So I love android, I love my note 4, but I'm thinking of returning it?

logik brooklyn

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Ok so lol....

Hear me out before you think I'm nuts. For those that seen my first thread last week, I'm a 7 year iphone guy who made the switch. The note 4 beat out the 6 plus.

Now fast forward a week later, and I'm totally sucked in too the OS, I literally love every thing about it. I also really, really love this phone. However there are a few things that bug me, and the main one being the lag. For such a spec power house, this phone has hiccups way to often. It doesn't make me dislike it, but it does kind of mess up the user experience as a whole. Is this something you guys think will fix with an update? My other gripe is the camera....I'll never stop saying, like I always have, that apple takes better, more CONSISTENT pictures. In certain lighting this phone can definitely miss a shot....but when it takes a good picture...it's phenomenal.

The phone I'm thinking of taking a look at is the htc one m8. Automatically everyone will probably tell me if cameras are a concern that it's horrible choice, but I seem my friends pictures, and I don't think it's low light photos are terrible actually. What appeals most to me is I hear that the htc sense user experience is butter smooth....and real close to a nice, unmolested, stock android experience.

In closing, I know this is a note forum, so I don't expect everyone to tell me go get the m8 because it's much better. I was hoping for maybe some unbiased opinions, especially from people who have used both...and seriously, don't take this as me bashing the note, because I actually love this thing, and I'm not even close to positive this is something I want to do.

Rocco

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buzzy3970

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As someone who had used and have both I believe the note 4 is the clear winner. The m8 is just kinda boring to me. True I've had more Samsung devices than anything(phones, tablets, smart watches etc). Samsung just seems to provide a better user experience to me and battery life can not be beat. Now I have yet to experience lag on my note 4. Guess I'm one of the lucky few but I luv this phone 😝
 

TheDarkKnight0818

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Ok so lol....

Hear me out before you think I'm nuts. For those that seen my first thread last week, I'm a 7 year iphone guy who made the switch. The note 4 beat out the 6 plus.

Now fast forward a week later, and I'm totally sucked in too the OS, I literally love every thing about it. I also really, really love this phone. However there are a few things that bug me, and the main one being the lag. For such a spec power house, this phone has hiccups way to often. It doesn't make me dislike it, but it does kind of mess up the user experience as a whole. Is this something you guys think will fix with an update? My other gripe is the camera....I'll never stop saying, like I always have, that apple takes better, more CONSISTENT pictures. In certain lighting this phone can definitely miss a shot....but when it takes a good picture...it's phenomenal.

The phone I'm thinking of taking a look at is the htc one m8. Automatically everyone will probably tell me if cameras are a concern that it's horrible choice, but I seem my friends pictures, and I don't think it's low light photos are terrible actually. What appeals most to me is I hear that the htc sense user experience is butter smooth....and real close to a nice, unmolested, stock android experience.

In closing, I know this is a note forum, so I don't expect everyone to tell me go get the m8 because it's much better. I was hoping for maybe some unbiased opinions, especially from people who have used both...and seriously, don't take this as me bashing the note, because I actually love this thing, and I'm not even close to positive this is something I want to do.

Rocco

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I mean it's up to you.. but I will say that my N4 doesn't lag at all really, but if it does it doesn't bother me I don't mind waiting the extra half second. For the camera, I haven't played around with it too much so I couldn't tell you but I could tell you HTC makes great phones too. I just got rid of my m7 to get the note.. i do miss that sound quality because nothing beats "beats" or "boomsound," both are good phones so it's personal preference at this point
 

Almeuit

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As others said it is up to you. If you put me against those two phones I'd choose the Note 4 for sure. I had them M8 for a little while (about 2 weeks) so I'm no pro but I did have the M7 before that for a good few months... In my opinion the Note 4 wins in pretty much everything except it does have a stutter here and there... The M8 did sometimes but not as much.. I blame Touchwiz.

It doesn't hurt to try if you really are curious... Just be careful.. There are many Android phones so you could be wanting the next one and next one.. And stores usually will only allow so many exchanges :).
 

pstellato73

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Try wiping the cache by shutting the phone down. Then, hold down the volume up, home button and the power button until the splash screen comes on. Choose the wipe cache option, then reboot. This helped the lag on my phone. Since I did this, I don't see any more lag.

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logik brooklyn

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The hiccups are intermittent, I can't name any specific times that it happens. The only two androids that really interest me besides a nexus are the note, and htc, so I'm not worried about straying anymore lol.

Like I said, it's not even like I'm really close to doing it, but I know I have 14 days, and I just wanna cover all bases before that ship sails. I'm probably going to give it a week with nova launcher, see how things go running wise.

Side note, why the hell do I randomly get this pop up "google has stopped working" it doesn't matter what I'm doing, I can be on instagram and it'll pop up.

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Trinatek

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I definitely experience a decent amount of hiccups also. Especially -- ESPECIALLY when hitting the view previous apps touch button (which I also happen to accidentally trigger a lot due to its placement.

But I do love my phone regardless. <3

I hope some updates come along that will further optimize the UI -- if not, hopefully someone eventually comes out with some N4-feature compatible custom roms.
 

twolastnames

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A couple of things. For the most part, you should not really see any lag on the device. There are some specific apps, Hangouts being a bad one that may lag, but it's specific to Hangouts. If it's really bad lag, there is a thread on XDA from someone that exchanged his N4 for a new one, and the new one had zero lag, like most people experience. Personally, I would try a few things first. Clear the cache like recommended earlier, download Gsam Battery Monitor. Let that run day and check the App usage section, see if you have a bad app running all the time. Yes the app is for battery monitoring, but my phone was being as *** Hat because of one of the Amazon apps running pretty much all day, even though I never used it. Last but not least, Factory reset. If your going to return the phone for a new one, doing a factory reset is not really a big deal. A lot of times a firmware upgrade kind of messes with your phone, and this will fix that. As far as I know the only N4's not to get an update is the Verizon model.

Also, something that Apple does to mask it's own lag. Before you close an app, iOS takes a screenshot of that app, and the next time you open it, it loads that screenshot, making it seem it's opened very fast, but in reality, it is still loading the app behind the screenshot. Android does not do this, and it's why you always notice "lag" on Android and iOS gets the title of "lag free". It's something to keep in mind about how Android works vs iOS.
 

LegalAmerican

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You'll love the M8 if you go that route. My sister bought it two months ago and as I set it up for her, I thoroughly enjoyed the user experience. Obviously I prefer the Note, but the M8 is a great phone as well. And if you want butter smooth with unmolested Android, of course the Nexus 6 would be good except I'm not sure how the camera is.
 

logik brooklyn

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Going to try a few of these methods regarding clearing cache, battery meter, etc...I'm pretty confident that if I can eliminate a good amount of the lag, I will feel a lot better about the phone.

That app opening thing with the screen shot is good to know, I haven't paid much mind to it but I'll be looking for it now. That's pretty slick of apple not for nothing lol

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JAG21979

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I just switched from the M8 to the Note 4. The M8 is a phenomenal phone, that is buttery smooth. That phone is about as perfect at it gets. No lag, but maybe a stutter or two but not very often. It's pretty much flawless. I actually loved the M8 camera, some of the best pictures I took were with that phone. I switched to the Note 4 because of the multitasking, s pen and size. I knew it would lag, so I installed nova and now it's nearly flawless. I never used a third party app on my M8 because sense 6 was solid. Just my two sense having both and my experience. They are two very different devices, so don't expect the M8 to have the same capability as the GN4.

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logik brooklyn

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I just switched from the M8 to the Note 4. The M8 is a phenomenal phone, that is buttery smooth. That phone is about as perfect at it gets. No lag, but maybe a stutter or two but not very often. It's pretty much flawless. I actually loved the M8 camera, some of the best pictures I took were with that phone. I switched to the Note 4 because of the multitasking, s pen and size. I knew it would lag, so I installed nova and now it's nearly flawless. I never used a third party app on my M8 because sense 6 was solid. Just my two sense having both and my experience. They are two very different devices, so don't expect the M8 to have the same capability as the GN4.

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I just installed nova a around an hour ago and have been putting the phone through the ringer since to test it....it actually seems to be running much better. I thought it was just me.

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twolastnames

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If this fixed your problem, it's not lag your seeing, just animation speeds. Touchwiz home screens have slower animations than Nova, just an FYI. You can speed up things a bit if you enable developer options and set all the animations to .5 instead of 1.
 

damule6666

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I left the M8 which I got on day 1. For the N4. While I absolutely love the N4 more. I only had one (1) issue with my M8.
It was a short in the top home button.
It got extremely sensitive, so much so that just the button wiggling would cause the menu for turn off reset etc to pop up.

Aside from that, after exchanging it the experience was flawless. My need for a larger screen (damn old eyes)
and an s-pen are what drove me to the N4.

Carved in place by my Note 4.
 

Tkbredx

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Quick speed improvements you can do:

In Nova settings go to look and feel. Change the scroll speed and animation speed to "faster than light".

If you don't use Svoice. Click it. Accept the terms and agreements. Go to settings. Uncheck open via home key.

Go to phone settings. Scroll all the way down. Click about device. Find the build number. Repeatedly press this until it says developer mode unlocked or whatever. Press back. Go to developer options. Find Window, transition, and animator duration scales. Turn animation off for all 3.

These are the natural things you can do to reduce lag. If you really want to be serious about getting rid of lag but you want to keep this phone... Root. Many developers have made optimizations to touch wiz to not only speed it up but make battery life almost 50% better. The ROMs out there are great and you uninstall the bloatware slowing your phone down. The ROM I use is flawless. Fastest device I've ever used by far including my iMac.

Idk what carrier you're on, so root might not be available for your phone though. You also might not know what root is coming from iPhone and if that's the case you have a long way to go but it's definitely worth it. Root is like jailbreaking for android except 10 times better. And it's a little more complicated. It's easy to learn though.

I know the post is a little long. Lol. Hope I was able to help though.
 

Statastic

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The Note 4 is smooth in my opinion. Not as buttery smooth as an iPhone, but then again, no Android phone is. A few come close, but not close enough. Personally though the iPhone cameras are way too overhyped. They are good, but not without their flaws. They take some great pics, but they also "do overs" as well. The m8 camera is great if you are going to take a pic within 6 feet. After that, nope. I guess all in all, they all have great things and bad things about them so it all boils down to what you are going to be most comfortable with. Overall for me, its the Note 4. Bought one and never looked back.

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philip42

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Quick speed improvements you can do:

In Nova settings go to look and feel. Change the scroll speed and animation speed to "faster than light".

If you don't use Svoice. Click it. Accept the terms and agreements. Go to settings. Uncheck open via home key.

Go to phone settings. Scroll all the way down. Click about device. Find the build number. Repeatedly press this until it says developer mode unlocked or whatever. Press back. Go to developer options. Find Window, transition, and animator duration scales. Turn animation off for all 3.

These are the natural things you can do to reduce lag. If you really want to be serious about getting rid of lag but you want to keep this phone... Root. Many developers have made optimizations to touch wiz to not only speed it up but make battery life almost 50% better. The ROMs out there are great and you uninstall the bloatware slowing your phone down. The ROM I use is flawless. Fastest device I've ever used by far including my iMac.

Idk what carrier you're on, so root might not be available for your phone though. You also might not know what root is coming from iPhone and if that's the case you have a long way to go but it's definitely worth it. Root is like jailbreaking for android except 10 times better. And it's a little more complicated. It's easy to learn though.

I know the post is a little long. Lol. Hope I was able to help though.

Just remember before you root that you'll be tripping the knox flag, which cannot be set back to its original state and the manufacturer may refuse warranty repairs if you do it. The shop may or may not look at it when you bring it back, but it definitely won't be in the same condition you bought it. Maybe try the M8 before going down that road.

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Gator352

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If this fixed your problem, it's not lag your seeing, just animation speeds. Touchwiz home screens have slower animations than Nova, just an FYI. You can speed up things a bit if you enable developer options and set all the animations to .5 instead of 1.

I personally set my scales from default of 1x to 1.5x. Why? Because it gives the phone time to load apps and transition to other UI elements making for a much smoother experience. After using it for a day or two, you don't notice the slowdown and it kind of mimics the way the iPhone does things.

By slowing it down, it gives time for the app to load while it's still in the transition and animation states making it feel as if there is no lag between the icon press and it being displayed on screen. The stutter is a whole 'nother story.

People think going faster is the way to go. For the most part it is.....but in the right instances. You want "smooth", "buttery" animations and transitions? Set UP the scales....not down. Of coarse this is all subjective and the way I prefer it. It might not be for you.