Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Dmaynard83

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 16, 2012
825
66
I have had an Galaxy S4 Since April of last year and outside of the TouchWiz camera, the experience has been overwhelmingly negative software m-wise. I had no idea how bad I had it until I flashed 4.4.4 GE rom on to the phone today. It was just night and day.
Prior to flashing said rom, I was using root and Wanam Xposed to try to make the software look and act like stock Android; Uninstalled and disabled nearly 100 Samsung apps and modified the UI to look like stock Android. But it just was not the same.
So I got sick of what I had to do to get a decent Android experience without flashing a rom, and just flashed one and did away with the travesty of a heavily modified version of android.
The phone has 2 gigs of ram and 1.8 Ghz processor but said hardware and software just does not seem to mesh together; the software makes the phone run like a phone with 256 MB of ram and a 500 MHz processo; Opening and closing apps lags so hard; everything* is almost changed to not look like stock Android; and so on.
After flashing 4.4.4 GE rom on to my phone, I honestly feel like I just purchased a new one.
Outside of the camera and hardware, there is absolutely no redeeming quality about any product running TouchWiz. Nothing.
Just Google Galaxy S5 lag.
Lag that should not exist. Said lag does not exist in stock Android. But it exists in all Samsung products proporting to be using Android.
So, if you want a product with up to date and really amazing hardware but with absolutely horrendous software, Samsung is your company. Other wise stay the hell away from their products. Or just buy Google Edition version of their products.
Edit: I own an Galaxy S4 and Tab 3 8.1. Both of them had the exact same lag. Googling TouchWiz lag reveals how horrendeous this. Why Samsung takes a working piece of software and ruins it to not work so well with their great hardware, is beyond me.
 

mclld

macrumors 68030
Nov 6, 2012
2,658
2,127
I like Samsung products, you must be a masochist to keep buying their products feeling the way you do lol
 

HiDEF

macrumors 68000
Jun 23, 2010
1,711
395
Miami, FL
I continue to rant about this: TouchWiz sucks! The only way to enjoy a galaxy device is on GPE--to quote the poster, "it's night and day."
 

Cnasty

macrumors 68040
Jul 2, 2008
3,336
2,106
Samsung, Touchwiz, and KitKat ruined my Note 3 experience and have made me go back to the dark side in Apple or attempt to try a Windows Phone. I shouldnt have to root and manipulate a product to have it work properly.

Screw Samsung and screw Android for a while for me.

It shouldnt be this hard for a damn phone to work properly without unknown issues occurring, inconsistent battery performance,and uncalled for lag.

Just my experience though as others have had great success and enjoy.
 

Oohara

macrumors 68040
Jun 28, 2012
3,050
2,423
Yep, TouchWiz ain't that great. Still surprising that a massive corp like Samsung can't manage to make a better looking and functioning skin. And although my Note 2 is a wonderful phone despite this (much thanks to Nova Prime) I'd really like to go pure Android for my next phone.

Sammy kinda has me by the balls with the Note 4 though... I'd really like to hit the 5.7"-6.0" screen size range but I don't foresee a vanilla Android phone of that size coming out this fall. So I'll probably go Note 4 and just put up with TW again. At least it's not as bad now as when the Note 2 was new. (Alternatively: I'll go iPhone...) I'm not really into root/rom stuff btw.

I really wish Google would just straight up order every OEM to allow customers to install vanilla Android right off the bat if they preferred that. What do you guys think, would such a scenario ever be possible? If we consider that 90% of all customers will probably never even know that the possibility exists, and thus continue using the OEM skin of their new phone, I could see how Sammy and others would still profit from maintaining their little "ecosystem" or whatever. While making the phone more desirable to us nerds. It might not be a totally unreasonable proposition for them. Meanwhile, this option being there for the user might entice them to make their skin a bit more attractive...

Could Google make such deals with OEMs? I'd certainly hope so. Any chance that is what Silver is all about? (Sorry, been too lazy to read up on it much
biggrin.gif
)
 

AustinIllini

macrumors G5
Oct 20, 2011
12,699
10,567
Austin, TX
Samsungs are solid phones, but they have touchwiz, which stinks, and the build quality is traditionally middle of the pack. That being said, I did thoroughly enjoyed my Galaxy S3 as the screen was very pretty and the processor screamed.

Just touchwiz. Crap, man. Touchwiz.
 

MRU

macrumors Penryn
Aug 23, 2005
25,370
8,952
a better place
I like the new Touchwiz UX on the S5 & Tab S series. It's just a bit if a resource hog, but other than that as a launcher itself it's grand.

I just want Samsung to drop all the ****** background services that we do not need and free up memory / resources.
 

jamezr

macrumors P6
Aug 7, 2011
16,081
19,081
US
Sounds like you had a bad experience...but that does not mean all Samsung phones/products are bad.
I think they are great. TW is a bit a heavy but still manageable. You can have a bad experience with any company or product line. Does not mean they are all bad.....
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.