root, reset or return?

[thejtl]

OK, I've had this phone since day one. I was counting down the days until I could get it. I'd gone from an iPhone 3G, to the Aria, to the Captivate. I was loving the Aria, so I was really excited to get a faster, more full-featured phone. And don't get me wrong, 65% of the time it is a great phone, as long as I'm not trying to listen to music (which is what I do 90% of the time on my phones). I love Swype, I love the screen, yada, yada, yada. All the stuff folks love about this phone, I love.

But now I'm at a crossroads. I'm an audio professional. Music playback is seriously important to me. Shoddy playback just can't happen. I mean, this is the top of the top of the line when it comes to phones, right? It should do something as simple as playback music flawlessly, right. It should perform basic tasks without freezing, hesitating or any of that, right? My Aria was faster and more responsive than this phone (by far). And a little easier to use overall.

So now I find myself wanting to keep the phone, but if I do something's gotta change. I can't wait for months. I need basic music functionality now. So my choices are:

1. Root (which could damage the phone and put me in a more difficult situation). And I'm not a developer or anything. I'm a guy with a conversational knowledge of computers but way too busy a life to spend as much time as I have with this phone, although I've enjoyed the reading forums and tinkering.

2. Reset. Some say a factory reset has cured all their ills, but I'm skeptical. Do I want to risk having to take the time to re-input all my data on the off chance that it will magically solve the problem? Call me crazy, but I think the phone was at factory reset level when I bought it, and these problems have been around since day one.

3. Return. Well, this is almost the same as factory reset, but with a trip to the store, grief from the folks there and the inputting all info again. And nothing guarantees that the new phone is any more or less glitchy than the current one?

Now, let me say that I don't want an iPhone 4. That's the whole reason I went to Android. I don't like the I4. I've been a Mac guy since 1990, I have an iPad, and iTouch, a MacBook, an iMac, a Shuffle, an iPhone 3G. I just don't like where Apple has gone, for the first time in my life.

So, I'm asking you all: what the $&^ should I do? I'm at the breaking point with a phone I love.

 

[cobra302]

what exactly is the problem with the music? have you tried using another music player such as double twist? do you have lots of widgets and stuff running all the time? have you tried a task manager?

 

[Lyanheart]

I have not had any problems with the stock music player, and no lag/performance issues at all. I think you should try getting a task manager (Advanced Task Killer is pretty good). I have noticed that a LOT of things get to running around in the background that you need to kill in order to maintain the top-notch performance the Captivate usually provides.

 

[thejtl]

Yeah, I've got a task killer and have since day one, but thanks for the advice.

The problem with the music is that it stutters or skips randomly on playback. I've tried a half dozen players and they all do it. I tried Mixzing and set the buffer as high as it would go and still the skipping. The best hypothesis I've heard so far is that somehow Samsung has set the phone to downclock too vigorously and that's what's causing the skipping. Might also be what's causing lag and other performance-based issues. But like I said I'm not a hacker and I don't know how much credence to give that idea.

 

[captaincrunch]

I would say you need to take that one back. Get another device. Put your music on a removable micro card and try it right in the store if you can. The stock player is great. I listen to it quite a bit. I do not suffer from that problem. My only peeve with the player is that I can't fix the list to show in artist view by default and that is really being picky. The 5.1 surround setting on the headphones is really good. No task killers, no severe lag (I'm using TouchWiz!).

I did notice some lag when I put my Music on the internal sdcard (9GB music). But not during playback, it was only when traversing the list and showing album art. I bought a class 6 16GB card and put my music on that instead. The list is now quite zippy. But never did I hear skipping in playback.

 

[Darkomen64]

I also listen to music quite a bit.. i use the stock player and have 6gigs of music on a class 6 8gb card.. i have never noticed it skip stutter or anything like that.. i do also run a task manager

everything for the most part is stock.. still use touchwiz.. do have luncher pro installed just havent used it much yet.. also have double twist installed.. dont use it lol

i have noticed the phone slow down and lag when doing verious things.. like trying to tell it to update 4-5 apps at once.. its lags changing screens (is there anyway to tell it to update all?)

about the only REAL problem i have with the phone is battery life.. i decided to try something.. i took my captivate put it in flight mode and turned the screen brightness to the bottem (thats where it is 99% of the time) and turned off wifi.. i also did the same with my iphone 3g (what i came from to the captivate) flight mode, no wifi and 1/2 brightness and i started them both playing avatar.. the same exact file copied to each... iphone was at 76% batter when done.. captivate was at 66%.. that dosnt sound that bad.. but if you think about it.. i could play avatar 4 times on the samsung (IF you can get around the 20% battery no play thinig) or 7 times on the iphone.. Hell i lost ~30% battery sleeping last night....

 

[alphadog]

I would try getting rid of the task killer - if you have it set to auto kill something that is somehow being used indirectly by the media system, then you might be causing the stutter.

Also, if you are syncing with Gmail or Exchange, all your data should sync back. You would only have to reinstall apps - if you did a reset or exchanged the phone.

I have a 8GB class 2 card - and i have had no problems with music stutter.

And Rooting is not a silver bullet - i don't it having any bearing on your issue.

 

[Terrigno]

No problems with the Music Player at all and I have a 32GB MicroSD installed.