Galaxy S6 - Phone Lag

[syspry]

The lag on the S6 is a major problem for me. I came from an iPhone 6, and while I prefer Android in many other ways, the s6 is much slower compared to iOS. It's really bumming me out. There's a very noticeable delay in almost everything you do on the S6 -- it's not a super long delay but is very noticeable if you are a super fast smartphone user constantly switching between apps. Every single S6 I have ever tried/used has this issue (I tried a bunch of them at two different Verizon stores, as well as four friends'), so I'm not encouraged by anyone saying otherwise here, I'm afraid...

Many people here recommended trying third party apps for the system UI, but none of the three biggest ones I tried made a single bit of difference with the lag. It's very amateurish-feeling compared to the iPhone and I'm regretting my decision to switch. It's too bad because I prefer Android in pretty much every other way, but I use my phone constantly all day for work and have become dependent on the truly immediate response of iOS. :-( Too much $$$ to switch to an iPhone (two-year contract dealie), so I'm hoping they fix this or I can bring it up to speed.

I commonly see Samsung being the brand most iPhone users head towards when they switch to Android because they all see Samsung touted as the main rival to the iPhone and in a sense they're right, it is - in sales. In performance, not so much other than the camera. If more of these people knew more about lighter skinned Android devices like Nexus, Moto, Sony I daresay you wouldn't see as many people who recently switched from their iPhone complain about software optimization. Yes, Samsung has scaled down Touchwiz, but it appears some problems still persist. One thing I can say is that the native keyboard app that comes with the 3 phones I just mentioned has performed quite well over the last few years.

 

[Headlands]

I commonly see Samsung being the brand most iPhone users head towards when they switch to Android because they all see Samsung touted as the main rival to the iPhone and in a sense they're right, it is - in sales. In performance, not so much other than the camera. If more of these people knew more about lighter skinned Android devices like Nexus, Moto, Sony I daresay you wouldn't see as many people who recently switched from their iPhone complain about software optimization. Yes, Samsung has scaled down Touchwiz, but it appears some problems still persist. One thing I can say is that the native keyboard app that comes with the 3 phones I just mentioned has performed quite well over the last few years.

Yep, I got suckered into the S6 for the reason you stated. It seemed like the best replacement for the iPhone 6 at the time, but with the lag it simply isn't, for me. Drat. Now I need to wait until my contract is up to replace it with a lighter-skinned Android or possibly iPhone (grrrrrrr...I really don't want to, but man!), unless I can rig something up with locked-in Verizon.

 

[drone3]

I recently updated to 5.1.1 and notice that there's pretty huge lag before the keyboard appears.

For example, I press on the google search widget as I want to search something, I tap on the search bar and the phone just sits there, 4 or 5 seconds later, they keyboard will appear. After that initial delay, the keyboard seems to appear at a normal rate. Just every now and then it seems to have big delays in showing up.

Seems to have only happened after the 5.1.1 update. Never used to be that bad before it. Anyone else experience this issue? Really don't want to wipe my phone and and start it from scratch.

I used to get that lag, but i did a few things that got rid of the lag, I'm not sure which tweak fixed it, but try these tweaks.

1. Wipe partition cache
2. Turn off power saver
3. Close apps in the multitask draw when not using them.
4. Run CCleaner app once every two weeks to clear the cache of all apps.

dreaming of electric sheep

 

[dby2011]

I used to get that lag, but i did a few things that got rid of the lag, I'm not sure which tweak fixed it, but try these tweaks.

1. Wipe partition cache
2. Turn off power saver
3. Close apps in the multitask draw when not using them.
4. Run CCleaner app once every two weeks to clear the cache of all apps.

dreaming of electric sheep

Been lurking here on the forums because I was considering getting a S6 and giving my S5 to my daughter. I had lag with my S5, but when I turned off restrict performance in power saving all my lag went away. I really think it's the cpu throttling that causes the lag. Maybe it is the same for the S6?

 

[Lfsnz67]

I had tons of lag and was very unhappy with my edge but I followed the advice in this thread
https://www.reddit.com/r/GalaxyS6/comments/345tt9/galaxy_s6_and_s6_edge_lag_and_battery_improvement/

It's much improved now

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[bpe4]

I think you all are telling fibs. Lag? I've had my S6 for 2 months now and I've never come across the lag people are moaning about here. It must be some rogue app that you all are using because my experience has been nothing but flawless. The way some of you make it seem is that you click on an app, then you go make a sandwich, and you come back and the app finally appears. It's ludicrous. Although I have Nova Prime, I've seen no need for it and have been using Touchwiz since day 1.

This phone has the most efficient, fastest processor out there (until the Snapdragon 820 comes out). How on God's Green Earth are you all making it crawl as if it was the original Motorola Droid??

Out of the millions of units sold, this forum must have the handful of folks who:
1) either have defective units
or
2) have the exact same combination of rogue apps that makes the phone puke.

I just think it's horrible that the casual potential buyer has to hear the noise from the vocal few who keep screaming 'lag lag lag'. It's a GREAT phone, and deserves better word-of-mouth.

 

[cbreze]

I think you all are telling fibs. Lag? I've had my S6 for 2 months now and I've never come across the lag people are moaning about here. It must be some rogue app that you all are using because my experience has been nothing but flawless. The way some of you make it seem is that you click on an app, then you go make a sandwich, and you come back and the app finally appears. It's ludicrous. Although I have Nova Prime, I've seen no need for it and have been using Touchwiz since day 1.

This phone has the most efficient, fastest processor out there (until the Snapdragon 820 comes out). How on God's Green Earth are you all making it crawl as if it was the original Motorola Droid??

Out of the millions of units sold, this forum must have the handful of folks who:
1) either have defective units
or
2) have the exact same combination of rogue apps that makes the phone puke.

I just think it's horrible that the casual potential buyer has to hear the noise from the vocal few who keep screaming 'lag lag lag'. It's a GREAT phone, and deserves better word-of-mouth.

Agreed. My S6 beats the crap outta my iPhone 6 which is frequently mentioned as the superior device people decide to downgrade back to. Perhaps it's also to do with individual perceptions of what constitutes lag. In any case I agree with your post.

 

[Saros]

2) have the exact same combination of rogue apps that makes the phone puke.

This frequently seems to be the most prosaic explanation, other than the occasional buyer getting a defective unit. I wonder how many claims of "lag" are in reality the result of resource-hog antivirus apps degrading performance. Problems not resulting from user input do of course happen with mass-produced devices but I'd wager that a fair number (if not the majority) of such reports we see here are self-inflicted.

 

[syspry]

I'll chime in here as an Android user with each year's iteration of iPhone and iPad in the family house. In every year to this date none of my devices have ever matched, let alone beat either Apple device in terms of fluidity, smooth transitioning, and lack of stutter. I don't use rogue apps I don't install many apps at all and I don't use resource hungry apps.
So why in that case do I still own Android? Because I prefer the features that OS possesses over iOS. But I'm not going to refuse to admit something that's so well known. Although every other day it appears someone thinks they have a unicorn android this magically doesn't apply to. Heard it all before.

 

[Coney718]

I'll chime in here as an Android user with each year's iteration of iPhone and iPad in the family house. In every year to this date none of my devices have ever matched, let alone beat either Apple device in terms of fluidity, smooth transitioning, and lack of stutter. I don't use rogue apps I don't install many apps at all and I don't use resource hungry apps.
So why in that case do I still own Android? Because I prefer the features that OS possesses over iOS. But I'm not going to refuse to admit something that's so well known. Although every other day it appears someone thinks they have a unicorn android this magically doesn't apply to. Heard it all before.

Agreed. I was using the iPhone 6 and the S6 back and forth for months and my 6 month old iphone still was smoother and more fluid overall than my brand new S6. Thats just a fact. Not saying the S6 was a laggy mess like some others claim but even most diehard android fans will agree that iOS is better optimized and fluid than Android.

With that being said I believe "lag" is very subjective. What we phone nerds call lag the general public wont even notice or think about. 2 co-workers of mine with the S6 are not techie at all love their phone. Both say its the best phone they've had so far, including battery life. We here in these forums represent a very small percentage of the general phone buying public. I'm sure 90% of regualr folks who purchased the S6 dont see or just dont care about the "issues" we see.

 

[drone3]

Agreed. I was using the iPhone 6 and the S6 back and forth for months and my 6 month old iphone still was smoother and more fluid overall than my brand new S6. Thats just a fact. Not saying the S6 was a laggy mess like some others claim but even most diehard android fans will agree that iOS is better optimized and fluid than Android.

With that being said I believe "lag" is very subjective. What we phone nerds call lag the general public wont even notice or think about. 2 co-workers of mine with the S6 are not techie at all love their phone. Both say its the best phone they've had so far, including battery life. We here in these forums represent a very small percentage of the general phone buying public. I'm sure 90% of regualr folks who purchased the S6 dont see or just dont care about the "issues" we see.

Yeh that's true of my friends with the S6 as well. They don't complain of lag or battery. The only thing that annoys them is the terrible reception when indoors.

dreaming of electric sheep

 

[TechGod2014]

The S6 does have lag issues. Nothing new there. I experience it everyday. Its funny how some fanboys can't come to admit this and go out their way to bash us "few" that point this out. Even though the S6 is still an awesome phone, its hard to ignore that the iPhone with 1GB ram and the same apps still out performs the S6. Only reason I'm back with Android is because I'm kinda bored with ios and feel having an iPad and iPhone is kind of redundant. So I sold my 6 plus and copped this S6. I'm very happy with the phone but I'm not gonna ignore the same lag that I saw on the s5, s4, and s3.

 

[bpe4]

The S6 does have lag issues. Nothing new there. I experience it everyday. Its funny how some fanboys can't come to admit this and go out their way to bash us "few" that point this out. Even though the S6 is still an awesome phone, its hard to ignore that the iPhone with 1GB ram and the same apps still out performs the S6. Only reason I'm back with Android is because I'm kinda bored with ios and feel having an iPad and iPhone is kind of redundant. So I sold my 6 plus and copped this S6. I'm very happy with the phone but I'm not gonna ignore the same lag that I saw on the s5, s4, and s3.

My 'alternate' phone is a iPhone 6+. The S6 is my 'small' phone. I swap between them often depending on the mood that week, so when I 'bash' the lag-cryers I do so in the full knowledge that the experience isn't exactly the same between my 2 phones. It's apples to oranges really. Android allows so much active content to be displayed on the screen. On the flip side, IOS has nothing but static icons to deal with, and has much tighter control of what apps are doing in the background. So yes, I know when I'm using the S6 there might be a momentary pause as I flip between screens or launch apps. This isn't unique to the S6, it's generalized with all of Android phones, with more vanilla forms seeing fewer pauses (Nexus devices). So if you really want a completely lag free Android experience, choose a Nexus 6 (I tried one for a month). But for me, vanilla Android feels hollow with many features missing, so I'm willing to accept the slightly slower response of a full-featured OS.

 

[biggbrother2]

With that being said I believe "lag" is very subjective.

Does taking 10 seconds to switch between Chrome and Hangouts or Google Play Music and the Gallery constitute lag? Does swiping down on the Notification, selecting a text message received, and waiting 10 seconds for the Messaging app to appear constitute lag? Does clicking home and waiting 10 seconds for the Home screen to redraw constitute lag? Double pressing the Home button used to open the camera instantly, now it takes just a bit longer, sometimes only a second or two.. but longer.

I'm not saying that I am seeing this laggy performance 100% of the time, but it happens at random times I can't pin down why. Is it it because certain Google apps are poorly coded and matched for the Exynos processor? (i.e. Google Keep constantly crashes for me). Or is it my Spigen bumper case causing too much heat? Is it Nova Launcher? Is it Google Now? Is it Google Location History? Is it the Material Theme I installed from the Samsung Theme Store? I disabled Lookout just-in-case, still didn't help.

Sure it could be any of these and more, but the fact is that other phones run great with all of the same customization and apps., The S6 is supposed to have a monster processor capable of handling multiple tasks at once while sipping power, and the phone has 3GB of the fastest RAM available in smartphones to date.

So yes, I am baffled why it randomly seems to get bogged down, when it should be able to handle pretty much every configuration thrown at it.

 

[cbreze]

What you're describing is definitely lag. Something's up with your phone. Mine doesn't lag this way as well as most others. I always thought whatsapp was a laggy app to begin with and got rid of it. I still think apps are the number one cause for lag.

 

[DougB541#CB]

Former S6 user here.

This is what I have concluded, the S6 has to be one of the most inconsistent flagship devices released in some time. I was on the bad end of many S6 reported problem (lag, cell standy issue, bad battery etc.) and even swapped devices with similar issues. Jealous of those who had a great experience, but i did not and frankly i chucle a bit when people would suggest these absurd solutions like disabling wifi calling (which I needed) or rooting to fix these issues. Like, I bought this phone at $800.....thats an unacceptable solution.


I'm on the G4 now which is treating me well though the Note does seem to have fixed many of the s6's issues.

 

[syspry]

Former S6 user here.

This is what I have concluded, the S6 has to be one of the most inconsistent flagship devices released in some time. I was on the bad end of many S6 reported problem (lag, cell standy issue, bad battery etc.) and even swapped devices with similar issues. Jealous of those who had a great experience

I'm going to let you in on a very old and still ongoing trend in smartphone forums. When you get a dozen posters all describing your issues and 2 or 3 hardcore posters who reply to every single one of those threads claiming to have a great experience, zero issues and refuting and denying every issue with the response that you have a bad model... They're usually not being honest.

I got a chuckle at a recent Note 5 thread. Someone asked if there are lag issues or poor batter life. One person said no and then joked that he would never admit it if it did. Then a bunch of others suddenly chimed in that they'd deny it too.

It was amusing but also extremely revealing about these forums. So let me give you a simple piece of advice. If you're having several problems and discover lots of others are too, you are not just "unlucky".

 

[drone3]

Former S6 user here.

This is what I have concluded, the S6 has to be one of the most inconsistent flagship devices released in some time. I was on the bad end of many S6 reported problem (lag, cell standy issue, bad battery etc.) and even swapped devices with similar issues. Jealous of those who had a great experience, but i did not and frankly i chucle a bit when people would suggest these absurd solutions like disabling wifi calling (which I needed) or rooting to fix these issues. Like, I bought this phone at $800.....thats an unacceptable solution.


I'm on the G4 now which is treating me well though the Note does seem to have fixed many of the s6's issues.

Yeh, I think it's pretty bad business for a company to release a device for mass consumption that has so many bugs and needed tweaks. But the majority of issues I have been able to solve through the help of people on these forums. When you see your battery life go from 2hrs SOT to over 5hrs SOT after so many tweaks it's a great feeling. From my experience, lag was one of the easier issues to fix.

dreaming of electric sheep

 

[chezm]

All because iOS gives the impression it does just as much as Android, the matter of the fact is it doesn't and that's the major difference between the two.

If you want a simplistic user friendly experience with zero customization then go with an iPhone. Because of the way ios functions, its halting processing allows the user experience to give an impression that its doing so many things at once when it isn't...at all. On the other hand, Android is more like a portable PC which is a different beast.

If Android halted every function like ios it would be lightening fast, "lagless". If you're the phone user who has 7 phones and changes them every 4 months, with multiple daily drivers...fortunate for you to have that luxury. For the common user, which is 100% of my peers and coworkers, no one complains of the things on this forum. To them both iPhone and Samsung's are fantastic, each person has their own preference but doesn't get into debates about lag and split second loading. And I am confident that makes up for most of the market share.

I love my S6, everyone else I know who has S6 or Edge love theirs. No one complains to the extent users here do on here...sounds exhausting mentally.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[TechGod2014]

I think the difference is that most people that have lag and go to forums to seek help don't attack the people that dont have lag. Also, its true that the s6 has specs that are comparable to a PC, but by no means it works like one. I can do way more with my laptop, but the S6 Costs almost as much. Crazy Stuff. Funny thing is apple is alreday getting close to androids customization and still is a stable platform. I beta tested ios9 on my iPad and I loved it. I had zero problems with it even during the beta process. Again, the S6 is an awesome phone but u do need to settled for some stuff. I think this will be my last Sammy phone for sure.