Rant: Absolutely unacceptable that the 3.1 update doesn't fix lag

[deejayd]

I like the pause when changing orientation. I don't want the screen flipping by accident so the pause makes sure that u are purposely changing the orientation.

Well, the pause isn't the issue, I think that's by design and I can live with it either way. The bug is the sudden drop in framerate when scrolling through homescreens in portrait mode.

It's not acceptable for such a basic UX issue to have survived a year of development and two Honeycomb releases.

 

[lobobuzz]

My Xoom runs awesome! Guess I'm one of the lucky owners.

 

[Maikai.Guy]

I agree that this is a pretty poor show. The main criticism leveled at Android over the years has been the sometimes flaky user experience. Honeycomb was supposed to change all that... and here we are with tablets that are almost unusable in portrait mode due to the drop in framerate.

Anybody saying they haven't seen this issue is either lying or has never used their Xoom in portrait mode. This is a documented issue and is scheduled to be fixed in a 'future release' according to the Android bug tracker.

I was hoping the 'future release' would be 3.1 but no such luck.

Incidentally, it has nothing to do with the number of apps open or number of widgets on your homescreen. You can empty your homescreen entirely and you will still see the issue when scrolling in portrait.

It's a shame that Google is still struggling to get the basic user experience right. I had high hopes for 3.0 (and 3.1). Seems like we're always waiting on the next release.

So... if you're using it in portrait mode, why do you need to use it upside down?

Right side up works fine. The frame rate slowdown doesn't occur right side up.

If you are having issues with right side up scroll, you have something running that is not playing nice in your XOOM. You can say it doesn't matter what you are running, but in fact, it does. I've run into incompatible apps that worked great on my phone, but slowed down my XOOM. They were deleted and things returned to normal. In all cases, so far, I've found replacements for these apps. In most cases, my replacements are better than the originals.

 

[deejayd]

So... if you're using it in portrait mode, why do you need to use it upside down?

Right side up works fine. The frame rate slowdown doesn't occur right side up.

Are you confusing portrait with landscape?

Landscape is the left to right widescreen view, with the camera at the top (ie the standard view for Honeycomb). Portrait is the other one.

The problem is with both of the portrait orientations and upside down landscape.


Installed apps and running processes have absolutely no bearing on this bug. The portrait and upside down landscape stuttering will occur even on a wiped or brand new Xoom.

It's a documented problem with Honeycomb and the Tegra 2 video hardware, which the Android engineers have acknowledged and said will be fixed in an future release. Many of us were hoping that 'future release' meant 3.1 (Romain Guy even said it would be fixed in 3.1 at I/O), but alas that was not the case.

You might not care but it's a problem for many others.

 

[eyecon82]

Are you confusing portrait with landscape?

Landscape is the left to right widescreen view, with the camera at the top (ie the standard view for Honeycomb). Portrait is the other one.

The problem is with both of the portrait orientations and upside down landscape.


Installed apps and running processes have absolutely no bearing on this bug. The portrait and upside down landscape stuttering will occur even on a wiped or brand new Xoom.

It's a documented problem with Honeycomb and the Tegra 2 video hardware, which the Android engineers have acknowledged and said will be fixed in an future release. Many of us were hoping that 'future release' meant 3.1 (Romain Guy even said it would be fixed in 3.1 at I/O), but alas that was not the case.

You might not care but it's a problem for many others.

ugh I know! Look at his post history...he has a clear history of jumping into any forum where someone bashes a XOOM for its real world problems.

Always says he doesn't experience lag.....then admits there is lag and offers excuses for it, like it was programmed that way. Just because he only uses it in 1 orientation makes him think everyone else only uses it in 1 orientation.

frame rate lag in 3 out fo the 4 planes of view is unacceptable.

Google and Motorola clearly own some people

 

[deejayd]

frame rate lag in 3 out fo the 4 planes of view is unacceptable.

True. The hardware and software were in development and testing for a year, they obviously knew this was an issue and obviously decided that fixing it wasn't a top priority.

I said it elsewhere but it's yet another example of Google de-prioritising the user experience. That might not be such a big deal for us early adopters, we're the ones who are already invested in the platform and willing to wait out the bugs, but annoyances like this are the reason Honeycomb got such a lukewarm reception from the rest of the world.

And if maikai loves his Xoom so much maybe he should shout at Google a bit too? Maybe then they might fix some of these problems and more people would buy one!

 

[anon(167668)]

Anybody saying they haven't seen this issue is either lying or has never used their Xoom in portrait mode.

Odd. I've used my Xoom in portrait mode and I'm not lying when I said I didn't experience any issues. Does that mean your blanket attack on everybody who finds portrait mode fine to use is just infantile, hostile bull****? I think it does!

 

[deejayd]

Odd. I've used my Xoom in portrait mode and I'm not lying when I said I didn't experience any issues. Does that mean your blanket attack on everybody who finds portrait mode fine to use is just infantile, hostile bull****? I think it does!

Are you reading these posts?

This affects every piece of Tegra 2 hardware running Honeycomb, without exception . There are no lucky people who have avoided this problem. If you have a Tegra 2 in your Xoom then you have this issue to the same degree as everybody else.

The issue is acknowledged by Google's developers and is marked as fixed in a future release on Google's own bug tracker.

If you are not lying then you have misunderstood the issue.

 

[anon(167668)]

What I'm saying is I have not noticed any loss in user experience from using the portrait orientation. I don't doubt that there's a problem with other orientations requiring more computations than the default. What I'm saying it doesn't necessarily adversely affect everybody's experience, and portraying everyone with that opinion as a liar is idiotic.

 

[eyecon82]

What I'm saying is I have not noticed any loss in user experience from using the portrait orientation. I don't doubt that there's a problem with other orientations requiring more computations than the default. What I'm saying it doesn't necessarily adversely affect everybody's experience, and portraying everyone with that opinion as a liar is idiotic.

you may be a lucky one then...every xoom I have tried experiences this lag...including the 3 I tested on display at staples, best buy, etc. Also includes my friends and I.....out of the 5 devices I played with, all experienced that lag....even with a hard reset

 

[deejayd]

What I'm saying is I have not noticed any loss in user experience from using the portrait orientation. I don't doubt that there's a problem with other orientations requiring more computations than the default. What I'm saying it doesn't necessarily adversely affect everybody's experience, and portraying everyone with that opinion as a liar is idiotic.

I didn't say they were all liars. That was just one of the options I provided.

Take a look at the video posted on page two though. He demonstrates that the framerate is actually cut in half for any orientation other than standard landscape. And not just on the homescreens - in apps too.

Even if it's not bothering you right now, you can be sure it will at some point in the future when honeycomb has more gpu intensive apps.

It's a really ridiculous bug to have in a flagship device and doubly ridiculous that it still hasn't been fixed months after release.

 

[Maikai.Guy]

Are you confusing portrait with landscape?

Oh... You are right... duh! My brain was fixated on landscape.

How embarrassing. :-\:-[

I only use mine in portrait to read and never noticed it. I did notice the stutter when using the browser in portrait mode.

 

[deejayd]

I only use mine in portrait to read and never noticed it. I did notice the stutter when using the browser in portrait mode.

Yeah I noticed it when coming out of kindle for the first time and scrolling back to the homescreen.

The thing is, despite what the reviews said, I actually find it a bit nicer to use in portrait mode, especially for browsing. You can hold it in one hand and the keys are much easier to reach with your thumbs when you're typing. That's why this is bugging me so much!

 

[eyecon82]

Yeah I noticed it when coming out of kindle for the first time and scrolling back to the homescreen.

The thing is, despite what the reviews said, I actually find it a bit nicer to use in portrait mode, especially for browsing. You can hold it in one hand and the keys are much easier to reach with your thumbs when you're typing. That's why this is bugging me so much!

Same here....I use mine mostly to view and read PDF's and those are best done in portrait mode....its annoying holding it in landscape and having to scroll up and down in order to see the whole page

 

[Maikai.Guy]

What I'm saying is I have not noticed any loss in user experience from using the portrait orientation. I don't doubt that there's a problem with other orientations requiring more computations than the default. What I'm saying it doesn't necessarily adversely affect everybody's experience, and portraying everyone with that opinion as a liar is idiotic.

They accused me of thinking everyone thinks like me, then they go ahead and do the same thing. It's human nature to think everyone is like us.

These guys have actually done me a favor. I think they helped me to an epiphany. Let me explain.

I belong to a car club. We're just getting back into it, because Spring has sprung. We were all together for breakfast this morning for the first time. There's one guy... he probably has the nicest looking car of all of us [my car is probably the most powerful, but it also looks great ]. Anyway... this guy is ALWAYS bummed about something. He should really sell his car. He thinks the car brings him joy, but it doesn't. Anyone in our club could tell you that. In fact, it does nothing but cause him pain. There is always some minor little thing that is not perfect enough for him. He gets himself crazy about whatever it is. The rest of us just look at each other in slack jawed disbelief sometimes. It's sad, really.

I'm sitting here realizing these guys are like my buddy in the car club. Then it occurred to me! I realized I'm like my buddy in the car club! I've been getting so much positive out of my XOOM for my personal and professional life, yet I was being so darned negative about minor BS, like Mot's lack of communication regarding when I would get 3.1.

It's not like I desperately needed something that 3.1 was offering. I'm rooted. I've already got USB-MSD and other benefits. Heck, USB-MSD didn't even come with 3.1! What was so special about 3.1 that had me saying bad things about Google and Motorola? A few people on this forum suggested I was taking it a bit too seriously, but I was too fixated to listen.

Now, I'm saying the same things to these guys... that they are going over the deep end over a very minor thing.

Sometimes it's takes a fool to make us see the fool in ourselves. Well... at least now I have a clue and go on from here a little happier.

Personal growth by way of the AndroidCentral forum. Who would have thought?

 

[eyecon82]

Th
Now, I'm saying the same things to these guys... that they are going over the deep end over a very minor thing.

ool:

it may not affect you the way you use your xoom...but like I said..i mainly use it for PDF reading and that is best done in portrait mode since I can see the whole page without having to scroll up or down....I can just flick to the next page...but due to "lag" or whatever it is, it stutters and doesn't make it a smooth experience.

 

[deejayd]

it may not affect you the way you use your xoom...but like I said..i mainly use it for PDF reading and that is best done in portrait mode since I can see the whole page without having to scroll up or down....I can just flick to the next page...but due to "lag" or whatever it is, it stutters and doesn't make it a smooth experience.

For the love of God, stop replying to him. No matter how wrong he is he will never let it go.

 

[tntdroid]

Lets keep this thread going but try and relax a bit.

Sent by Xoom

 

[GiGi_41]

I am a Xoom newbie, so you can take what I have to say any way you'd like...

I was (am) an early adopter...I had one of the first iPhones and when the iPad came out I snapped it up. As I sit here I have my iPad on my lap... And just to put the argument aside.. Yes there is lag when rotating the Xoom. I compared the two and the iPad is quicker at rotating. Since I'm not using the Xoom for gaming I didn't really notice till you all pointed it out.

Did the iPad have issues when it first came out? Yes it did.. It was slow at somethings.. How email worked at the beginning sucked.. Its better now.. It couldn't multitask, and really the multitasking is still kind if lame. If you wanted to use a Microsoft presentation you were out of luck. Taking pictures? Forget that with the first generation.

There are a few things about the Xoom I'm disappointed in.. The SD slot not working.. Not being able to video chat on Skype, Google voice app not being available (I only wanted it for SMS), and Netflix...I think most of these are fixable.

What I love about the Xoom is the flash..I can watch a video in my browser, I can edit documents without a big hassle. I can buy music from Amazon on my Evo and can get it on my Xoom without having to attach it to my computer.

All new products have some growing... That's the fun about being early adopters.. You get to see the changes.

 

[eyecon82]

Another observation: the keyboard input lag still remains in the browser