Does Android still lag today?

[codeda]

Yeah, that's why I defined it in the OP that, it's the flagship phones today we are talking about: Note 5, LG G4, SGS6, Moto X, HTC One M9... assuming stock OS and skin, used by an average user.

I know this is still a huge range. But the reason I am asking this is, I heard Android OS (5.1?) has improved significantly on the lag problem and the UI performance is very smooth now even AFTER months of use.... but there are still tons of users saying that Android still lags after a while. Then there are people saying that those poor experience are mostly from an mid to low range phones, or a dated OS...

I am considering BlackBerry Priv, the main concern about this is the alleged lag problem from Android. I know Priv's specs are going to match those flagship Android phones, and it will use the latest Android OS, so I just want to get an idea from Android users who used today 's flagship phones about this lag issue.

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Yeah I'm talking flagships too. I use them all and it still is, like you said, a big range. My nexus 5 never really lagged nor did my note 5 but my note 4 did. My lg G3 did. My galaxy s6 did towards the end. My Moto g didn't and that's not a flagship. I think it will definitely be a wait and see how well blackberry optimized everything.


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[ab304945]

Every phone, computer, os, has lag. Just depends on how much. Our often

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[aha]

Yeah I'm talking flagships too. I use them all and it still is, like you said, a big range. My nexus 5 never really lagged nor did my note 5 but my note 4 did. My lg G3 did. My galaxy s6 did towards the end. My Moto g didn't and that's not a flagship. I think it will definitely be a wait and see how well blackberry optimized everything.


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Thanks for the reply. Will wait out on this one then.

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[syspry]

If you define lag as I do - a lag time delay between initiating an action and that action occurring, not to be confused with animation times - I don't see much of that anymore. But occasional stutters, yes I still get those on pretty much any device. Not enough to care about but they do happen. I dislike the term "buttery smooth" because it implies absolute perfection, which I find misleading because that doesn't exist on any OS.

 

[codeda]

Saw this today and wanted to share http://flip.it/jOGhh


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[hisense]

Not on pure Android devices direct from Motorola. This was the case for my previous Moto X 2013 and Moto G 2015. Both turned out to be very good phones. I don't think there is a lag issue when there is at least 2gb of RAM, no custom interface/launcher, or bloatware. The Moto G is especially snappy in my opinion and it uses older chip sets.

 

[rpboronat]

In the Galaxy S6 Edge I have no lags. I think it depends with the type phone one buys.

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[richardlong]

ipad love it.

 

[LeoRex]

There isn't a single phone available that is perfectly smooth, every second of use. None.... Nothing with Android, or iOS.. at some point, they'll all stutter and burp.

Now, that being said, there are some that do a much better job of others in reducing the amount and duration of those digital brain farts. My Nexus 6 goes about its business in a more fluid way than my wife's G4, for instance. That isn't to say that I think the G4 is laggy... far from it. It runs great. Just not as great as my Nexus.

Now, 'lag' is a very generic term. It can mean a lot of things, and oftentimes, what someone sees as lag is sometimes something else. Maybe there is an app update from the Play Store running in the background and the phone has to access storage AND compile a runtime. I've seen occasional lagging in apps like Facebook or Google+ while the app itself loads content into the screen buffer... and that 'lag' smooths out once the content is loaded. Othertimes, the stutters you see are simply a matter of the effects of the processor's dynamic frequency scaling. If you are sitting reading a long email and then jump over to another app, the phone might take a split second to ramp back up to full speed. And, most often in my expirience, it is a function of the OEM's hamfisted attempts of reinventing the wheel and fussing with things they should have just left alone (I'm looking at the both of you, Samsung and LG).... this last one is really the traditional 'lag'.

I've seen the same behavior on iPhones, new and old... or iPads.... nothing is immune.

But of the sources of 'lag', Android itself is fairly far down the list of culprits. The smoothest devices I've used either had a "NEXUS" stamp on their backside or loaded with an AOSP based ROM clean of OEM modifications.

 

[mohit9206]

I think Samsung phones are the biggest culprits of lag. Their TouchWiz makes the phone lag after a few weeks of use.
Still samsung sells the most android phones because of their massive marketing campaigns
However to eliminate lag Samsung resorted to aggressive ram management which makes multitasking much worse. So either way you're screwed. Sorry state of affairs to be honest fellas.

 

[LeoRex]

I think Samsung phones are the biggest culprits of lag. Their TouchWiz makes the phone lag after a few weeks of use.
Still samsung sells the most android phones because of their massive marketing campaigns
However to eliminate lag Samsung resorted to aggressive ram management which makes multitasking much worse. So either way you're screwed. Sorry state of affairs to be honest fellas.

Well, LG is just as guilty here. The G3 had its fair share of burps, and my wife's G4 also has times where you can see it stumbling a bit to get through some basic tasks. They were both just like really fast sports cars that misfired a bit.

That's where my own complaints with Samsung stem... It's not their 'Home' launcher. Launchers are easily changed. It's the underneath stuff. In talking with some ROM devs I know, Samsung cobbles Touchwiz together using a stew of new and obsolete bits from earlier releases. So features in Touchwiz carried forward are not so much upgraded as bits of Android are downgraded to match them. Something might have been written against a library from 4.3, so rather than update the function to work with the 6.0 library, they'll bring forward the old library and get things to work.

I think a lot of this 'paring down' of Touchwiz is Samsung is really them reducing this practice. But I don't want it reduced, I want it eliminated. It just makes a mess of things. And considering that there are a substantial number of people who have only experienced Android through the eyes of Samsung's approach. I can see why there is a perception that all Android phones run the same way.

And the frustrating thing is that is is completely unnecessary. They can incorporate all those features into Android without retrofitting junk from three-year-old versions of the OS.

 

[syspry]

I think Samsung phones are the biggest culprits of lag. Their TouchWiz makes the phone lag after a few weeks of use.
Still samsung sells the most android phones because of their massive marketing campaigns
However to eliminate lag Samsung resorted to aggressive ram management which makes multitasking much worse. So either way you're screwed. Sorry state of affairs to be honest fellas.

Well, LG is just as guilty here. The G3 had its fair share of burps, and my wife's G4 also has times where you can see it stumbling a bit to get through some basic tasks. They were both just like really fast sports cars that misfired a bit.

That's where my own complaints with Samsung stem... It's not their 'Home' launcher. Launchers are easily changed. It's the underneath stuff. In talking with some ROM devs I know, Samsung cobbles Touchwiz together using a stew of new and obsolete bits from earlier releases. So features in Touchwiz carried forward are not so much upgraded as bits of Android are downgraded to match them. Something might have been written against a library from 4.3, so rather than update the function to work with the 6.0 library, they'll bring forward the old library and get things to work.

I think a lot of this 'paring down' of Touchwiz is Samsung is really them reducing this practice. But I don't want it reduced, I want it eliminated. It just makes a mess of things. And considering that there are a substantial number of people who have only experienced Android through the eyes of Samsung's approach. I can see why there is a perception that all Android phones run the same way.

And the frustrating thing is that is is completely unnecessary. They can incorporate all those features into Android without retrofitting junk from three-year-old versions of the OS.

Yup. Pretty much why I've avoided both brands. Both of them are direct competitors to each other in Korea and I've noticed they both engage in the same style of ROMs while doing so.

 

[Digit88Games]

Depends from phone to phone i guess, my moto g have huge lag issues

 

[zldhuidsnkja]

In my experience, there are always glitches and slow failure, but I 6SP bad, even after only a few days for him.

 

[Del Squared]

My galaxy s5 is still going strong after a year, no lag issues.

 

[JackNL]

Depends. I'm using a S6 and a M7. No lags at all.

 

[kilonova]

I've been an Android user since the first Moto Droid in 2009. The phones continually get faster and the OS just gets better...but the lag never seems to go away. I've had several Droids and currently have the Turbo 2. I've owned several others too - LG, Samsung, and Sony. I've tried several others out fairly extensively. At some point, Android will lag.

I've also owned the iPhone 5s, 6, and 6s. Any iOS lag is very, very rare and never anywhere near as severe as Android, in my experience. I can't even recall a specific instance beyond gaming, which even then, is minor.

While I love my Turbo 2 and use the hell out of it...I'm pretty disappointed that this much hardware can't keep Android lag-free, at this point in the game. It's pretty bad at times. I'm picky about not installing too many things. I've disabled everything that isn't necessary or useful. For example, if I'm driving and using Maps to navigate while listening to Play Music....switching between those two apps can cause hangs up to 5 seconds. Maps will stutter pretty badly and sometimes struggles to keep up. Music will also stutter out pretty hard. This happens w/ several apps - Play Store, Chrome, Facebook, and so on.

In contrast, any of the iPhones I've had crunch through the same tasks w/ ease and zero noticeable lag. It's just faster. When will someone create an Android flagship that can handle the Android OS?

 

[Tech-Newb]

I've been an Android user since the first Moto Droid in 2009. The phones continually get faster and the OS just gets better...but the lag never seems to go away. I've had several Droids and currently have the Turbo 2. I've owned several others too - LG, Samsung, and Sony. I've tried several others out fairly extensively. At some point, Android will lag.

I've also owned the iPhone 5s, 6, and 6s. Any iOS lag is very, very rare and never anywhere near as severe as Android, in my experience. I can't even recall a specific instance beyond gaming, which even then, is minor.

While I love my Turbo 2 and use the hell out of it...I'm pretty disappointed that this much hardware can't keep Android lag-free, at this point in the game. It's pretty bad at times. I'm picky about not installing too many things. I've disabled everything that isn't necessary or useful. For example, if I'm driving and using Maps to navigate while listening to Play Music....switching between those two apps can cause hangs up to 5 seconds. Maps will stutter pretty badly and sometimes struggles to keep up. Music will also stutter out pretty hard. This happens w/ several apps - Play Store, Chrome, Facebook, and so on.

In contrast, any of the iPhones I've had crunch through the same tasks w/ ease and zero noticeable lag. It's just faster. When will someone create an Android flagship that can handle the Android OS?

I've been using an S6 edge for 1 month already and i swear i never noticed any lags at all. Compared to the iphone 5, ipad 4, ipad 3 that i have, they lag a lot.

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[kramer5150]

My experience is just the opposite... iPhone 5C lags on even the most basic operations like screen swipes, grabbing icons, sliding them to / from different screens, opening and closing apps. It was always this way, although to a lesser degree when I first got it. Contrast to my LG V10 on Marshmallow has been fast and smooth. About the only thing thats lagy is Android Wear with a Motorola 360-2.0, I mainly attribute that to AW though communicating to and from the watch.

My wifes 6S+ though is smooth and very fast.

 

[kramer5150]

The other thing I have noticed is my LG V10 is faster and gets better battery life with apps running idle in the background RAM. if you are using one of those memory booster apps, RAM clearer apps... DON'T. Let Android manage memory the way it was designed to do. You are slowing down your phone by forcing it to re-initialize apps from the ground up every time. I am willing to bet at least some of the sluggish android complaints are from unsuspecting users on this topic.

The exceptions for me were Amazon and facebook... those apps were always using more background battery than I was comfortable with. 10-15% with the screen off. So I removed them entirely from my phone.