Frustrating experience so far with Galaxy S4

[Dreamliner330]

I'd be willing to wager money to whoever would like to demonstrate their stock S4 to be completely free from any amount of stutter, even with everything shut off in developer options (which is a pretty sad thing to need to do on a brand new phone). By default, the S4 can't unlock without a stutter. With animations off, the notification bar stutters 95% of the time,Facebook & web stutter when scrolling, gallery stutters...and on and on.

I have no doubts that S4 owners that claim zero lag do not 'experience' it because the S4 is better than their old phone. Fact is, if you compared the S4 to the Nexus 4 or iPhone 5 the lack of smoothness on the S4 would be startling.

 

[PaulWog]

I don't really notice much lag usually... occasionally it can catch up, but with texting everything is great. Where I do get some lag is sometimes when unlocking the phone the phone can lag up or freeze up (very rare).

The biggest "lag" problem I have is with the built-in S-Voice which is slow as can be... it needs to be more responsive.

Yeh, the phone could be snappier... maybe I'll pay more attention to this... usually I'm pretty picky about things, but lag wasn't really on my things-that-I-hate list, which was pretty big

 

[neiljay6]

I have both the S4 and nexus 4, and smoothness is on par with both devices. Occasionally s4 will stutter but that's it.

 

[Johnny Roberts]

Seems to be the norm.

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obviously not enough for most owners to care.

But some people who DON'T own the device seem to care... a lot. lol

 

[tarnak]

I'd be willing to wager money to whoever would like to demonstrate their stock S4 to be completely free from any amount of stutter, even with everything shut off in developer options (which is a pretty sad thing to need to do on a brand new phone). By default, the S4 can't unlock without a stutter. With animations off, the notification bar stutters 95% of the time,Facebook & web stutter when scrolling, gallery stutters...and on and on.

I have no doubts that S4 owners that claim zero lag do not 'experience' it because the S4 is better than their old phone. Fact is, if you compared the S4 to the Nexus 4 or iPhone 5 the lack of smoothness on the S4 would be startling.

I can actually, I have both the I5 and the S4, I have not seen any difference between the two. To me, it works perfectly. then again, every phone is different. I had the Rezound before the S4 and never had any of the reported issues users said they had with that phone. and there were many from poor battery to failing charging ports. maybe I got my S4 from a good batch of phones.

 

[weblou]

Try using the phone before commenting on it. The smoothness between the N4 and S4 is almost identical.

I'd be willing to wager money to whoever would like to demonstrate their stock S4 to be completely free from any amount of stutter, even with everything shut off in developer options (which is a pretty sad thing to need to do on a brand new phone). By default, the S4 can't unlock without a stutter. With animations off, the notification bar stutters 95% of the time,Facebook & web stutter when scrolling, gallery stutters...and on and on.

I have no doubts that S4 owners that claim zero lag do not 'experience' it because the S4 is better than their old phone. Fact is, if you compared the S4 to the Nexus 4 or iPhone 5 the lack of smoothness on the S4 would be startling.

 

[chrscaley]

Try using the phone before commenting on it. The smoothness between the N4 and S4 is almost identical.

http://youtu.be/Aoaz3rV7CwY

How do you know he doesn't own it or has owned it? Or hasn't used it like you say?

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[weblou]

Of the way he talks about the phone he obviously never owned one.. I own one and i could tell you it's just as smooth as ip5
Never had a Nexus 4 so can't say anything but the video is pretty clear.
Most people just repeat what they read online.

How do you know he doesn't own it or has owned it? Or hasn't used it like you say?

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[chrscaley]

Of the way he talks about the phone he obviously never owned one.. I own one and i could tell you it's just as smooth as ip5
Never had a Nexus 4 so can't say anything but the video is pretty clear.
Most people just repeat what they read online.

Oh, I see. He clearly hasn't owned it then.

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[weblou]

I seriously don't know what your problem is or what you want but if you take a few seconds to read his previous posts you will see that he only played with one at the AT&T store.
Which EVERYONE should know you don't judge a phone on display...

Oh, I see. He clearly hasn't owned it then.

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[chrscaley]

I seriously don't know what your problem is or what you want but if you take a few seconds to read his previous posts you will see that he only played with one at the AT&T store.
Which EVERYONE should know you don't just a phone on display...

Geez, i was teasing you. Relax.

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[weblou]

I am relaxed .... I guess the Caps was a little to much?? LOL

Geez, i was teasing you. Relax.

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[Dreamliner330]

Try using the phone before commenting on it. The smoothness between the N4 and S4 is almost identical.

I am using my personal experiences plus every single video with the S4 I have ever seen to base my conclusion that it lags/stutter. I've already emphatically stated it is most likely a software issue, not a hardware one. Once the Google Edition ROM becomes available, it will be smooth sailing (pun intended).

It is not my intention to meaninglessly provoke or upset anyone, I just have never used a lag/stutter free S4 (six so far) or seen a video without S4 stutter. Just to be clear: TouchWiz and Samsung's 'optimizations' are the problem here.

I'm not going to sit and watch through every video and comment on where it lags, I've posted videos before with lots of annotations of the S4 displaying lag in reviews here , this is no different. Being in the UK, that's probably the Exynos version. That being said:

4:10...map lag/stutter.

5:30"I have to say, in terms of UI, my Nexus 4 feels smoother all the time really. The Galaxy S4 is very smooth a lot of the time, but you can see there (5:38) it just gets these random performance hiccups that I don't see on the Nexus 4. In terms of smoothness, I gotta say, I do think the Nexus 4 is the smoother more consistent device.

6:57...Chrome Zoom Lag/stutter
7:06...Chrome Scroll Lag/stutter

7:28 "The Nexus 4 I think does have slightly better performance"

9:40 "In terms of fluidity and frame rate, I do think it was more consistent on the Nexus 4."

take a few seconds to read his previous posts you will see that he only played with one at the AT&T store.

When it released on Verizon, I bought one.

it's just as smooth as ip5

I owned both as well, did not come to that conclusion, not by a long shot.

 

[chrjt74001]

A couple of months ago I upgraded from my iPhone to a Galaxy S4. While I am extremely satisfied with the screen size, screen quality, and physical thinness of the device, using it has been another story entirely ... so much so that I've been entertaining the idea of selling this thing and getting an iPhone 5. Can anyone here chime in on some of these things and let me know if (A) there's something that I'm missing or (B) that's just the way it is, or (C) I'm just crazy?

- "Laggy" feeling to the UI ... the best example I can give is using SMS Messaging with the TouchWiz messaging app. Whether I'm just pulling up a message, or I'm getting into a texting frenzy with someone, the phone feels like it's at 90% CPU usage or something. The animations lag horribly, and sometimes there is even keyboard lag. I've tried many different keyboard apps (currently using SwiftKey) and I've tried switching from Messaging to something like GoSMS. Some things help a little, mostly the same experience. I can't help feeling like it's the app and/or TouchWiz and not the actual phone that is the problem, but what am I supposed to do here? I never had to deal with anything like this even on a 2 year old iPhone.

*** It's not just messaging; sometimes just unlocking the phone makes the whole thing lag ... surfing the web can do it too. I expected a fluid experience on Samsung's flagship phone, and I'm not getting it.

- MMS problems ... and what I mean by this is when I receive a video or picture text message from someone, the quality is absolutely terrible most of the time, ESPECIALLY on videos. I understand some of this is the network (AT&T) limitations and the phone compressing the clip, but on the iPhone i don't remember ever dealing with this. It didn't matter who sent me the photo or the video ... on the iPhone it looked as it should have. On the S4, it looks like I'm watching a clip captured by an 8 year old device. Is there some setting I'm missing here?

I feel like I've tried every 3rd party app under the sun to clear up these issues, and nothing really seems to help overall. I feel like I'm constantly having to clear the memory and micro manage the phone's operation to preserve the smoothness of the operation. Is this just the way Android is, or is there something else I could do?

I've gone through every S4 optimization guide I could find online, so please don't suggest anything like turning off S-Voice or turning off the animations with developer mode, cause I've tried it.

Should I consider selling it if I'm not happy, or should I wait for the ROM of the Galaxy S4 google edition and try flashing it to stock android? Thanks!

You should try flashing to a rom seeing if that will help with all the touch wiz gimmicky bloat ware crap, in which case it should.. and then if still not content hold off for the iPhone 5s which I think build quality is far better then the s4.. all of this of course if you prefer ios 7 over android which is another thread/debate ..

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[weblou]

Your picking at all the little things.. If the S4 in the video lags then ALL phones lag. Even the N4 has instances that it lags a little... And from what i read it;s the smoothest android.

For me what you see in the video it's not lag.. choppy on certain moments possible But no lag to complain about.

I guess we all have different views on what lag is to us.

I am using my personal experiences plus every single video with the S4 I have ever seen to base my conclusion that it lags/stutter. I've already emphatically stated it is most likely a software issue, not a hardware one. Once the Google Edition ROM becomes available, it will be smooth sailing (pun intended).

 

[Dreamliner330]

Your picking at all the little things.. If the S4 in the video lags then ALL phones lag. Even the N4 has instances that it lags a little... And from what i read it;s the smoothest android.

For me what you see in the video it's not lag.. choppy on certain moments possible But no lag to complain about.

I guess we all have different views on what lag is to us.

To be fair, I use the term "lag", when perhaps I should more appropriately use the term "stutter". I guess I view stuttering as animation lag, which has plagued Android from the beginning, but is significantly better on Nexus devices and better optimized Android devices. The choppiness is what bothers me the most.

 

[weblou]

I don't have choppiness in the stock browser.. never tried chrome so can't tell you
Also using maps i don't zoom in and out like crazy lol.. So maybe that's why i never noticed it..

I do get half a second delay when opening the camera but this also depends on what mode i have it on.

Bottom line your spending your money on a device and if it bothers you return it... people need to take it easy with the "lag problem". It's WAY over blown. Most people here make it sounds like their phones are not usable

To be fair, I use the term "lag", when perhaps I should more appropriately use the term "stutter". The choppiness is what bothers me the most.