come out (unless I end up pulling the trigger on the OnePlus 5). I already went and purchased the overpriced Belkin adapter so that I can both charge and listen to music/podcasts from my iPhone 7 in my car. That setup with the bulky adapter looked such courageous

No bother. It disappoints me as I thought after the S6's aggressive ram issues that were seemingly fixed in the S7 (at least I never had any) that this wouldn't even be an issue with the S8.

Ironically what I feared being false touches seemingly is VASTLY improved over the S7E and I don't get many of those at all (except when I try and go fully one handed).

I just didn't expect ram would raise its head again. As I say I am willing to give it an android OS update to fix it, if not I'll likely sell on and switch to another device.

The irksome part is Samsung management app telling you that your device has so much free ram available, and yet your device performing like it hasn't a single bean left.

Honestly Samsung got so much right with the S8, hopefully they do resolve this via an android update and if so we all win. If not I will just chalk it up to experience.

 

[MRU]

Agree with you. They should increase the number of background process.

I wonder if it's something that can be fixed with a custom ROM. That might be a way to go for some of us.

 

[mib1800]

I wonder if it's something that can be fixed with a custom ROM. That might be a way to go for some of us.

I don't think it is an issue with RAM. It has to be certain parameter setting. Maybe it will be changed in subsequent update.

 

[noobinator]

Did anyone else take advantage of the trade in deal for a Verizon s8/s8+? Not sure how aware people are of this but I got an amazing deal.

You trade in any iOS or android device that's working and no cracked screen and they give you $250 off for s8+ or $200 for s8. I also signed up for Unidays and got another discount (students).

I'm on T-Mobile so I flashed the T-Mobile firmware on this Verizon phone and everything works. It ended up costing me $570 after tax and everything just for having an edu email and an old crappy android phone.

https://slickdeals.net/coupons/samsung/

 

[Roadstar]

If having more than 6-8 apps stay in memory without reloading is more important than the design, screen, camera, water proofing, sd card, iris scanner, Samsung pay, then don't get the s8. Op5 is a better buy at much cheaper price.

Well it's not only concern I have with the S8, this was more like the final straw. I'll make the decision about the OP5 once we get the final specs. I'm worried about the leaks that have shown it to be a bit too shameless of a copy of the iPhone 7 Plus design, so if waterproofing isn't there, it's going to be a hard decision between getting a dual-SIM phone or keeping waterproofing with the iPhone 7. If Samsung sold their dual-SIM flagships here, I think I'd own one already despite the RAM management issues.

 

[Pd1987]

All these complaints about the S8/+ lag...so sad . I've been thinking off and on about picking an S8+ for fun but that's looking less and less likely after reading the more recent posts on this thread. Reminds me of my experience with my S7 Edge which I just sold.

So, so sad because I absolutely love Samsung's phones! Bummer!

 

[MRU]

All these complaints about the S8/+ lag...so sad . I've been thinking off and on about picking an S8+ for fun but that's looking less and less likely after reading the more recent posts on this thread. Reminds me of my experience with my S7 Edge which I just sold.

So, so sad because I absolutely love Samsung's phones! Bummer!

Other than the animation frame drops with stock launcher, I haven't experienced Lag per se. Apps open quickly for me, as I say my main irk is the aggressive ram management. However everyone's milage will vary and for many those animation frame drops and the memory management might not be an issue at all. I would recommend folks who are interested try it out for themselves as with everything people report with their own experiences, YMMV, and your experience with it could be entirely different.

 

[noobinator]

All these complaints about the S8/+ lag...so sad . I've been thinking off and on about picking an S8+ for fun but that's looking less and less likely after reading the more recent posts on this thread. Reminds me of my experience with my S7 Edge which I just sold.

So, so sad because I absolutely love Samsung's phones! Bummer!

I have the snapdragon s8+ and an iPhone 7 plus. I had a snapdragon s7 edge. To me there is very very little difference in speed on the s8+ vs iPhone 7 plus. The s7 edge definitely lagged more than the s8+/7 plus.

 

[M5RahuL]

Since I received the ‘May’ security update, I’ve been noticing considerable lag when opening the phone and messages app.

I did clear the partition cache from recovery, in vain.

S8 Plus on TMobile ( Snap processor )

Hmm..

On another note, LOVING the soft keyboard on iOS 11 !!

 

[5105973]

All these complaints about the S8/+ lag...so sad . I've been thinking off and on about picking an S8+ for fun but that's looking less and less likely after reading the more recent posts on this thread. Reminds me of my experience with my S7 Edge which I just sold.

So, so sad because I absolutely love Samsung's phones! Bummer!

I'm not having any lag other than the animation or frame rate drops. That one makes things look a bit ugly but do not impede function or speed. I had that happen before on my iPhones, too.

We aren't sure how or why my husband ended up with lag on his phone. I think it crept up on his device over several weeks. I remember him mentioning that he was noticing a bit of lag here and there. It now seems to have reached critical mass and has become "an issue". Unfortunately it's come at a very bad time in terms of him getting a chance to sit down and analyze the problem and fix it. We just got word of yet another death in the family, and there's going to be some upheaval for awhile making sure all the family is notified and funeral arrangements are communicated and so forth-- and so he needs his phone to just work. There just is no time or energy or inclination available to do a reset and whatever else may be needed to get his phone back to a smooth operational level. I do hope the lag does not get any worse. If it does, his main sim is going back into his iPhone.

My own iPhone 7 Plus had been acting up for awhile and I thought I was going to have to do a reset on it and reinstall everything. Mercifully, one of the many iOS updates we've had seems to have set it back to good working order and I don't have to go through a reset after all.

 

[soulreaver99]

Another than my issue with Samsung Pay on the Gear S3, the unlocked S8+ has been pretty smooth for the past 24 hours.

Samsung really needs to give up on the redundant apps but they can at least be easily put out of sight and Bixby needs to be replaceable with another Google Now or Cortana.

Screen is pretty amazing and I love how fast this thing charges. The S8+ also feels more comfortable in the hand than the iPhone 7 Plus even though it sports a larger screen.

Fingerprint scanner isn't so bad. I got used to it really quickly and it unlocks the phone fast in just one attempt.

Camera so far has not disappointed. A few photos attached.

I'll put more of my impressions as I use this through the week.

 

[torana355]

All these complaints about the S8/+ lag...so sad . I've been thinking off and on about picking an S8+ for fun but that's looking less and less likely after reading the more recent posts on this thread. Reminds me of my experience with my S7 Edge which I just sold.

So, so sad because I absolutely love Samsung's phones! Bummer!

I have an S8 Plus and i could not be happier with it for the most part. That being said i was happy with my S7 aswell. Some people are just harder to please i guess.

 

[soulreaver99]

Ok a little off topic here but using T-mobile Digits is awesome. I can leave my iPhone at home and use my work phone sim in the Galaxy S8+ and not miss any calls. Plus when I make a call from the digits app, it shows up as my personal number when I want to! Really well integrated!

 

[mib1800]

Well it's not only concern I have with the S8, this was more like the final straw. I'll make the decision about the OP5 once we get the final specs. I'm worried about the leaks that have shown it to be a bit too shameless of a copy of the iPhone 7 Plus design, so if waterproofing isn't there, it's going to be a hard decision between getting a dual-SIM phone or keeping waterproofing with the iPhone 7. If Samsung sold their dual-SIM flagships here, I think I'd own one already despite the RAM management issues.

Isnt s8 unlock version dual SIM? The hardware is there already.

I thought dual SIM is not there only for carrier locked version.

 

[Michael Goff]

I have an S8 Plus and i could not be happier with it for the most part. That being said i was happy with my S7 aswell. Some people are just harder to please i guess.

Let's be honest, a lot of the people here use a lot of phones. People like @MRU are going to notice issues neither of us will because he has a wider range of phones to compare. Not only that, but I doubt we're going to get a flagship that's better than current flagship at everything.

 

[torana355]

Let's be honest, a lot of the people here use a lot of phones. People like @MRU are going to notice issues neither of us will because he has a wider range of phones to compare. Not only that, but I doubt we're going to get a flagship that's better than current flagship at everything.

Thats true but its a matter of having realistic expectations. Samsung phones have alot of great features that other phones don't have but the tradeoff is the phone does not run as smoothly as say a Pixel with stock Android would. No phone is perfect, or everyone would own the same phone, its all about what phone best suits your needs. The perfect example is the iPhone, they run super smooth, have great ram memory management and are great on battery but the feature set is poor compared to a Samsung. If a few hiccups and lags really upset you then a Samsung phone is NOT for you. however if you want a rich feature-set you just cant go past the S8 atm.

 

[Puddled]

Thats true but its a matter of having realistic expectations. Samsung phones have alot of great features that other phones don't have but the tradeoff is the phone does not run as smoothly as say a Pixel with stock Android would. No phone is perfect, or everyone would own the same phone, its all about what phone best suits your needs. The perfect example is the iPhone, they run super smooth, have great ram memory management and are great on battery but the feature set is poor compared to a Samsung.

This post should be on speed-dial lol. Its the perfect foil to about 95% of the arguments in this forum.

 

[5105973]

I wish we could get something like a "Hey Siri" assistant to work when the screen is off.

I know this was mentioned a few pages ago but I really am bummed I can't just can't call out a trigger phrase and get an answer.

Ok Google is awesome after I get to it.

Siri is so embarrassing anymore. I was with my extended family at a graduation gathering and somehow a conversation came up in which I had to ask Siri "Who wrote Oh Lord it's Hard to be Humble". The answer ended up being Mac Davis--thank you Google for that.

Siri inexplicably pulled up a search on Puerto Rico. I asked her two more times and gave up and switched to Okay Google on my S8+.

Edit--I just tried the same question on Siri and this time she worked. Go figure. I'm outdoors so it's not quiet. I'm frustrated I can't rely on her. She's so hit or miss these days.

 

[SteveJUAE]

Isnt s8 unlock version dual SIM? The hardware is there already.

I thought dual SIM is not there only for carrier locked version.

No it's country specific, mainly Asia

 

[malikkamran]

what battery life you get on 4g please tell

 

[Roadstar]

Isnt s8 unlock version dual SIM? The hardware is there already.

I thought dual SIM is not there only for carrier locked version.

We don't have any carrier locked versions in Finland, but for whatever reason Samsung is not offering its flagship dual-SIMs here. Some more budget models are available in dual-SIM configuration, but those are too compromised regarding other specs.

 

[MRU]

what battery life you get on 4g please tell

Already posted. Using 4G LTE only I got 5 hours SOT over 12 hour period.