Lag and stuttering in the app drawer on 2013 Nexus 7 (running Android 4.4.2).

[Seth Lamb1]

So far my tablet has rebooted on me 3 times and now it's giving me stuttering, specifically in the app drawer. Sometimes, when I swipe through the pages in the app drawer, there's noticeable stuttering that I witness. It's ridiculous.

Review after review told me that this tablet was buttery smooth, that there was no lag, and look, there's lag on mine. Factory resets and cache wipes don't do anything. More like stuttery smooth instead of buttery smooth.

And if some installed app is causing the problems, then I may as well go ahead and uninstall everything I have and leave it at that because I couldn't begin to think about what app may be the issue here.

Has ANYONE else had an issue like mine, with some lag in the app drawer (swiping through the widgets pages usually creates some beautiful stutter)? It's too bad, I was fully ready to enjoy this tablet but my OCD about this is just causing me more stress than I need. At this point I'm highly tempted to just go ahead and RMA it and get it replaced.

 

[zkSharks]

Well, seeing as neither a factory reset nor clearing the cache resolved the issues, the first question that comes to mind is this: have you tried enabling ART? If yes, then that's surprising and unfortunate. I noticed little stutter while using the Dalvik runtime, and none whatsoever with ART so far.

In case you aren't familiar, I highly recommend this: Five minutes on ART — the new Android runtime. ART can be found in the hidden Developer Options, which are easily enabled.

 

[B. Diddy]

It really sounds like you may have a problem device. How old is it? Can you look into an exchange, or talk to Google/Asus about warrant work or replacement?

It's still worth booting into Safe Mode (which disables all 3rd party apps) and seeing if the stutter persists. If it doesn't, then it very well could be something that you installed--the challenge, as you know, would be finding out which app. https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/2852139?hl=en

 

[Seth Lamb1]

It's just over a week old, but I installed the ART runtime and the lag has all but disappeared, it seems. Now all that's left is the random reboot issue. Thanks for the suggestions guys, it seems like ART did the trick, at least for the performance aspect.

However, is there a drop in battery life on ART of any kind?

 

[B. Diddy]

The main problem with ART, though, is that not all apps are compatible. If it's just a week old, you might want to try getting a replacement whil you can from wherever you bought it. This may be a sign of more problems to come.

 

[Golfdriver97]

A cache wipe may not be a bad idea.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using AC Forums mobile app

 

[B. Diddy]

A cache wipe may not be a bad idea.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using AC Forums mobile app

Unfortunately, he's tried that already.:-\

 

[Golfdriver97]

Unfortunately, he's tried that already.:-\

Sorry, OP. Missed that part.

From a Sprint Moto X using AC Forums app

 

[UJ95x]

It's just over a week old, but I installed the ART runtime and the lag has all but disappeared, it seems. Now all that's left is the random reboot issue. Thanks for the suggestions guys, it seems like ART did the trick, at least for the performance aspect.

However, is there a drop in battery life on ART of any kind?

Most cases see an improvement in battery life with ART. Your mileage may vary though

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Seth Lamb1]

The main problem with ART, though, is that not all apps are compatible. If it's just a week old, you might want to try getting a replacement whil you can from wherever you bought it. This may be a sign of more problems to come.

I am past my refund window for returning the device to the store, so the only option left would be to send it to Asus' repair center. I am trying to hold off on doing that since I don't really want to bother plus I don't want to pay for shipping. Its a year warranty so I can always change my mind later if things get worse

 

[zkSharks]

Most cases see an improvement in battery life with ART. Your mileage may vary though

This is correct, you'll probably see a minor or modest improvement. I suppose that due to the way ART pre-compiles packages (instead of compiling them at runtime), there's probably a correlation between the amount of multitasking that you do and the improvement to battery life that you can observe.

As far as I know, all of the "major" apps that had compatibility issues with ART have been updated with fixes, including Whatsapp. Here's a great resource:

List of broken apps in Android RunTime (ART)

 

[Seth Lamb1]

There is still some occasional lag when rotating the screen on webpages in Chrome. Still not what I would consider buttery smooth. The lag could be defined as a sort of frame rate drop, where the animation lags when I rotate from portrait to landscape or vice versa. Anyone else notice this with their Chrome? (Yes I'm very OCD about this).

 

[anon(5780458)]

Has ANYONE else had an issue like mine, with some lag in the app drawer (swiping through the widgets pages usually creates some beautiful stutter)? It's too bad, I was fully ready to enjoy this tablet but my OCD about this is just causing me more stress than I need. At this point I'm highly tempted to just go ahead and RMA it and get it replaced.

Android lags and stutters. It may seem smooth out of the box, but one you install apps to make it actually useful, the stuttering begins for no obvious reason. I recently used a relative's new Nexus 5 and was surprised at how smooth it was. It was noticeably smoother than even my iPhone 5S on the homescreen and scrolling (iOS 7 lags). Two weeks later when I saw it again it was a total lagfest.

There is still some occasional lag when rotating the screen on webpages in Chrome. Still not what I would consider buttery smooth. The lag could be defined as a sort of frame rate drop, where the animation lags when I rotate from portrait to landscape or vice versa. Anyone else notice this with their Chrome? (Yes I'm very OCD about this).

Chrome is by far the worst Android app on any device. Absolutely appalling lag and stutter when scrolling, zooming etc. compared to other apps. Another problem is on 4.4 the stock browser engine has been changed to Chrome so all those other browser shell apps will also stutter. Previously on 4.3 you could install another browser to get improved performance, but not anymore.

Your only option is to install a completely new browsing engine like Opera or Firefox. They are both significantly better than Chrome. Opera is better since Firefox has lots of rendering issues where pages just don't look properly sized on a mobile device. Opera will display the same mobile version of sites that you see on Chrome.

 

[Niral Ramesh]

Android lags and stutters. It may seem smooth out of the box, but one you install apps to make it actually useful, the stuttering begins for no obvious reason. I recently used a relative's new Nexus 5 and was surprised at how smooth it was. It was noticeably smoother than even my iPhone 5S on the homescreen and scrolling (iOS 7 lags). Two weeks later when I saw it again it was a total lagfest.


Chrome is by far the worst Android app on any device. Absolutely appalling lag and stutter when scrolling, zooming etc. compared to other apps. Another problem is on 4.4 the stock browser engine has been changed to Chrome so all those other browser shell apps will also stutter. Previously on 4.3 you could install another browser to get improved performance, but not anymore.

Your only option is to install a completely new browsing engine like Opera or Firefox. They are both significantly better than Chrome. Opera is better since Firefox has lots of rendering issues where pages just don't look properly sized on a mobile device. Opera will display the same mobile version of sites that you see on Chrome.

My nexus 5 is not a "lagfest". It is far smoother than my iPad 4 and iPhone 5S.

 

[jerrykur]

There is still some occasional lag when rotating the screen on webpages in Chrome. Still not what I would consider buttery smooth. The lag could be defined as a sort of frame rate drop, where the animation lags when I rotate from portrait to landscape or vice versa. Anyone else notice this with their Chrome? (Yes I'm very OCD about this).

Rotation to a new orientation is a very disruptive operation. It requires close to shutting down the application. In fact it fires some of the same events as when the applications shutdown. It also cause the UI to switch from one source layout file to another source layout file and redraw from scratch everything on the screen. So I am not at all surprised that it cause a big impact if one changes orientation will watching a video.

 

[Seth Lamb1]

Well it actually occurs sometimes no matter what I'm doing, but putting the tablet to sleep and waking it back up solves the issue for a while. It's just a bit peculiar, you're lead to believe something after every review you read claims that this tablet is buttery smooth with no lag or hitches whatsoever and when you use the tablet for yourself you find out it's not as perfect as you were lead on to believe. It's a shame that the Nexus 7 doesn't have the specs necessary to handle Android without any lag at all. Considering I enabled ART on the device I was expecting that problem to be resolved but oh well.

The tablet is currently being RMA'ed so I'll just wait and see what Asus does for it (sent it in for random reboots).

 

[jerrykur]

Well it actually occurs sometimes no matter what I'm doing, but putting the tablet to sleep and waking it back up solves the issue for a while. It's just a bit peculiar, you're lead to believe something after every review you read claims that this tablet is buttery smooth with no lag or hitches whatsoever and when you use the tablet for yourself you find out it's not as perfect as you were lead on to believe. It's a shame that the Nexus 7 doesn't have the specs necessary to handle Android without any lag at all. Considering I enabled ART on the device I was expecting that problem to be resolved but oh well.

The tablet is currently being RMA'ed so I'll just wait and see what Asus does for it (sent it in for random reboots).

Mine is very smooth. Youtube and other apps work fine. Some tablets (I am looking at you iPad/iPhone) play games with the buffering and defer display of data slightly to give the appearance of smoothness.

I don't use the browser a lot because it is too small for me. Heck, even my 13 inch Macbook Pro is too small since I am used to having two 24 or 27 inch monitors.

 

[sk8trix]

So far my tablet has rebooted on me 3 times and now it's giving me stuttering, specifically in the app drawer. Sometimes, when I swipe through the pages in the app drawer, there's noticeable stuttering that I witness. It's ridiculous.

Review after review told me that this tablet was buttery smooth, that there was no lag, and look, there's lag on mine. Factory resets and cache wipes don't do anything. More like stuttery smooth instead of buttery smooth.

And if some installed app is causing the problems, then I may as well go ahead and uninstall everything I have and leave it at that because I couldn't begin to think about what app may be the issue here.

Has ANYONE else had an issue like mine, with some lag in the app drawer (swiping through the widgets pages usually creates some beautiful stutter)? It's too bad, I was fully ready to enjoy this tablet but my OCD about this is just causing me more stress than I need. At this point I'm highly tempted to just go ahead and RMA it and get it replaced.

Are you rooted? maybe its because you need to perform a clean install. Also if youre not rooted but came from jellybean you might also need to do a master reset. If you're using art instead of dalvik that also might create some issues since it has for some users.

- - - Updated - - -

So far my tablet has rebooted on me 3 times and now it's giving me stuttering, specifically in the app drawer. Sometimes, when I swipe through the pages in the app drawer, there's noticeable stuttering that I witness. It's ridiculous.

Review after review told me that this tablet was buttery smooth, that there was no lag, and look, there's lag on mine. Factory resets and cache wipes don't do anything. More like stuttery smooth instead of buttery smooth.

And if some installed app is causing the problems, then I may as well go ahead and uninstall everything I have and leave it at that because I couldn't begin to think about what app may be the issue here.

Has ANYONE else had an issue like mine, with some lag in the app drawer (swiping through the widgets pages usually creates some beautiful stutter)? It's too bad, I was fully ready to enjoy this tablet but my OCD about this is just causing me more stress than I need. At this point I'm highly tempted to just go ahead and RMA it and get it replaced.

Are you rooted? maybe its because you need to perform a clean install. Also if youre not rooted but came from jellybean you might also need to do a master reset. If you're using art instead of dalvik that also might create some issues since it has for some users.

 

[Seth Lamb1]

Mine is very smooth. Youtube and other apps work fine. Some tablets (I am looking at you iPad/iPhone) play games with the buffering and defer display of data slightly to give the appearance of smoothness.

I don't use the browser a lot because it is too small for me. Heck, even my 13 inch Macbook Pro is too small since I am used to having two 24 or 27 inch monitors.

Does that means when your screen rotates to a new orientation, the framerate of the animation drops slightly? As in, the actual rotating of the screen is slightly laggy? It's not always consistent, but it happens to me sometimes.

 

[jerrykur]

Does that means when your screen rotates to a new orientation, the framerate of the animation drops slightly? As in, the actual rotating of the screen is slightly laggy? It's not always consistent, but it happens to me sometimes.

Change of screen orientation is a very destructive operation in Android. To an application it looks like the user is terminating the application. When the app comes back in the new orientation the app must rebuild the screen in new orientation which is going to have some performance impact. If you are doing something that is sensitive to momentary delays such as watching video or playing a game expect some delay, lose of frames, etc. when changing screen orientations.