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Let me start by saying I love Android. I love Google. Not only is Android an extremely powerful OS with a wonderful interface but I love the whole open ethos behind it, led by Google, the good guys.
But I just can't for the life of my understand why GPU support is not being introduced, or at least acknowledged that it's missing and it's coming.
I'm running Froyo, and whilst it may well be 500 gazillion times faster crunching numbers and performing data intensive tasks and whatever, it doesn't feel it as I use the phone next to an iphone 3gs.
Manipulating every single screen, every single swipe, window, everything including menus and web browsing just doesn't feel as good as on the iphone. Even if it is is technically faster, what good is it when the thing just doesn't feel as good? It might as well be slower, because how something feels has the bigger impact on people's perceptions.
I understand it's not as easy to accomplish as apple did it being as they only have one phone etc, but surely there's got to be some way?
Why is this issue not bigger within the Android community? Everybody knows the iphone is more fluid to use no matter how much we might want to deny it to ourselves.
It's easy to be smoother when you can't do more than one thing at a time.
Apple moves basically a wallpaper with icons, which is just a picture.
Android moves widgets and live wallpaper. Tons of CPU used for that. Turn off your live wallpaper, disable widgets - get the same scrolling as iPhone.
GPU is there and has nothing to do with it.
Search would have helped avoiding useless complaints in capital letters with tons of "?"s.
If the visuals are so important to you - get an iPhone. System limitations - there's only so much that can be done between battery life, multitasking and graphics. iPhone uses graphics at the expense of multitasking, Android does otherwise.
shrub said:
Let me start by saying I love Android. I love Google. Not only is Android an extremely powerful OS with a wonderful interface but I love the whole open ethos behind it, led by Google, the good guys.
But I just can't for the life of my understand why GPU support is not being introduced, or at least acknowledged that it's missing and it's coming.
I'm running Froyo, and whilst it may well be 500 gazillion times faster crunching numbers and performing data intensive tasks and whatever, it doesn't feel it as I use the phone next to an iphone 3gs.
Manipulating every single screen, every single swipe, window, everything including menus and web browsing just doesn't feel as good as on the iphone. Even if it is is technically faster, what good is it when the thing just doesn't feel as good? It might as well be slower, because how something feels has the bigger impact on people's perceptions.
I understand it's not as easy to accomplish as apple did it being as they only have one phone etc, but surely there's got to be some way?
Why is this issue not bigger within the Android community? Everybody knows the iphone is more fluid to use no matter how much we might want to deny it to ourselves.
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Click to collapse
I am the most unbiased person I've ever met and I will honestly tell you that the response on my phone is as fast and smooth as I have ever seen on any phone. I don't think it can get better. I do not like the grid popping in the Nexus Launcher though. I wish it would just scroll like the old versions.
You don't have a real question in all honesty. Your question is, why is it not like the iPhone and why is it not "smooth" to you personally. That's just the way one person feels. I like the way the N1 feels across the entire OS. They're two different OS's and Phones so they're never going to be the same. I think you really just prefer one over the other in your own opinion. Neither of them can be called better outside of an opinion so nothing will change.
I will sacrifice fluidity any day for functionality.
Also, do you have any idea of what Android has come from, in the sense of versioning? I am certain that this is almost identical the iPhone OS/Hardware Saga from version 1 and up.
I have a question. Why is there so much comparison to iphone. I think android Smashes them but why post topic after topic about that... where's that one mod. He should delete this.
temperbad said:
I have a question. Why is there so much comparison to iphone. I think android Smashes them but why post topic after topic about that... where's that one mod. He should delete this.
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There is always a comparison of the top two of anything. Android and iPhone are very similar and they're they top devices so they're going to get compared. 99.999% of the comparisons are biased in some way but the fact is that neither of them are factually better than the other. They both have amazing features that the other doesn't and the word "better" and your decision come down to your personal preferences. I don't like iTunes, I think widgets are a MUST for me and I enjoy modding my phone without going through hell to do it or getting the cops called on me so I chose Android. Also I have been behind everything Google has done for many years and I will continue to love the company but biased attitudes are something I try to avoid. Not only do you not learn anything but you look foolish acting that way [I'm not talking about you personally I'm speaking in general].
Wow, I'm surprised to see that I'm one of the only people who completely agree with the original poster.
This isn't limited to the launcher. As the OP stated, literally every on screen motion is smoother on the iPhone.
This isn't because of the lack of multitasking on the iPhone because iOS 4 looks just as smooth.
It is either a consequence of the threading used in gui programs and/or better use of the GPU for animations and scrolling. It seems to me on my Nexus that in most cases scrolling and animations are slower when the CPU is processing something where as on an iPhone the scrolling seems smooth regardless of the processes involved.
One of my complaints along these lines is scrolling in the Android web browser isn't nearly as nice as even the slower iPhone 3G, much less an iPhone 3GS.
dalingrin said:
Wow, I'm surprised to see that I'm one of the only people who completely agree with the original poster.
This isn't limited to the launcher. As the OP stated, literally every on screen motion is smoother on the iPhone.
This isn't because of the lack of multitasking on the iPhone because iOS 4 looks just as smooth.
It is either a consequence of the threading used in gui programs and/or better use of the GPU for animations and scrolling. It seems to me on my Nexus that in most cases scrolling and animations are slower when the CPU is processing something where as on an iPhone the scrolling seems smooth regardless of the processes involved.
One of my complaints along these lines is scrolling in the Android web browser isn't nearly as nice as even the slower iPhone 3G, much less an iPhone 3GS.
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Agreed, Ill take Android's greater capabilities over Iphone's fluidity any day but both would be sweet.
DMaverick50 said:
Agreed, Ill take Android's greater capabilities over Iphone's fluidity any day but both would be sweet.
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Without a doubt. I'm just not convinced the two are mutually exclusive.
Paul22000 said:
It's easy to be smoother when you can't do more than one thing at a time.
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Once I saw this post I knew I didn't have to look at the rest of the thread since this answered it all
I disable screen animations. I have no need for worthless eye-candy. Just give me whatever I tapped on as fast as possible.
Love it.
mortzz said:
I disable screen animations. I have no need for worthless eye-candy. Just give me whatever I tapped on as fast as possible.
Love it.
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I either turn the animations off or turn their speed up. IMO scrolling is more of an issue than animations.
Example:
Goto www.androidcentral.com or www.anandtech.com on a Nexus One and with the page zoomed all the way out try scrolling. At the top of the page my frame rate is <15.
Now do the same on a wee iPhone(even first gen) and see how smooth the scrolling is.
Is it end of the world? No, of course not. I am very satisfied with my phone compared to my previous iPhone 3GS and 3G. That said, considering my main use of my phone(beyond being a phone) is web browsing, I would still love to have the scrolling of my "crap" iPhone.
Its a genuine complaint.
The lack of smooth visuals is getting silly. I think Google bringing in the guy from Palm/Danger is an ackowledgment of this.
Its not cpu , its not ram, its not multitasking. Its Apple that has some if not the best UI guys in the business in terms of visuals. Id say WebOS guys were the tops but they were mostly old Apple guys so go figure.
Apple spends a ton of time and offort making sure everything looks fluid across the entire experience. Android does not. Its simply not something theyve taken seriously until 2.1. They are the best engineers in the world..not GUI designers. The fact the Gallery still has 16 bit depth is a tell tale sign they arent emphasizing visuals.
Anyways the GPU is underused. UI , Games , Codecs theres a alot of room for improvement. Androids UI is "better"...but lets not kid ourselves..the animations and fluidity are heavily in Apples corner. Loks are important; otherwise go date a fat hairy girl.
I thought I was quite picky but I don't notice any problems with my nexus
Maybe I haven't spent that much time playing with iPhones but when I have seen people using them they press something and have to wait for it to load, they get a grey checker pattern when they scroll too fast in the browser. Sometimes their swipes didn't register either.
xManMythLegend said:
Its a genuine complaint.
The lack of smooth visuals is getting silly. I think Google bringing in the guy from Palm/Danger is an ackowledgment of this.
Its not cpu , its not ram, its not multitasking. Its Apple that has some if not the best UI guys in the business in terms of visuals. Id say WebOS guys were the tops but they were mostly old Apple guys so go figure.
Apple spends a ton of time and offort making sure everything looks fluid across the entire experience. Android does not. Its simply not something theyve taken seriously until 2.1. They are the best engineers in the world..not GUI designers. The fact the Gallery still has 16 bit depth is a tell tale sign they arent emphasizing visuals.
Anyways the GPU is underused. UI , Games , Codecs theres a alot of room for improvement. Androids UI is "better"...but lets not kid ourselves..the animations and fluidity are heavily in Apples corner. Loks are important; otherwise go date a fat hairy girl.
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I agree with this wholeheartedly. Android really just isn't the most aesthetically pleasing user interface around, I've never owned an iPhone - and don't plan to, but Apple simply knows their stuff when it comes graphic design..
There's been some info on this issue on the android-platform groups and the skia rendering engine group (Skia acutally has an experimental OpenGL rendering branch).
From what I understand, hardware acceleration can't be implemented in older devices (ex: G1) because they only support one OpenGL instance at a time, meaning the launcher could be in conflit with apps. It also seems as if the stuttering we feel is actually caused by Android's garbage colletor because it blocks the UI thread when it kicks in and not because the phone's cpu cant keep up with scrolling. If you watched some of the Google I/O 2010 videos, they said they know of the issues with the garbage collector and they are working on it.
My guess is that hardware acceleration will come sooner or later (specially with the Tegra 2 chips and tablet format ) but if you want to make things move a bit you can always go to code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=6914 and star the issue (consider it a vote ).
New here btw, hello all
dalingrin said:
I either turn the animations off or turn their speed up. IMO scrolling is more of an issue than animations.
Example:
Goto www.androidcentral.com or www.anandtech.com on a Nexus One and with the page zoomed all the way out try scrolling. At the top of the page my frame rate is <15.
Now do the same on a wee iPhone(even first gen) and see how smooth the scrolling is.
Is it end of the world? No, of course not. I am very satisfied with my phone compared to my previous iPhone 3GS and 3G. That said, considering my main use of my phone(beyond being a phone) is web browsing, I would still love to have the scrolling of my "crap" iPhone.
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I just tested anandtech.com on my N1 using Dolphin HD and have Froyo installed. The page was pretty much butter smooth except the top which had a flash banner ad and a flash "news reel". Of course the iPhone is going to be smoother at the top of that page since it doesn't show any flash elements. Not to say I don't want smoother scrolling when there are flash elements, but I'd rather have them showing with a little choppy frame rate than not at all.
RE: GPU Support
It's a common misconception that Android is slow changing windows and stuff- just go to Spare Parts and turn the window animations off.
my nexus next to the iphone, the nexus is just as smooth and fast to my eyes. the nexus is actually buttery smooth. using launcher pro. maybe that is what makes the difference i bet.
Anyone noticing the Browser on our beloved Nexus one is very choppy and laggy on some sites even though we have a 1GHz snapdragon! i know its not a humming bird but i would expect it to catch up...because when the nexus one first came out and i got it...it was BLAZING FAST! but now its all choppy and laggy.... anyone noticing that too??
there could be a couple of things involved with this, you could have more things running the background using cpu then previously, or you could just be going to some poorly coded websites. Also, if you havent been to a website in a while its cache may be different.
Blueman101 said:
there could be a couple of things involved with this, you could have more things running the background using cpu then previously, or you could just be going to some poorly coded websites. Also, if you havent been to a website in a while its cache may be different.
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hmm, ya you might be right if only Google Made GPU acceleration on the browser that would be awesome!
Mine is still blazing fast, but I don't have a lot running in the back ground & I clear it's cache often.
galaxys said:
Mine is still blazing fast, but I don't have a lot running in the back ground & I clear it's cache often.
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Hopefully Gingerbread will bring a new Web browser UI and other features.. i just decided im going to buy a Galaxy S but i will still use the N1 as a business/exchange phone but the galaxy S as my multimedia phone..
It does seem choppy compared to the stupid iPhone, but its an appropriate comparison because its the ultimate competition. And android blinks when scrolling. If you look at certain things you can see the colors blinking or something if u scroll slow u can see it more clearly regular scrolling it makes it look choppy. It seems like iPhone loads a page or a map and u are scrolling thhat one image but with android its like its trying to load each movement so browser seems jumpy and a lot of apps are the same way. Google maps is the worst. Its the coolest app on any mobile platform but its awful to scroll and zoom on android relative to the maps on iPhone. If gingerbread makes it on the same level then android wins hands down. Right now android has more features but iPhone is way easier to use its more smooth and polished. Like everything was developed and then actually used to decide what needs improvement.
Ok so I love android and all of it's openness and mods. I like to modify all electronics that I have. But the only problem I have with it is that it isn't smooth. I have had an iPhone in the past and it was smooth. It just confuses me how 1ghz can lag on a mobile os. I guess this rant is to ask how do I smooth the edges. I've tried many roms and some were better than others. One major thing I want is when I unlock it, when I slide homescreen, and when I open the app drawer to be smooth. Any ideas settings roms?
Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk
Read through a lot of threads, and understand that there isn't what you're looking for. You might try MIUI, people report it as smooth - never tried it personally. Also, for launcher use LauncherPro, it's smooth.
About the gigahertz stuff: CPU speed doesn't matter as much as SW does. And there is no "smoothness support" yet.
Android isn't smooth. It's powerful, though. Personally, I like the trade off.
jakeneal22 said:
Ok so I love android and all of it's openness and mods. I like to modify all electronics that I have. But the only problem I have with it is that it isn't smooth. I have had an iPhone in the past and it was smooth. It just confuses me how 1ghz can lag on a mobile os. I guess this rant is to ask how do I smooth the edges. I've tried many roms and some were better than others. One major thing I want is when I unlock it, when I slide homescreen, and when I open the app drawer to be smooth. Any ideas settings roms?
Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
delete all your apps, turn off all services, and it will run just like the iphone. kill every app after you use it. - that's what the iphone does.
You can tweak the internal task killer to speed up your phone. It takes some work and testing. This thread has the directions and explanations.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=622666
Geo411m's ROM has these tweaks built in and they work really well.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=7008637&highlight=internal+task+killer#post7008637
adambenjamin said:
You can tweak the internal task killer to speed up your phone. It takes some work and testing. This thread has the directions and explanations.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=622666
Geo411m's ROM has these tweaks built in and they work really well.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=7008637&highlight=internal+task+killer#post7008637
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This has been useless since Froyo. As I once researched and posted, Froyo kills the processes much earlier than Eclair (OOM=12 instead of 16) and considering the amount of memory on Nexus - you never get anywhere below 100MB free unless you run a super-heavy app, and those never stay in background.
Now these tweaks don't do a thing.
does power mean smoothness? I just don't get the concept of having a fast processor and not being smooth. I mean it is almost the same speed as my netbook... on a phone. It seems like that should be smooth. Maybe I'm asking for to much. But another thing I have seen videos of people on cyanogen and it is running smoothly with a live wallpaper. I have never got cyanogen to run smoothly for me even with a still wallpaper. Is there some magical setting everyone but me knows about?
Jack_R1 said:
Read through a lot of threads, and understand that there isn't what you're looking for. You might try MIUI, people report it as smooth - never tried it personally. Also, for launcher use LauncherPro, it's smooth.
About the gigahertz stuff: CPU speed doesn't matter as much as SW does. And there is no "smoothness support" yet.
Android isn't smooth. It's powerful, though. Personally, I like the trade off.
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Click to collapse
Power = ability to do things. Not CPU power, OS power.
Smoothness = frame rate of transitions between screens in UI. By most part, it's a result of heavy GPU utilization (which Android doesn't do stock) and programming that puts graphics as top priority (which isn't the case with Android). When CPU is made busy making beautiful graphics, it makes beautiful graphics. When it's not the main concern - it makes what it makes.
Again, you seem to be complaining about the launcher - otherwise you wouldn't bring this live wallpaper thing. So go download LauncherPro.
Folks go on about miui being smooth but personally I found it quite choppy at times, and this was most evident using the miui default launcher and comparing to say an iPhone 4, it looks very stuttery. Its better with launcherpro, but then you've lost half the reason for using it.
I am using cm6 and a theme (minimal matte fwiw ) and its very smooth and nice looking (and believe me I am very sensitive to, and loathe slow performance on a latest Gen phone).
Best compromise I've found yet on android.
I use the latest CM6 nightlies with Launcher Pro Plus and have a lot of widgets on my homescreen, smooth as butter.
I do remember the homescreen being a bit choppy when I ran 2.1 on my N1 though...
Have you messed with the performance settings? I hear that switching the performance setting to 24 instead of 34 helps. I'm not on cyanogen right now so I don't remember the exact setting but it is cyan settings then performance.
SBS_ said:
I use the latest CM6 nightlies with Launcher Pro Plus and have a lot of widgets on my homescreen, smooth as butter.
I do remember the homescreen being a bit choppy when I ran 2.1 on my N1 though...
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Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk
Truth of the matter is, is that Android running as SMOOTH as an iPhone would be difficult, simply because the IOS operating system doesnt allow any applications to run in the background. Android has TONS of apps that run in the background, and its still smooth as hell if your running the right ROM.
In all honestly, as much as I LOVE enomther and cyan ROMS, MIUI is hands down the smoothest and fastest ROM I have ever used. Give it a shot. I promise that if you can get past the iPhonish look, you will LOVE the speed and fluidness of the ROM. I cant recommend it enough.
I have used the miui roms and they are awesome. But honestly I just feel like a sell out while running them.
Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk
jakeneal22 said:
I have used the miui roms and they are awesome. But honestly I just feel like a sell out while running them.
Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk
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Lol. Why? Because it's iPhone-like? That's a pretty bad reason to not use a great rom...
Possibly I don't know. Do you suggest a bundle or do you suggest the original with langauge packs
Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk
Original with launcher pro and language pack
jakeneal22 said:
Possibly I don't know. Do you suggest a bundle or do you suggest the original with langauge packs
Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
Sent from my N1 using XDA App
The reason why even iPhone 3G's can feel "smoother" than Android phones at most times: hardware acceleration.
Ever since the 2G they've had a dedicated GPU which was used to its fullest in basic UI interactions. We see phones like the SGS with freak GPUs but Android doesn't allow full use of them.
Phandroid made that article on a supposed "Gingerbread" leak. They claim it will introduce hardware acceleration. Hopefully thats true and we'll never hear complaints about a laggy UI again!
Forge94 said:
The reason why even iPhone 3G's can feel "smoother" than Android phones at most times: hardware acceleration.
Ever since the 2G they've had a dedicated GPU which was used to its fullest in basic UI interactions. We see phones like the SGS with freak GPUs but Android doesn't allow full use of them.
Phandroid made that article on a supposed "Gingerbread" leak. They claim it will introduce hardware acceleration. Hopefully thats true and we'll never hear complaints about a laggy UI again!
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Click to collapse
Yup, most of the smoothness complaints is just hardware acceleration complaints. After gingerbread if it has hardware acceleration, we won't hear the laggy UI issue, we'll just hear the bandwagon "Fragmentation!"
I've finally got a smooth handset. I'm on latest cyanogen with intersect raven kernel overclocked to 1333. I'm very impressed and I'm finally enjoying this phone. Btw I'm using launcher pro to
Sent from my Nexus One using Tapatalk
Let me start off by saying I am a huge HTC fan and have owned the HTC Hero and EVO 4G before switching to the iPhone 4S. I've always loved the open system of android but many things about the platform frustrated me. However, I am super intrigued by the HTC One and think now is the right time to make the switch back. Before doing so, I wanted to get a check with the community on whether these issues with android have been resolved...
1. Quality and consistency of apps - Two years ago Android apps were a [email protected] reincarnation of their iOS form. Developers made terrible ports and there were a lot of UI inconsistencies. While I still strongly believe it will be years before the Play store meet or surpass that of iOS, how is the quality of apps? In particular, the thing that bothered me most about Android years ago was how a lot of the apps weren't optimized for all the display resolutions out there, so the app images were blurry on certain hardware/resolution.
2. Battery life - I'll be honest, the HTC Hero and EVO 4G had terrible battery life. For my particular usage style, the iPhone 4S performed marginally better. Understanding that battery life varies from user to user, I am asking those who has owned an iPhone 4S or 5 to share their experience so far.
3. Overall UI Experience - Probably the most important thing for me. My EVO 4G stuttered and felt jerky all the time; whether it was scrolling, typing, etc. Even worse was that for every iteration of Android people proclaim, "It's fixed! Android is now as smooth as iOS." However, the experience is still no where close to that of iOS. The last device I tried was Galaxy S3. Scrolling isn't as smooth as iOS and the touch keyboard didn't seem as responsive. Where does the HTC ONE stand in this regard?
Closing comments: This post is not intended to troll on Android. I've tried going to BB to try out the HTC One and it was absolutely pointless. They disabled wifi and it had no internet connection. So I couldn't test out anything. With that said, I am looking for an unbiased opinion from someone who has had experience on both platforms.
Just to balance my comments a bit, I will share a few reasons why I want to ditch iOS: Stale interface, overly restrictive OS, iFanboys, and uninspiring iPhone 5 hardware design.
The UI experience whilst the best I have had on android still isnt as smooth as iOS. Especially in 3rd party apps. Ones like facebook stutter a lot when scrolling. The battery life for me has been fantastic. Far better than my iPhone 5 and the app selection is great. Some optimisation for 1080p needed. But the black bar that appears at the bottom of some apps may bother you. Id go into a spring store and try a demo model to compare. Use some of the 3rd party apps and see if it does satisfy you.
h3nG said:
Let me start off by saying I am a huge HTC fan and have owned the HTC Hero and EVO 4G before switching to the iPhone 4S. I've always loved the open system of android but many things about the platform frustrated me. However, I am super intrigued by the HTC One and think now is the right time to make the switch back. Before doing so, I wanted to get a check with the community on whether these issues with android have been resolved...
1. Quality and consistency of apps - Two years ago Android apps were a [email protected] reincarnation of their iOS form. Developers made terrible ports and there were a lot of UI inconsistencies. While I still strongly believe it will be years before the Play store meet or surpass that of iOS, how is the quality of apps? In particular, the thing that bothered me most about Android years ago was how a lot of the apps weren't optimized for all the display resolutions out there, so the app images were blurry on certain hardware/resolution.
This has been mostly resolved. Their are so many different resolutions now that android 4.0 streamlined that for devs as I understand it. Most things are high res I am sure you can still find some low res ones. I recently used a iPhone for the first time ever after years of android and while I felt there was slightly more selection in IOS it's only that slightly I missed all my android could do
2. Battery life - I'll be honest, the HTC Hero and EVO 4G had terrible battery life. For my particular usage style, the iPhone 4S performed marginally better. Understanding that battery life varies from user to user, I am asking those who has owned an iPhone 4S or 5 to share their experience so far.
This one is so hard for me as IOS wouldn't tell me how long my screen was on!!! I always felt the iphone 5 had great battery but without that it means nothing to me. The one seems to preform in a similar fashion to the iphone 5 no battery drain at night amazing standby and somewhere around 3-5 hours of screen time on in 24-30 hours.
3. Overall UI Experience - Probably the most important thing for me. My EVO 4G stuttered and felt jerky all the time; whether it was scrolling, typing, etc. Even worse was that for every iteration of Android people proclaim, "It's fixed! Android is now as smooth as iOS." However, the experience is still no where close to that of iOS. The last device I tried was Galaxy S3. Scrolling isn't as smooth as iOS and the touch keyboard didn't seem as responsive. Where does the HTC ONE stand in this regard?
There is no question the HTC One is as close to iphone UI smoothness that any android phone has ever come. I'm not going to say the keyboard is as good or it's as smooth but it's so close I don't notice (iphone has better keyboard animations) and nothing andriod wise is on the level of Sense 5
Closing comments: This post is not intended to troll on Android. I've tried going to BB to try out the HTC One and it was absolutely pointless. They disabled wifi and it had no internet connection. So I couldn't test out anything. With that said, I am looking for an unbiased opinion from someone who has had experience on both platforms.
Just to balance my comments a bit, I will share a few reasons why I want to ditch iOS: Stale interface, overly restrictive OS, iFanboys, and uninspiring iPhone 5 hardware design.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Answered your questions above in the quote in bold. As I said i recently used a iPhone 5 first iPhone ever I used it for about 4 months two periods of 2 months. That is a really long time for me to use a phone.
Many apps that are available on both platforms look and perform the exact same for the most part. Games like temple run or apps like tunein radio won't feel different if you are using the same conditions (same service provider). There are unfortunately a few notable offenders, and they are big guys: twitter and facebook are generally awful and better used on their mobile sites. I feel like android apps are generally more useful or productive, ios stuff can be as well but it seems more entertainment focused.
Battery life has hit a plateau, all new phones get roughly the same battery life (expect the iphone5/5s to get the same battery life as the one/s4). They will generally get you through a normal day. I find that my One still needs a quick charge in the car if I'm going to have a long night to make it.
UI by itself is great, when you have 9 other apps open at the same time it can bog down. It's just the nature of android, it does proper multitasking at the cost of 100% UI smoothness. Under normal use however, the One is powerful enough to handle your typical apps all being open without a sweat.
arikah said:
Many apps that are available on both platforms look and perform the exact same for the most part. Games like temple run or apps like tunein radio won't feel different if you are using the same conditions (same service provider). There are unfortunately a few notable offenders, and they are big guys: twitter and facebook are generally awful and better used on their mobile sites. I feel like android apps are generally more useful or productive, ios stuff can be as well but it seems more entertainment focused.
Battery life has hit a plateau, all new phones get roughly the same battery life (expect the iphone5/5s to get the same battery life as the one/s4). They will generally get you through a normal day. I find that my One still needs a quick charge in the car if I'm going to have a long night to make it.
UI by itself is great, when you have 9 other apps open at the same time it can bog down. It's just the nature of android, it does proper multitasking at the cost of 100% UI smoothness. Under normal use however, the One is powerful enough to handle your typical apps all being open without a sweat.
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This is the best Android I have ever owned. Tried the iPhone 5 for a couple weeks but missed Android. Have not had any lag issues at all !! Great device, screen is awesome. Get it, you won't regret it!
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app
I switched to the iPhone 4S when I was having service problems with my HTC Inspire at work. I will admit that once I had the iPhone on hand for a lengthy amount of time I was thoroughly impressed.
The major difference you'll notice is the keyboard. The stock keyboard is horrendous. I use Jelly Bean Keyboard found on the Play Store for free and it is marvelous for me.
The scrolling within the UI and apps themselves is by far the smoothest I've ever experienced on an Android device, let alone one that's running Sense. My prior experiences with Sense were horrible. I've always loved plain old AOSP and MIUI, but Sense is pretty remarkable this go around, even with all of it's flaws.
My battery life varies, because my day to day usage is never the same, but my shortest cycle thus far was 16 hours and that was a lot of Pandora, a lot of music that I've pushed to my device, and constant data connection the whole cycle.
All in all I'm pretty happy. Happier than I expected to be, to be quite honest.
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app
It's great it's as smooth as you can expect, when scrolling through a bunch of texts it lags when it loads(iOS stops at the top and asks you if you want to load more)
Most of the big name apps are there, and there's a ton of apps that just make things work better for you.
Battery life... why does everyone ask that, these days you can expect to make it through a day with a flagship smartphone.
Personally I left iOS 2 years ago and never looked back, until I held an iPhone 5 and wanted a metal phone.
Honestly I don't feel a lack in smoothness at all when it comes to anything. Even when I have a large amount of apps open with power saver on its as smooth as can be. Not even my iphone could do that. Couldn't multitask at all and still was laggy after a while. I think that most apps actually look better on android. Like the twitter app for example. I think that Web 2.0 style of UI bars are hideous. I don't like it at all and having nearly every apo like that it's just ugly. Just didn't like the style either. All the tabs on the bottom just doesn't seem as nice. Same with the dropbox app. Much better experience to me with most apps with no lag. Also battery life for me has been way better. I had to charge my iphone twice a day. My One usually lasts all day depending on my usage. Also school tends to kill my battery since many parts of the school signal is either edge or nothing so the phone drains a lot from trying to get a signal.
Sent from my HTC One TrickDroid 5.3.0 using XDA Premium
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I had the Hero > Evo 4G > Nexus S > iPhone 4S > Galaxy S3 (hated it) back to the 4S > iPhone 5 > HTC One. So I think I have some middle of the road experience. Really the only thing the iPhone has on the One is that it's smooth and every thing works. What it doesn't have is everything Apple does not want you to have. At this point in time Apple would have to blow me away to switch back. The HTC One is an amazing phone I enjoyed my previous HTC phones and glad I made the switch back.
Sent from my HTC One using xda premium
HTC One for me is as others have also said, the closest thing to smooth and lag free as I believe you'll get. It always seems perfectly smooth to me.
Ui and apps are excellent, I honestly have never seen what others see in iphone apps though and they have always looked god awful to me so can't comment more than I think the apps on the one look great. Although I must say, I believe apps are overrated, as I never install more than 10 or 15 that I use regularly anyway.
Battery life is very good, around 5 or 6 hours screen on, and 24 hours standby ish. Comparable to S3, but with none of the lag of the S3 (and s4 for that matter).
Facebook app is terrible. Rest is as smooth as it can get.
Battery life goes quite a lot for me, I got my mobile internet and/or wi-fi all day. Automatic brightness, I play some games time to time. Very good overall.
My One hasn't arrived yet, but I think I can still give an idea of what to expect.
I am coming from the One X. The One X might not be the One, but it did work very well in my experience. I can only imagine, and is confirmed by reviewers, that the One is an improvement across all fronts. I switched from being a long time iOS user to an Android user with the One X. The only things I did not really like about that phone was the battery life and the camera bump on the back. With a custom kernel and Rom, I was able to address the battery issue. With the One, the battery is larger, the processor is more battery friendly, and there is no camera bump. So the two things I did not like were addressed straight from the factory.
As for app selection, I did not notice any problems switching operating systems. Android had about 90% of the apps I used on iOS, and the ones that were missing were more or less covered by a similar app. Most apps looked good, with a few free apps having frustrating menus.
The UI on the One X was great. I liked Sense for most of the time I used it. I never had a complaint about smoothness, but when I started using Nova Prime I noticed it was quite a bit faster. Had I not started using a separate launcher, or a custom Rom, I would still consider Sense to be fast (especially after Jelly bean). From what I've read, Sense 5 is quite a bit better than 4+. So if Sense 4+ was already fast and smooth, and Sense 5 is even faster, you should be confident that you will have a good experience with the One.
The default HTC keyboard was pretty frustrating when the One X first launched. The autocorrect/prediction wasn't so good, and the space bar was so small; I often miss typed. With Sense 4+, the keyboard was improved with a larger space bar. With the options in the Play Store, however, I don't see a need for anyone to be using stock keyboards. There are Developers out there that focus only on making keyboards. These keyboards, such as SwiftKey, are so much better than anything you will get stock from HTC or Apple.
So in summary, I'd say your concerns were almost all covered by the previous generation's flagship HTC phone. With the current generation's flagship phone, the One, your concerns have been fully addressed.
jdh10475 said:
Really the only thing the iPhone has on the One is that it's smooth and every thing works.
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Click to collapse
agree.
android still doesnt really come close in polish to ios.
ios apps just look nicer i feel, android still feels a bit clunky.
if apple allowed default apps and nitro java across every app out of the box, the iphone would be pretty unbeatable.
as it stands the one makes a pretty good iphone replacement. quality of materials feel just as nice as the iphone.
I just recently switched from iPhone 5 to the One after having been a iPhone user and fanboy for 5 years. On the whole I am very happy with the One and don't regret my decision. I love the customizability and being able to do all the cool stuff Apple wouldn't let me do.
But there are some things I miss and where I think android still falls behind ios.
The UI is just not as smooth. In a lot of apps (looking at you facebook) there is a lot of lag and others a lot of micro stuttering which some people woukdnt notice but I do.
Quite a few apps seem to have been ported from ios as an afterthought and just aren't as polished. There are some really great android apps to be fair.
I miss the centralised notification centre on ios where you can control all notfications in one place. I also miss ios lock screen notifications. Please don't say you can use the notification shade on the lock screen because you can't if you use lock screen pin.
Sent from my HTC One using xda-developers app
I would go as far as say that Google Play now looks far better than app store has more apps and much more free apps too.
I can't stand the actual look of iPhone, it hasn't changed in years and is plain boring.
Battery life on this phone is superb for me personally.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using xda app-developers app
This phone is ridiculous. You won't be disappointed.
I have been through my share of smartphones blackberry 9700, HTC mytouch slide, mytouch 4g, mytouch slide 4g, Samsung vibrant, galaxy 4g, Droid razr maxx , iPhone 5, galaxy note 2. I gave up the note 2 for the HTC one. The only reason I got the note was first, they didn't have the one in stock and the salesperson assured me that the note was high end Samsung and it wouldn't lag like galaxy phones of yore. Guess what, the first day with the note 2 I tried to text and the keyboard froze. Happened several times, and this I can't forgive. I hate laggy phones, which is why I tried iPhone 5, but the screen was too small for my taste. Finally got a call from tmobile saying the one was in, left work picked it up, and haven't looked back.
This is the most awesome phone I have had to date! Smooth, no lag, super fast.
Sent from my HTC One using xda app-developers app
Guys,
I need your opinion on something. I have this annoying thing that given my slight OCD is going to drive me crazy. It's this: scrolling in any app (main culprits are Facebook and Youtube) is simply not as smooth as on my OnePlus One. It has this stuttering effect which is not super obvious at first, but when the phones are next to each other the difference is highly noticeable.
What is your experience with scrolling in apps? Is it smooth as butter or do you also notice some stutter? Could I have a dud device? Anyway to find out?
Scrolling seems fine to me, but I'm not comparing it with something else side by side, and have no ocd...
Willyman said:
Guys,
I need your opinion on something. I have this annoying thing that given my slight OCD is going to drive me crazy. It's this: scrolling in any app (main culprits are Facebook and Youtube) is simply not as smooth as on my OnePlus One. It has this stuttering effect which is not super obvious at first, but when the phones are next to each other the difference is highly noticeable.
What is your experience with scrolling in apps? Is it smooth as butter or do you also notice some stutter? Could I have a dud device? Anyway to find out?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is my experience as well. A osprey based roms have slightly better in app scrolling. That Samsung browser is so bad that I had to stop using it.
Willyman said:
Guys,
I need your opinion on something. I have this annoying thing that given my slight OCD is going to drive me crazy. It's this: scrolling in any app (main culprits are Facebook and Youtube) is simply not as smooth as on my OnePlus One. It has this stuttering effect which is not super obvious at first, but when the phones are next to each other the difference is highly noticeable.
What is your experience with scrolling in apps? Is it smooth as butter or do you also notice some stutter? Could I have a dud device? Anyway to find out?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have ocd too and im very sensitive to lag and choppy scrolling. Completely agree. I have the oneplus one as well. Note 5 is faster everywhere but scrolling is not that smooth. YouTube is really choppy compared to other phones. My oneplus one's screen is much less responsive though. input lag everywhere so I would rather have the note 5's choppy scrolling instead.
Sent from my SM-N920T using Tapatalk
It's just bizarre really. This thing absolutely flies, it has power to spare, multitasking, Youtube, gaming ... but certain things are just not smooth.
Things I notice that bother me:
Scrolling in apps... Main culprits Youtube and Facebook
Pulling down notification shade... A subtle stutter
Scrolling through a long list op open apps... A small stutter in the beginning
It's small things, but it seems to have issues with refreshing graphics somehow. I don't know, I'm not knowledgeable enough. Unfortunately there is no root available yet for my model (N9200) so all I can do is wait I guess,
Willyman said:
It's just bizarre really. This thing absolutely flies, it has power to spare, multitasking, Youtube, gaming ... but certain things are just not smooth.
Things I notice that bother me:
Scrolling in apps... Main culprits Youtube and Facebook
Pulling down notification shade... A subtle stutter
Scrolling through a long list op open apps... A small stutter in the beginning
It's small things, but it seems to have issues with refreshing graphics somehow. I don't know, I'm not knowledgeable enough. Unfortunately there is no root available yet for my model (N9200) so all I can do is wait I guess,
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have noticed all those except for the notification shade. I disabled a bunch of apps of course, including that Quick connect and the other thing that was up there all the time, so maybe that helped. I am seeing a ton of improvements in scrolling with all the apps I have disabled but not to where I would call it super smooth. For some reason scrolling in the browser is pretty smooth which is usually the place i see problems on other phones. It must have something to do with how touchwiz handles scrolling cache. If someone comes up with a mod to adjust it, that may almost be a big enough reason for me to root my phone.
rlsroufe said:
I have noticed all those except for the notification shade. I disabled a bunch of apps of course, including that Quick connect and the other thing that was up there all the time, so maybe that helped. I am seeing a ton of improvements in scrolling with all the apps I have disabled but not to where I would call it super smooth. For some reason scrolling in the browser is pretty smooth which is usually the place i see problems on other phones. It must have something to do with how touchwiz handles scrolling cache. If someone comes up with a mod to adjust it, that may almost be a big enough reason for me to root my phone.
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Click to collapse
Thanks. Yeah, I've done the same (disabling apps etc...). It definitely not bad, but it's not as smooth as other Android phones I've used. Fast yes, perfectly smooth, no.
Updates seem to come quickly. I've had 2 already in 2 weeks. let's see. And with Android M around the corner, I'm sure in a few weeks/months things will be perfect.
Samsung have anyways had this issue with their phones. Never been butter smooth due to bloat ware mainly. No matter the specs phone lags and stutters, I think Samsung should ditch TW.
Note 5 is a fantastic looking phone but ui is concerning.
Utterly bizarre... Things have dramatically improved and I literally did nothing...
Willyman said:
Utterly bizarre... Things have dramatically improved and I literally did nothing...
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Click to collapse
Still choppy over here. Did you get an update? Are you using international version?
Sent from my SM-N920T using Tapatalk
I'm so close to returning this, and getting the Nexus 6. I've tried every browser available, and I'm not sure if it's the 64-bit architecture or what, it's probably TouchWiz, I'm not sure. I compared it to my galaxy s5 and it's worse. Why is scrolling terrible? I hope somebody comes up with the fix, id bloated about everything I can, and factory reset.
black_shirt said:
I'm so close to returning this, and getting the Nexus 6. I've tried every browser available, and I'm not sure if it's the 64-bit architecture or what, it's probably TouchWiz, I'm not sure. I compared it to my galaxy s5 and it's worse. Why is scrolling terrible? I hope somebody comes up with the fix, id bloated about everything I can, and factory reset.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Download Lightning Browser+ from the playstore. The paid version blocks all adds and the scrolling is very smooth. It's what I'm using on my Note 5.
rlsroufe said:
Still choppy over here. Did you get an update? Are you using international version?
Sent from my SM-N920T using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No update. Like I said, its all a bit bizarre. All I can say is that the two last charging cycles things are a lot better.
black_shirt said:
I'm so close to returning this, and getting the Nexus 6. I've tried every browser available, and I'm not sure if it's the 64-bit architecture or what, it's probably TouchWiz, I'm not sure. I compared it to my galaxy s5 and it's worse. Why is scrolling terrible? I hope somebody comes up with the fix, id bloated about everything I can, and factory reset.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
One thing I found works is to install Adguard (not in store, just google it). It will block ads and make scrolling in Chrome a lot better. The only annoying part I would say is a persistent VPN notification. Adguard uses a local VPN which results in a permanent notification. If you can live with that I found it to be pretty great.
Willyman said:
One thing I found works is to install Adguard (not in store, just google it). It will block ads and make scrolling in Chrome a lot better. The only annoying part I would say is a persistent VPN notification. Adguard uses a local VPN which results in a permanent notification. If you can live with that I found it to be pretty great.
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Click to collapse
I thought it was just in my head but I gave adguard a try after some time of not using it and I thought it made the whole system faster. Still not 100% sure but things could be a tad smoother and more responsive in general. I'm trying to decide whether it's worth having it constantly running in the background and using chrome or just using lightning browser with its ad blocker built in.
Sent from my SM-N920T using Tapatalk
My AT&T version has no issue in scrolling - either in the UI or individual apps I use. I'll get some lag when scrolling fast in the Gallery or FlickFolio but that's because I'm scrolling faster than the thumbnails can load. That's an OS thing, not a h/w or UI thing. Overall the diet Samsung put TW and their own apps on has really paid off.
I'm starting to believe it has something to do with the last "performance increasing update " . I can see from other threads on here that not everyone is on it yet. I received it mid last week. I had another Note 5 before which I returned as it had an issue with the Screen. That one never got upgraded to that stage and was very smooth. This one I have now felt smooth as well, but think that it got worse with the upgrade. I'm now on the update captured in the screenshot. It ends in AHO4. The one before was AHO2.
Once I've figured out how to flash that version on there using Odin3, I will give that a shot and turn off automatic updates. To be continued...
Willyman said:
I'm starting to believe it has something to do with the last "performance increasing update " . I can see from other threads on here that not everyone is on it yet. I received it mid last week. I had another Note 5 before which I returned as it had an issue with the Screen. That one never got upgraded to that stage and was very smooth. This one I have now felt smooth as well, but think that it got worse with the upgrade. I'm now on the update captured in the screenshot. It ends in AHO4. The one before was AHO2.
Once I've figured out how to flash that version on there using Odin3, I will give that a shot and turn off automatic updates. To be continued...
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Click to collapse
What was the issue with your screen?
WizeGuyDezignz said:
What was the issue with your screen?
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Click to collapse
Discolourization.
Settings > Developer Options.
Window animation scale, Transition animation scale, Animator duration scale. Change all to "off". Has always seemed to speed up any Android device I've ever used.