Does Android still lag today?

[YanivC]

Yes it is. Very much so. Android still suffers from the dreaded lock phone call (wherein your phone is ringing but it wont let you answer). To understand why, you have to understand the method in which the operating system works, or rather the UI layer because the true operating system is linux which then has to deal with virtualizing the Android OS.
Even Windows Phone does a better job at this than Android which is why a cheap Windows Phone with 512 MB runs smoother than a high end Android. I'm not knocking Android here per se. I'm no Windows fan boy nor iphone fan boy, but the truth is the truth. Android has a NUMBER of knocks against it. The VM, the UI and lets not mention Java itself which inherently is slower than a true native device.
In fact the only reason its gotten better is because the hardware has gotten that much better; the OS itself still has a ways to go.

 

[mohit9206]

What i have noticed is that although the days of lag are over atleast if you're using stock Android, they've gone in the opposite extreme. To combat and remove the lag, manufacturers use a very aggressive memory management algorithm that will start closing background apps once the threshold is reached. So even if your phone has 4gb ram, your phone will start killing background apps once ram usage reaches say for example 3gb.Which means that extra gig of ram is utterly useless. This default super aggressive ram management mode is very annoying. It'd have been better if they went more balanced instead of totally aggressive. Or atleast provide lenient, balanced or aggressive preset in the settings menu which can be toggled according to the user's needs.

 

[ackmondual]

It very much depends on which phone you get. Saying does Android lag, is too generic. Some phones are buttery smooth and some are lag fests. Depends on manufacturer and skin and whatever they've put in to it.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Also dependent on what version of the OS you're using
I've had some stutter on my Samsungs Galaxy s2 (2.3.6, and Galaxy s4 (4.4.4), but overall experiences have been pleasant. Restarting the phone every now and then helps too

My Ipod Touch 5 has been decent, but I've dared not to upgrade from ios7 to ios8 nor to ios9

 

[D13H4RD2L1V3]

Well, I used the LG G4 and recently fell back to the HTC One M7 after the G4 became a mountain of hardware issues.

The G4 ran Android 6.0 with LG's skin on top and the M7 ran a modified version of the official GPe firmware based on Android 5.1, obviously on stock Android as it's a GPe ROM.

Really, I didn't experience serious amounts of lag with those 2. Yes, they do stutter at times, but that is to be expected since there is no device that is going to be lag-free. But in normal use, performance was generally pretty good, especially on the M7, where it kinda proved that an SD600 paired with optimized software still makes for a solid combo in 2016.

As a bonus, I put my iPad Pro 12.9 into the ring. It's running iOS 9.3.2 and its hardware is pretty darn serious. So, to the surprise of no one, it performed really well, although it does lag a little bit, usually on Google Docs. I don't expect the Pro 12.9 to be lag-free because that would be ridiculous, but it is a little odd.

 

[bitek]

Great question my phone lags terribly from time to time. I was wondering if this is blackberry related problem or if this is common problem for Android

 

[Tsepz_GP]

Updated my Note 4 to 6.0.1, it also has a 128GB MicroSDXC that only has around 30GB free mem now, and the phone is running beautifully, no lag. Yes, there is stutter here and there, but EVERY device has that including my Apple iPad Air 2 on iOS9.3.2, no such thing as a device that doesn't have a bit of stutter here and there.

I am truly impressed with 6.0.1 on my phone, I cannot remember all the stuff Google did under the hood in 6.0, but whatever it is, it has done a world of good for this phone.

 

[Morty2264]

In my own personal experience with Android devices, I've never had a phone lag that quickly. Sure, when my Nexus 5 was 1.5 years old, it may be a little slow sometimes. Or the battery would be kind of on its way out at that point, so sometimes I'd have a drop or two or the phone would not perform at its peak. But generally, I feel that most Androids - when they're flagships, as you say, or are at least updated to the latest software - do not suffer lags that early on in their lifespan. Sure, with time and use and wear-and-tear, any phone from any platform will start to lag or decrease in performance; but I definitely wouldn't say that lags are common of Android experience within a six-month time frame. Unless, of course, your software isn't up to date, or the phone has been damaged or dropped, etc. All those factors affect functionality.

For example, my BlackBerry Bold 9780 suffered lags and battery issues because I didn't update it to the latest software. So updating can fix some bugs and improve speed, efficiency, etc.

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