Database Develop

Screen dust? - Galaxy Tab 8.9 General

Ive noticed i have a small fleck of dust (which i find very very irritating). Anyone else got similar? Its most likely a dust flake between the digitizer and the screen as it moves relative to the image underneath. Sure it wasnt there when i bought it.

I've had mine since November and there is no dust under my screen unlike my iPhone 3G that I cleaned only a couple of months ago!

In the daylight i can see its a very white fleck under the digitiser. Very disappointed with this tab so far, slow, buggy and badly built. Such a shame as i love my Galaxy S2.

rovex said:
In the daylight i can see its a very white fleck under the digitiser. Very disappointed with this tab so far, slow, buggy and badly built. Such a shame as i love my Galaxy S2.
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Half the stuff i've seen you moan about I do not have any issue with at all.
I would suggest you stick to your phone or just go buy an ipad as nothing will keep you satisfied.
No doubt you would have lot's to moan about with them as well.
My brother has 2 ipads and I still prefer my Tab 8.9 over them.
I'm running stock with Go Launcher and no problems here from my side. It runs as I would expect it too and it is an addition to my phone and pc, not a replacement of either.

Hate to say it, but choccy31 is right. You make 8.9 appear a lot worse than it is. It's not slow or buggy, with the latest CM9 ICS it's smooth enough and without problems. It's not badly built, you having dust under the screen does not mean we all have it. If you don't like it, you can always sell it, why keep it when everything is wrong with it?

choccy31 said:
Half the stuff i've seen you moan about I do not have any issue with at all.
I would suggest you stick to your phone or just go buy an ipad as nothing will keep you satisfied.
No doubt you would have lot's to moan about with them as well.
My brother has 2 ipads and I still prefer my Tab 8.9 over them.
I'm running stock with Go Launcher and no problems here from my side. It runs as I would expect it too and it is an addition to my phone and pc, not a replacement of either.
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I'm glad someone else agrees..
Sent from my Incredible 2 using xda premium

Im sooo sorry i have upset you all, but the thing is rubbish. Its the worst Android device i have used by some way and ive used a lot. Im not the only one complaining about its speed it IS slow, fact there is no debate. Poor video that surprised me even knowing the Tegra limitations. Micro-stutter, lag, jerking. Maybe ill put up some comparison videos between the tab and the S2 and you will see what i mean. If it was cheap it wouldnt be so bad, but Sammy wanted £400 for this?? glad i didnt pay that.
I wont be getting an 'iPad' because its Apple and automatically fails, but i may well sell this on, swallow the loss and get something better. I should have gone with the Zoom, which is getting good support and is much smoother.

So go and sell it already. I dunno what Tab meets your requirements though, I guess the Transformer Prime is probably the closest you can get to the iPad in build and performance. Can't really think of any others that perform particularly better than this one, or that I can guarantee won't get dust (oh sh-------ttttt!!!!) under the screen.
its Apple and automatically fails
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Credibility = gone.

Why credibility gone? I hate the look of iOS which i think is very dull and I find Apple a horrible company. I buy Samsung to support free trade and as a protest to the way apple thinks it can limit choice by suing everyone over idiotic patents it should never have been granted.
The TF prime is better, but its not about raw power, its about optimization. There is no reason this tab needs to be so slow when the xoom isnt or even the Advent Vega!
Im going to wait for a real ICS ROM and see, by that time i may have got over the dust disappointment, but if it doesnt speed up its going.
You seem to think im asking to much for a tab to be able to actually function without stuttering, well i dont think i am. Im used to the slight Android stutter, but this is WAY beyond that. If i drag my finger slowly from screen to screen its smooth until it gets to about 40% of the way across, at which point it starts to stutter, however slowly i swipe. My S2 doesnt do that, even my Desire didnt, even my friends Wildfire doesnt and that has a 600mhz single core CPU.

rovex said:
Why credibility gone? I hate the look of iOS which i think is very dull and I find Apple a horrible company. I buy Samsung to support free trade and as a protest to the way apple thinks it can limit choice by suing everyone over idiotic patents it should never have been granted.
The TF prime is better, but its not about raw power, its about optimization. There is no reason this tab needs to be so slow when the xoom isnt or even the Advent Vega!
Im going to wait for a real ICS ROM and see, by that time i may have got over the dust disappointment, but if it doesnt speed up its going.
You seem to think im asking to much for a tab to be able to actually function without stuttering, well i dont think i am. Im used to the slight Android stutter, but this is WAY beyond that. If i drag my finger slowly from screen to screen its smooth until it gets to about 40% of the way across, at which point it starts to stutter, however slowly i swipe. My S2 doesnt do that, even my Desire didnt, even my friends Wildfire doesnt and that has a 600mhz single core CPU.
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Your Desire didn't? Hmm....as for being markedly worse than the Xoom with TW removed to make the OS more equivalent the performance is the same.
In any case it's hardly fair to compare the 8.9 to the S2 when the latter runs at a lower sub-HD resolution and isn't capable of displaying multiple large widgets. The 8.9 is quite up to HD video play back but then how is that worse than the S2?
I don't think anyone is saying that it's too much to ask for it to function without stuttering but it seems most, including myself, do not see the level of problems you appear to see. The example you give of stuttering at 40% swipe, I really don't see my home screens pause for fractions of a second as I swipe between them; it continues to move smoothly all the way in line with my finger movement.

Its smooth without widgets, but not with them. The more i use, the slower it gets. My S2 is running 6 full screen scrollable widgets, its has no slow down whatsoever. Sure WVGA makes life easier, but the Galaxy note is also smooth with ICS, that is HD and has the same CPU (in most markets). Tablet widgets are no bigger than phone ones., and even if they were the Tab struggles with the same ones my S2 has no issues with, even if they are smaller!
Ive given up using widgets now and it makes the device much nicer to use, but it seems like a waste of the larger screen.
For what its worth i have no issues with gaming.
The Note and S2 will both decode full rate 1080P blu-ray files, the tegra struggles with heavily reduced rate 720P. I have a copy of 'Drive' in 720P on my Laptop, S2 and Tab, the tab stutters and pauses, the others are smooth as silk.

You seem to be forgetting that the CPU and GPU in SGS 2 are more powerful than the Tegra 2 solution. Include also that more powerful device is running on a lower resolution screen, add the a lot more optimized ICS version for SGS 2, and you can clearly see the end result.
Is 8.9 perfectly smooth at this point? No, maybe it will never be, even with official ICS. I doubt we will see the improvement with buggy TouchWiz slapped on it, but at least devs will get some good stuff from it, like camera drivers and kernel. You can just hope for the best, or sell the tablet and purchase another more powerful model, something with Tegra 3 perhaps. We all know what's wrong with this model, we don't need someone to point it out.
High profile 720p and 1080p are just not doable on Tegra 2 solutions, it was like that from the start, there is nothing we can do to make it play nice without stuttering. I do get a decent framerate with DicePlayer on 1.4 GHz with some 720p movies, but not for long, on certain scenes it just becomes choppy. It's choppiest when you start the movie, but if you leave that tablet like that, and not swipe around, it gets better and better, only to be choppy again when more demanding scene comes up.
It is a shame, great screen going to waste, but if i sell it now, i don't know what tablet i would get to replace it. Transformer Prime is not cheap, i would need to add more money to get it, but i just love the form factor on this one. It's a difficult decision, and when the Tegra 3 tablets get their prices slashed, this thing will be even harder to sell.

Im not forgetting anything. My point is that if Tegra is so bad, it should never have been used in a top end device. I only paid £279 for mine, but if i paid the full £399 launch price i would be very upset.
The TF Prime still uses Tegra, the '3' isnt much better, as far as i can see its still broken, they are just throwing more broken cores at the problem in an attempt to fix it.
Its acceptable for now, but i still dont see why it should stutter with hardware acceleration enabled.

rovex said:
Its smooth without widgets, but not with them. The more i use, the slower it gets. My S2 is running 6 full screen scrollable widgets, its has no slow down whatsoever. Sure WVGA makes life easier, but the Galaxy note is also smooth with ICS, that is HD and has the same CPU (in most markets). Tablet widgets are no bigger than phone ones., and even if they were the Tab struggles with the same ones my S2 has no issues with, even if they are smaller!
Ive given up using widgets now and it makes the device much nicer to use, but it seems like a waste of the larger screen.
For what its worth i have no issues with gaming.
The Note and S2 will both decode full rate 1080P blu-ray files, the tegra struggles with heavily reduced rate 720P. I have a copy of 'Drive' in 720P on my Laptop, S2 and Tab, the tab stutters and pauses, the others are smooth as silk.
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Widgets are the same size? 1 full screen widget on the 8.9 carries over twice as much information as 1 full screen widget on the S2.
How does Dual-core 1.4 GHz ARM Cortex-A9 in the Note equate to Dual-core 1GHz Cortex-A9 in the 8.9?
As for decoding, I would say that the almost double resolution on the 8.9 vs the S2 is a factor aside from CPU difference.
You say the Note is fine and is that from your own experience?

rovex said:
Why credibility gone? I hate the look of iOS which i think is very dull and I find Apple a horrible company. I buy Samsung to support free trade and as a protest to the way apple thinks it can limit choice by suing everyone over idiotic patents it should never have been granted.
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Because it means you aren't judging something objectively... Samsung have been attempting these crazy law suits too, and they did get their name in the smartphone/tablet market by being as close to Apple as possible... TouchWiz for Android 2 is basically Android hacked to look and act more like iOS and the phones up until S2 were all designed to look like iPhone alternatives (look how the Galaxy S is the iPhone 3GS and then the Galaxy Ace is the iPhone 4...), and the people who design the devices and the legal departments are completely unrelated, it's not like each company is some dude who makes every decision.
rovex said:
or even the Advent Vega!
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I had an Advent Vega... Doesn't even begin to compare to this thing... Was fun for modding but to actually use it was a POS... I mean come on, if you're into modding you can put an unfinished homebrew HoneyComb/ICS on it which doesn't support the camera (lol, the nasty VGA thing) or if not you can run the ridiculous stock ROM with inch-thick navigation bar... The accelerometer doesn't even work right. I think I can put up with choppy homescreen transitions...
You seem to think im asking to much for a tab to be able to actually function without stuttering, well i dont think i am.
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Not at all, we just can't understand why you don't rid yourself of it and get something else if it makes you so mad. We want you to be happy with whatever device you get but at the same time we don't want to be shouted about at how crappy stuff that we like supposedly is.
Im used to the slight Android stutter, but this is WAY beyond that. If i drag my finger slowly from screen to screen its smooth until it gets to about 40% of the way across, at which point it starts to stutter, however slowly i swipe.
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Ah yes, I know what you mean. The homescreens move with my finger but they do lose framerate. Never been important to me as homescreens are, erm, they're just to get you into the apps, and you only swipe between them when you want to see your other widgets/icons, it's not like a frequent thing. I find it stutters a LOT worse when using some live wallpapers, make sure you don't use one of them. A lot of the Honeycomb devices I've used do this though. There aren't many I've seen to run the homescreens smoothly without modding. I mean, for me, it's one of the best Android tablets I've used, the form factor, performance (for the size & weight), screen, etc. all come together really nicely. It's only the homescreen that doesn't seem smooth for me...
Have you tried overclocking? I've heard that can fix the issue. I read somewhere that the homescreens don't use hardware acceleration on this tab.
It's HoneyComb's silly 3D screens thing, the way swiping between them has that unnecessary 3D effect, I mean seriously, what is the practical use of that, it uses way more resources and also affects the intuitiveness of using a touch screen (when you keep things "flat", it creates the feeling of sliding something under your fingers, when the 3D comes in it separates it and feels more like minority report 'gestures'), it seems to be pointless showing off and causes a lot of the stuttering on Android tabs.
Also, have you considered giving the Galaxy Tab 10.1 a try? I've read that it runs better and is more compatible. For me no tabs compare to the Samsung ones in design, weight, etc., the performance isn't perfect but it's the kind of sacrifice you make to get something impossibly thin and light.
My S2 doesnt do that, even my Desire didnt, even my friends Wildfire doesnt and that has a 600mhz single core CPU.
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Yeah but these are all Android 2 devices which run at 800x480...

I never claimed to be objective, i despise Apple, and im very happy to say why. The galaxys look like an evolution of older Sammy phones and the Tabs look like large versions of them. They didnt copy Apple, call it 'convergent evolution' if you must. Apple are being patent trolls, they started it, the others need to finish it.
I love the look of the 8.9, its lovely, i just want the excessive stutter gone. homescreens are important to Android, its not just about the apps.
I know the Vega is rubbish, but it still manages to be smoother than the Tab.. Thats really sad.
Lower res phones should be smoother yes, but the Galaxy Note is smoother as well, that has the same res. The Xoom is smoother, in fact the 8.9 is the worst T2 powered tab ive used. What i want is ICS with Apex launcher than is smooth and jitter free. A pause or 2 i can handle, but not the gritty jerky laggy mess it currently is. It makes it feel so cheap and low end.
As for the dust, i used a statically charged plastic rod, and managed to make the fleck 'jump' off screen, behind the bezel i guess. It may return but its gone or now.

rovex said:
I never claimed to be objective, i despise Apple, and im very happy to say why. The galaxys look like an evolution of older Sammy phones and the Tabs look like large versions of them. They didnt copy Apple, call it 'convergent evolution' if you must. Apple are being patent trolls, they started it, the others need to finish it.
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Well, it's not even worth getting into here, but it's still just a company, no need to take it personally, they all do these same things and our tablets wouldn't exist if iPad didn't, and wouldn't be half as great if they weren't competing with it.
homescreens are important to Android, its not just about the apps.
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But why? What can you actually do on a homescreen?
I know the Vega is rubbish, but it still manages to be smoother than the Tab.. Thats really sad.
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Well, only if you mod the crap out of it, and I'm sure you can mod this tab to run better if you overclock it and use the right ROMs and stuff...
Lower res phones should be smoother yes, but the Galaxy Note is smoother as well, that has the same res.
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And it's running Gingerbread.
The Xoom is smoother
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And bigger, and heavier.
As for the dust, i used a statically charged plastic rod, and managed to make the fleck 'jump' off screen, behind the bezel i guess. It may return but its gone or now.
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Good idea! If it comes back you can just do it again. Great thinking though.

Android has widgets, iOS doesnt. iOS's interface is just a basic list of apps. Android has so much more, yes widgets are apps in a sense i suppose, but they are interactive. If their performance is very poor it ruins the experience. Most apps perform ok in themselves, but the homescreen is the face of the device and it must be smooth.
Yes the Vega must be modded to be smooth, but i standby what i said. A Stock Vega is better than a stock 8.9, and ive done everything i can to make this smooth (ROMs, kernels, overclocks, tweaks), its still slower than a modded Vega.
The Note has ICS now and it destroys the 8.9 with ICS builds. The 8.9 feels like a 500mhz single core unit next to a Note. The Note running GB previously doesnt explain why its faster, it should mean its slower!
The Xoom might be heavier but it has no 'performance enhancing' extras that the 8.9 doesnt have, in fact the 8.9 has faster RAM, or at least a better implemented memory subsystem. Its still manages to be slower.
I simply dont accept the answer 'Blame Honeycomb'. If ICS fixes the issues then i believe Samsung must have changed something else, some limitation or previous decision that was hindering the unit.

Tegra2 for whatever reason is a horrible CPU. I've used a few omap4 tablets and they just seem way smoother than tegra2. I mean a tegra 3 is finally smooth but nvidias cpus seem to be "on paper" good but real world bad each generation. Seem like they come out first with a spec set but poorly implemented once competitors are out. I mean the snapdragon s4 quad will probably destroy tegra 3

The S4 duals beat the T3!
I knew Tegra was old and slow, but i did think that maybe Samsung would have made the best of the bad CPU, it seems they have made the worst of it.

Related

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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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.

I have a tab and a xoom on route and i have until tomorrow to decide which i will keep.
The Xoom has good ICS ROMs and is smooth to use, no lag, no jitter, but is rather heavy.
The Tabs ive used in stores are laggy, and it seems to be the way the are, but is it really that bad? I cant live with it if it is.

Its bad with stock firmware. With ICS rom its a lot better.

Personally I don't think it's that bad and it can easily be sorted by changing away from the Samsung TouchWiz launcher to another like ADW Launcher Ex or GO Launcher HD for Pad from Play Google; remember also that the number of active widgets and live wallpaper affects the lag. Samsung are also going to release ICS soon and I'd expect the lag issue to be mostly eliminated.

That fixes the launcher lag, but not the browser lag or lag in games and maps (which is SLOW compared to my Galaxy S2 or the Xoom). Even the ICS ROMs still seem to be slow from videos ive seen.

rovex said:
That fixes the launcher lag, but not the browser lag or lag in games and maps (which is SLOW compared to my Galaxy S2 or the Xoom). Even the ICS ROMs still seem to be slow from videos ive seen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've not had any issues with the browser or maps. Are you referring to loading or swiping? In both cases they are both quick and smooth. Are you comparing full desktop web browsing on the S2 and the GT? There's clearly a difference in the amount of content affecting loading and swiping; that also applies to maps. Additionally the store models are probably running HoneyComb 3.1.
The Xoom is officially at ICS now whereas the 8.9 is not, this is why the custom ROMs still need work, so it's difficult to judge the 2 devices fairly aside from the fact the the Xoom does not have bloatware.

Swiping.
Once on ICS i want to use Apex launcher as i do with my SGS2 and for now ill be happy with ADW EX on Honeycomb. Rooting and ROMing is no problem for me i must have flashed my S2 100 times! Of course the S2 is much much more powerful than the tab, but even with full desktop browsing its like butter, so is the Xoom (even on 3.1), the 8.9 is like gravel.

That's interesting because I've never had a problem swiping in the stock or Dolphin browsers; they've been smooth for me; did you visit sites using flash and was the flash plug-in up to date? If you get the chance to play with them both first then I'd do that to decide but the main reason I bought the 8.9 was the form factor with any lag not bothering me at all for the main functions of surfing and reading books/magazines; video playback is also excellent but I don't watch 720p video files on it, only 480p; the highest quality video I've watched is probably via Netflix.

Stock browser on HC is crap, scrolling up and down is a pain. It is crap on gt8.9 and its even worse on gt7.7. Anyone saying it works and is good just haven't used anything else. Try the ICS rom and you will see how fast the stock browser is.
The lag you see in launcher is a known hardware problem with Tegra 2. Only difference in the case of gt8.9 is that the screen is rotated 90 degrees, so we have this problem in landscape where its more obvious, all other Tegra 2 tablets have the same problem in portrait.

I have spent about 2 hours in various stores playing with them. The Tab is much much nicer to hold and look at, but the Xoom was silky smooth.
I assume once ICS gets an official release TW will be stripped out in most ROMs. In the mean time which current ICS is better, the AOSP or the AOKP?

poisike said:
Stock browser on HC is crap, scrolling up and down is a pain. It is crap on gt8.9 and its even worse on gt7.7. Anyone saying it works and is good just haven't used anything else. Try the ICS rom and you will see how usable a browser can be. ICS browser is a lot faster then the HC browser.
The lag you see in launcher is a known hardware problem with Tegra 2. Only difference in the case of gt8.9 is that the screen is rotated 90 degrees, so we have this problem in landscape where its more obvious, all other Tegra 2 tablets have the same problem in portrait.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have read that before and tried both in both orientations. The Xoom was still smoother even in portrait than the 8.9 was. Doesnt that mean the 8.9 is permanently doomed? I will be using it in Landscape all the time.

rovex said:
I have read that before and tried both in both orientations. The Xoom was still smoother even in portrait than the 8.9 was. Doesnt that mean the 8.9 is permanently doomed? I will be using it in Landscape all the time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Was the Xoom running ICS? I had a Xoom and it had the problem in portrait. Portrait was unusable with android 3.0, it got better with every next version, but the problem was still there with Android 3.2. Dont know about ICS, i sold my Xoom a long time ago.
I'm not sure if the gt8.9 is exactly doomed. I have seen a silky smooth stock ICS launcher on gt8.9, so it certainly is possible to get it to run smoothly and fast. This was on one of the alpha ICS builds we made, unfortunately we could not find out what caused the launcher to become so smooth and it was lost in later builds. Of cource the current ICS build is also a lot better then stock HC.

The xoom was also running 3.1, same as the tab, because they were store units.
Its a shame that the hardware puts me off the Xoom a little, but the Software puts me off the tab. Im not allowed to use whichever unit i choose to send back, so its going to come down to whether the Xoom appeals when in my hand tomorrow.

rovex said:
The xoom was also running 3.1, same as the tab, because they were store units.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Xoom with HC certainly has this problem, try a google search if you don't believe me. Its not as bad as gt8.9, but its there.

Yeah it was certainly there, but much less obvious and i wont be using portrait much anyway. This is the tabs problem, it does it in landscape and its worse.

rovex said:
Yeah it was certainly there, but much less obvious and i wont be using portrait much anyway. This is the tabs problem, it does it in landscape and its worse.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, i don't understand why samsung choose to rotate the screen, they must have known about the Tegra 2 limitation.
Its worse on gt8.9 with stock rom, thats probably because their own toutchwiz modifications. Its a lot better with vanilla ICS.

Is it a permanent hardware issue or is the rotation a software thing? Can we undo it?

rovex said:
Is it a permanent hardware issue or is the rotation a software thing? Can we undo it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its a hardware issue, but like i said, it seems to be possible to overcome it in software. And like someone already said, other third party launchers seem to work just fine.

I came from the Asus Transformer 101. I thought all Android tablets were just by nature laggy. I was very surprised to get the 8.9 and find that it was quite smooth compared to the Transformer. After rooting and getting ICS I think that this is about all you can expect from a tablet. Very smooth and very snappy. Very few if any force closes. Needless to say, I am totally sold on the Galaxy Tabs.

I only really notice the lag on the homescreen... Once in apps and stuff it's fine, so it's never been a problem for me. Android users put too much emphasis on the home screens when all they're for is to get you between apps. It's also not that bad anyway, you get used to it. As long as you don't use a live wallpaper you stop noticing it unless you're comparing it to an iPad or a faster tab.
The Xoom is good for speed, yeah, it's one of the few Android tabs out there that runs the OS smoothly. Sad truth is, most Android tabs don't run that well, you rarely see ones which don't have at least a bit of lag on the homescreens. Xoom is one of the better ones for speed, but Galaxy Tabs are far thinner and lighter than anything else, so that's the compromise you've got to choose - lighter and laggier or heavier and faster? Swings and roundabouts.
But yeah, you can speed this tab up with different roms, and it will be updated to ICS soon. For me it's all about this tab's small size (without being as awkwardly small as a 7 inch tab), lightweight build and awesome screen. Xoom performs well but I never liked its form factor or its washed-out screen.

Well i think i will try the Tab and use Overcomes ROM and ADW EX while we wait for Samsung to get ICS out (and the better ROMs that will follow from devs.. ). ADW is familiar, i used it on my S2 until ICS arrived.
Now need to research the best Kernels, as i love overclocking and tweaking.

Just bought it yesterday, posting from it now in fact. Absolutely love the screen and form factor, its perfect in that sense...however with touchwiz 3.2 it was just unusable. Went to overcome, didn't help still too slow.
I'm now on cm9 and its still just so damn slow. The browser isn't smooth at all, playing games like anomaly hd and shadow gun just aren't smooth and seem like they're running at 15 fps, and trying to play HD content just depresses me because it doesn't work.
So I feel like I'm stuck with an amazing tablet which is just useless.
Is the situation ever going to get better? Am I doing something wrong? Should I just sell the thing even though I only got it yesterday? I watched a million videos before I bought it so I knew what to expect but using it constantly is just a different story...

Thats tegra2.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I957 using xda premium

I would indeed seem that Tegra 2 is a broken CPU. Never seen a fully smooth tegra device, even a WVGA phone running ICS, its not a lack of power, its just poorly designed and isn't able to deliver its power. I wonder if it's a memory controller issue. The PS3 also has a broken GPU (also nVidia!), but because its a single closed system its been worked around.
You CAN improve things somewhat though. Games arent slow for me, or the browser, but the homescreen is bad. Overclocking helps (running at 1.4ghz here with no issues), change the CPU scaling threshold to 65% increase the sampling rate.
Different launchers improve things to, but none are 100% perfect. ADW EX has a silky smooth homescreen and app draw, but scrolling widgets are slow. Go launcher HD is slightly slower in the homescreen, but widgets are much better.
Part of the problem is Honeycomb which is slow, the ICS builds we have now arent perfect, but they aren't built from Samsung sources. Once we have real Sammy ROMs and Sources to work from things should improve.

rovex said:
I would indeed seem that Tegra 2 is a broken CPU. Never seen a fully smooth tegra device, even a WVGA phone running ICS, its not a lack of power, its just poorly designed and isn't able to deliver its power. I wonder if it's a memory controller issue. The PS3 also has a broken GPU (also nVidia!), but because its a single closed system its been worked around.
You CAN improve things somewhat though. Games arent slow for me, or the browser, but the homescreen is bad. Overclocking helps (running at 1.4ghz here with no issues), change the CPU scaling threshold to 65% increase the sampling rate.
Different launchers improve things to, but none are 100% perfect. ADW EX has a silky smooth homescreen and app draw, but scrolling widgets are slow. Go launcher HD is slightly slower in the homescreen, but widgets are much better.
Part of the problem is Honeycomb which is slow, the ICS builds we have now arent perfect, but they aren't built from Samsung sources. Once we have real Sammy ROMs and Sources to work from things should improve.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not sure what you mean by the scaling thing but I am overclocked to 1.4 atm using NoFrills...as for browsing depends on the browser and the website, with the stock some websites are okay, I'm using chrome at the moment to post this and its just so sluggish...
As for games, they literally look like they're running at 15fps, its ridiculous.
Very disappointed, really don't want to have to buy an iPad but I just don't see the point of having a product like this that's so brilliant in theory but so poorly executed with absolutely no polish...how can they even sell a product that's this slow...

All hd games and content run fine for me. I'm on stock, not rooted. Using GO Launcher HD. Maybe I got lucky?

dairymasta said:
Not sure what you mean by the scaling thing but I am overclocked to 1.4 atm using NoFrills...as for browsing depends on the browser and the website, with the stock some websites are okay, I'm using chrome at the moment to post this and its just so sluggish...
As for games, they literally look like they're running at 15fps, its ridiculous.
Very disappointed, really don't want to have to buy an iPad but I just don't see the point of having a product like this that's so brilliant in theory but so poorly executed with absolutely no polish...how can they even sell a product that's this slow...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are judging Alpha software (CM9) as if it were final as in Stable status. Things will improve even more when Samsung releases source. In my experience, this tablet has been smooth with ADW EX. Perfectly usable, no stuttering, almost no lag, speedy and long lasting battery. Hey and this is with unfinished software (ICS) due to lack of source! I even had a good experience with firmware LA3. Just ditch the TouchWiz launcher. It helps a lot. If you still want to leave the tablet, be my guest, your choice.
Sent from my SGH-T959.

You can use SetCPU to adjust the CPU thresholds. It basically changes load at which the CPU scales up its clock rate, makes it more responsive, but wont make it faster at its peak.

Also, remember to make sure the CPU Governor is set to Interactive and not On Demand.
Sent from my SGH-T959.

nirogu325 said:
You are judging Alpha software (CM9) as if it were final as in Stable status. Things will improve even more when Samsung releases source. In my experience, this tablet has been smooth with ADW EX. Perfectly usable, no stuttering, almost no lag, speedy and long lasting battery. Hey and this is with unfinished software (ICS) due to lack of source! I even had a good experience with firmware LA3. Just ditch the TouchWiz launcher. It helps a lot. If you still want to leave the tablet, be my guest, your choice.
Sent from my SGH-T959.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tbh I don't think this is a fair argument, the thing shipped with honeycomb finalized and even had an update, neither of which was alpha software and they both sucked and were completely unusable. The fact that I had to root and am currently using cm9 just so that I can use the thing reasonably is ridiculous...
I'm using cm9 and it is a lot better but I still find that games don't run smoothly, scrolling isn't smooth and there's a lot of lag
I do have it over locked to 1.4 and have governor set to interactive as well as I/O set to snoop. Its at least usable now but its so disappointing seeing such an amazing piece of hardware gone to waste. It kills the iPad on every level but the software just lets it down so badly....

We just need to wait, and hope for the best with ICS kernel. Tegra 2 ain't that bad, it's like every other Tegra 2 out there, it has its limitations, HD videos are one of them. Considering what my job is, i get a lot of Android tablets, but none of them were completely smooth, it's Android fault mostly.
The best i got so far was Transformer Prime, but that's Tegra 3, but the smoothest one of Tegra 2 ones was definitely Motorola Xoom. If Xoom can be that smooth with Honeycomb when i tested it, there is hope for this model yet. Software is the thing that needs fixing, so this model gets what it deserves. Even then, it won't be as smooth as iPad, and with every new Android version i am more and more sceptical that level of smoothness will ever be achieved.

Gizmo123 said:
We just need to wait, and hope for the best with ICS kernel. Tegra 2 ain't that bad, it's like every other Tegra 2 out there, it has its limitations, HD videos are one of them. Considering what my job is, i get a lot of Android tablets, but none of them were completely smooth, it's Android fault mostly.
The best i got so far was Transformer Prime, but that's Tegra 3, but the smoothest one of Tegra 2 ones was definitely Motorola Xoom. If Xoom can be that smooth with Honeycomb when i tested it, there is hope for this model yet. Software is the thing that needs fixing, so this model gets what it deserves. Even then, it won't be as smooth as iPad, and with every new Android version i am more and more sceptical that level of smoothness will ever be achieved.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think iOS smoothness will ever be achieved, its definitely an android limitation.
As for HD movies I've tried dice player, mobo player vplayer and mx video player...only dice seems to give a decent framerate but still has a lot of slowdown. Some of the other players don't even play audio which is a bit weird, but that's probably my fault not messing about with the settings.
Any tips for sorting out the video? Or will tegra2 never be able to handle it? Because if that's the case this is definitely a waste of a very good screen and while it'll break my heart, will have to sell it...
EDIT: also is there any fix to get 3d gaming to run a bit faster? Will doing a system wipe, dalvik cache and cache partition wipe and reflash help you reckon?

Tegra can play HD, but its limited in what encoding methods it likes. Its certainly no match for Exynos, which will play pretty much anything. Samsung really messed up by not using their own brilliant processor in the Tab. Frankly the Exynos is better than the Tegra 3!
iOS is smooth, but slightly slow. It doesnt react as fast as Android, its animations are just more 'sedate', but as a result, buttery smooth. The problem with android is that in the rush to animate it can microstutter unless it has the CPUs total attention. My SGS2 with a custom ICS ROM and a few further tweaks is like lightening, totally smooth and faster to animate than iOS. I doubt a Tegra device will ever be able to do that, but it should do a lot better than it is now.

dairymasta said:
Not sure what you mean by the scaling thing but I am overclocked to 1.4 atm using NoFrills...as for browsing depends on the browser and the website, with the stock some websites are okay, I'm using chrome at the moment to post this and its just so sluggish...
As for games, they literally look like they're running at 15fps, its ridiculous.
Very disappointed, really don't want to have to buy an iPad but I just don't see the point of having a product like this that's so brilliant in theory but so poorly executed with absolutely no polish...how can they even sell a product that's this slow...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't use chrome it's slow.
dairymasta said:
I don't think iOS smoothness will ever be achieved, its definitely an android limitation.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You mean iOS is limited, that's why is smooth.

rovex said:
Tegra can play HD, but its limited in what encoding methods it likes. Its certainly no match for Exynos, which will play pretty much anything. Samsung really messed up by not using their own brilliant processor in the Tab. Frankly the Exynos is better than the Tegra 3!
iOS is smooth, but slightly slow. It doesnt react as fast as Android, its animations are just more 'sedate', but as a result, buttery smooth. The problem with android is that in the rush to animate it can microstutter unless it has the CPUs total attention. My SGS2 with a custom ICS ROM and a few further tweaks is like lightening, totally smooth and faster to animate than iOS. I doubt a Tegra device will ever be able to do that, but it should do a lot better than it is now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I'm running westcrips resurrection ICS on my sgs2 and its incredible. Might have to hold out for a 7.7 instead, watching videos of it playing 1080p perfectly and its just upsetting me lol
If I can somehow tweak things so I can at least was 720p videos and play games smoothly I'll be happy. Its just that games aren't running smoothly at all, tried blood and glory, anomaly HD, shadow gun, fruit ninja thd, all very laggy as if they're running between 10-15fps, especially blood and glory.
Considering a wipe and reflash but doubt it will make a difference and really can't be bothered if it won't make a difference....

I guess I'm luck. I can play samurai vengeance no problem
Sent from my Incredible 2 using xda premium

Doesn't seem particularly slow to me... I mean it's no iPad but it isn't as slow as most of the HTC devices I've used.

knipp21 said:
I guess I'm luck. I can play samurai vengeance no problem
Sent from my Incredible 2 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah that runs okay, but then go try something like shadowgun or anomaly HD, its rubbish.

Once I cleared all Samsung's live widgets from the home screens, I found the home screen transitions to be generally pretty smooth on mine.
Most HD video chugs in SloMo though. Its depressing and sad. Not sure if ICS will do much, if anything to improve that.
Hopefully, Samsung will refresh the ~9in form factor in the summer with some version of Exynos.

dairymasta said:
Yeah that runs okay, but then go try something like shadowgun or anomaly HD, its rubbish.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Shadowgun runs perfectly smooth for me... Better than on my iPhone even...

sbeddoesdesign said:
Shadowgun runs perfectly smooth for me... Better than on my iPhone even...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah and my movies play well too. Idk I guess I got a super tab...
Sent from my Incredible 2 using xda premium

Original post here: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/nexus-best-of-google-now-in-three-sizes.html
I love my Incredible S. But damn you Google, that offer is unbeatable.
@Mod: if it is not allow to post here, then I am sorry. Plz delete this thread. I don't mean to spam the forum.

thuanle said:
Original post here: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/nexus-best-of-google-now-in-three-sizes.html
I love my Incredible S. But damn you Google, that offer is unbeatable.
@Mod: if it is not allow to post here, then I am sorry. Plz delete this thread. I don't mean to spam the forum.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
AWESOME! Gf is getting me the Nexus 10 for Xmas, and I'll buy myself a Nexus 4 around the same time! 2560x1600 10" display, here I come! :highfive:

Never thought that the price would be so unbeatable! Maaan, why did I buy a Galaxy Nexus?

Oh for the love of god! What is with the lack of expandable storage in Nexus devices? I mean, this looks like the perfect device for me, but that lack of an SD Card is a real killer. 16 gig maximum storage, and no option to upgrade? What is this, an iPhone?

CyanideJack said:
Oh for the love of god! What is with the lack of expandable storage in Nexus devices? I mean, this looks like the perfect device for me, but that lack of an SD Card is a real killer. 16 gig maximum storage, and no option to upgrade? What is this, an iPhone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I know. My 32GB SD card has only 10GB free.

I only ever use around 6gb I clean up my stuff a lot.
Sent from my vivo using Tapatalk 2

ZaySk said:
AWESOME! Gf is getting me the Nexus 10 for Xmas, and I'll buy myself a Nexus 4 around the same time! 2560x1600 10" display, here I come! :highfive:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No offence but having a Nexus 7 now, I think it would be a bit boring to have two AOSP devices. Especially coming from sense I used to have AOSP before my N7, but now I only use sense on my IncS

vizzy said:
I only ever use around 6gb I clean up my stuff a lot.
Sent from my vivo using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here, I used an 8GB for about half a year before upgrading to 16GB. Never had a problem with space, I just delete apps I don't use and clean out junk folders. I also backup important stuff on my SD card, and then format it every couple of months to keep it clean.
markj338 said:
No offence but having a Nexus 7 now, I think it would be a bit boring to have two AOSP devices. Especially coming from sense I used to have AOSP before my N7, but now I only use sense on my IncS
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
While you do have a good point, I've never liked Sense or other skins anyways. Given the choice, I'd always choose an AOSP ROM over a Sense ROM. Pretty much the only reason I'm using a Sense ROM is because it's stable. Sense ROM's are fun to play around with for something new, but I quickly get bored of the limited options available in Rosie and uninstall it and replace it with Apex Launcher. Even tweaked Sense bores me, plus Sense is pretty heavy and I always feel like AOSP is noticeably smoother.
Plus, with a Nexus, I wouldn't have to put up with half-assed, hacked together AOSP ROM's. No offense to any devs! It's just stupid that some things related to a device (drivers, company proprietary libs etc) are never available and have to be hacked to work. I hate that, it's very annoying. With a Nexus, I don't have to worry about that. (I think?...)

ZaySk said:
Same here, I used an 8GB for about half a year before upgrading to 16GB. Never had a problem with space, I just delete apps I don't use and clean out junk folders. I also backup important stuff on my SD card, and then format it every couple of months to keep it clean.
While you do have a good point, I've never liked Sense or other skins anyways. Given the choice, I'd always choose an AOSP ROM over a Sense ROM. Pretty much the only reason I'm using a Sense ROM is because it's stable. Sense ROM's are fun to play around with for something new, but I quickly get bored of the limited options available in Rosie and uninstall it and replace it with Apex Launcher. Even tweaked Sense bores me, plus Sense is pretty heavy and I always feel like AOSP is noticeably smoother.
Plus, with a Nexus, I wouldn't have to put up with half-assed, hacked together AOSP ROM's. No offense to any devs! It's just stupid that some things related to a device (drivers, company proprietary libs etc) are never available and have to be hacked to work. I hate that, it's very annoying. With a Nexus, I don't have to worry about that. (I think?...)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have a 16gb N7 and 16gb card in my phone, they get filled with backups of roms lol
I use dropbox and I have a USB OTG cable for all the haevy stuff like movies
I completely agree with your statement on AOSP roms and their stability. While some roms are quite good and fast, none can match a proper AOSP device, like a nexus. None. My N7 is super fast and I underclock it to 1.15GHz to save battery
This is the reason I might be going Sony next: their roms are quite AOSP-like and their source is similar to AOSP, no big changes like Samsung and HTC
Most AOSP and other JB roms for other devices (I mean custom roms) do not have proper project butter working, eg. CM10 on the exynos devices because there is no proper source for drivers and stuff. Although this might change with the Nexus 10

markj338 said:
I have a 16gb N7 and 16gb card in my phone, they get filled with backups of roms lol
I use dropbox and I have a USB OTG cable for all the haevy stuff like movies
I completely agree with your statement on AOSP roms and their stability. While some roms are quite good and fast, none can match a proper AOSP device, like a nexus. None. My N7 is super fast and I underclock it to 1.15GHz to save battery
This is the reason I might be going Sony next: their roms are quite AOSP-like and their source is similar to AOSP, no big changes like Samsung and HTC
Most AOSP and other JB roms for other devices (I mean custom roms) do not have proper project butter working, eg. CM10 on the exynos devices because there is no proper source for drivers and stuff. Although this might change with the Nexus 10
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I used to have a crapload of backups as well, but I realized it would be more efficient to simply keep one backup of my favorite ROM at the time. I try to keep that one backup as current as possible. I gotta get an external HDD to store my music and movies as well
Yes we did have some great devs working on AOSP for our device, and they did a damn great job IMO. It's just the company that limits how good AOSP ROM's are due to not releasing sources for certain components, forcing the community to resort to hacks and other trickery to get it working properly. Damn it must be nice to be able to actually underclock without creating a laggy device. I feel like it's absolutely necessary to OC the Inc S to 1.3 GHz on AOSP, and 1.4-5GHz on Sense, in order to get a decent experience. Not that big of a deal, seeing as there were quite a few phones released with the same SoC as ours, but ran at 1.4GHz stock so the SoC can obviously handle the OC, luckily.
I'm strongly considering Sony as well, if they release a device by Xmas that has at least an S4 Pro SoC, preferably a true Cortex A-15 based SoC. They seem to be one of few companies that really do open up their phones completely for the community, and that's pretty much the #1 most important decision that will decide what phone I get.

ZaySk said:
I used to have a crapload of backups as well, but I realized it would be more efficient to simply keep one backup of my favorite ROM at the time. I try to keep that one backup as current as possible. I gotta get an external HDD to store my music and movies as well
Yes we did have some great devs working on AOSP for our device, and they did a damn great job IMO. It's just the company that limits how good AOSP ROM's are due to not releasing sources for certain components, forcing the community to resort to hacks and other trickery to get it working properly. Damn it must be nice to be able to actually underclock without creating a laggy device. I feel like it's absolutely necessary to OC the Inc S to 1.3 GHz on AOSP, and 1.4-5GHz on Sense, in order to get a decent experience. Not that big of a deal, seeing as there were quite a few phones released with the same SoC as ours, but ran at 1.4GHz stock so the SoC can obviously handle the OC, luckily.
I'm strongly considering Sony as well, if they release a device by Xmas that has at least an S4 Pro SoC, preferably a true Cortex A-15 based SoC. They seem to be one of few companies that really do open up their phones completely for the community, and that's pretty much the #1 most important decision that will decide what phone I get.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow I keep mine at 1024MHz all the time. I overclock it to 1.4 sometimes when I play heavy games but that is it. I don't think my N7 has ever seen past 1.4GHz, when I was testing one of faux123's kernels
I think Sony might wait until MWC next year in Jan or whenever it is, because they just released new phones. But I don't need top performance on my phone anymore, I use it for calling, texting, xda-ing and a bit of internet. I play games and do more processor-intensive things on my Nexus 7
Did you guys see this video? It makes me want to buy one next
http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/29/google-nexus-4-hands-on/
I like the look of it, and the hardware. And of course the charger *drools*

I hope they'll release a 32gb model :/
Sent from my HTC Incredible S using xda premium

Ihad considered this but in England LG does not have the best reputation so I tend to stay away. Also, the HOX+ is meant to have one of the better cameras around and I don't know how is feel if the N4 cam isn't as good. I've also became a fan of sense .....
However, I am deffo getting the N10 device. I'll probs get it after Xmas when the initial rush has gone. Then I can read my magazines, books and general browsing easyier than on a phone.
Sent from my vivo using Tapatalk 2

I worry that these Nexus devices may start a president with regards to lack of removable storage. I understand Google's thinking behind using the Cloud as a portable storage medium, but my 500mb a month contract means downloading/streaming anything over data is pretty much out of the question. And living in the sticks means my data connection is flaky most of the time anyway. Until the price of truly 'unlimited' data plans drops considerably, and until coverage becomes better for non-built up areas, cloud storage is pointless for me.
I also notice there's no support for LTE on this device, but given the price that's hardly an issue.
Think I'll be waiting for the 32gb model to.

For me 16GB is totally enough. I had 8GB for a year and it was a bit too less but now I have 16GB on my GNex and I never get it even close to full So no Cloud stuff for me

WILLI120 said:
For me 16GB is totally enough. I had 8GB for a year and it was a bit too less but now I have 16GB on my GNex and I never get it even close to full So no Cloud stuff for me
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well for me, I like to download videos like anime and comedy sketches, I guess that's why I need lots of space. And maybe because I have The Dark Knight Rises, Order & Chaos Online in my phone :/
Sent from my HTC Incredible S using xda premium

markj338 said:
Wow I keep mine at 1024MHz all the time. I overclock it to 1.4 sometimes when I play heavy games but that is it. I don't think my N7 has ever seen past 1.4GHz, when I was testing one of faux123's kernels
I think Sony might wait until MWC next year in Jan or whenever it is, because they just released new phones. But I don't need top performance on my phone anymore, I use it for calling, texting, xda-ing and a bit of internet. I play games and do more processor-intensive things on my Nexus 7
Did you guys see this video? It makes me want to buy one next
http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/29/google-nexus-4-hands-on/
I like the look of it, and the hardware. And of course the charger *drools*
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hate it when there's noticeable lag, and I've always been picky about the performance of all my technological devices lol. I'm actually running my CPU at 1.5GHz right now on smartassv2. I still get good battery life despite the big OC, and I haven't noticed any instability at all. Also helps that I UV'ed 50mv I've always preferred performance over battery life. I'd rather have a snappy device that dies an hour quicker, than a slightly laggy device that lasts longer.
Yea, that's what I was thinking. Unfortunate. But I really want that Nexus 4, especially at that price! I'll be honest, I love google right now. They're pushing the boundaries(in a good way) on pricing for top end devices, and I f**king love it!
Dat S4 Pro Quad....WANT

ZaySk said:
I hate it when there's noticeable lag, and I've always been picky about the performance of all my technological devices lol. I'm actually running my CPU at 1.5GHz right now on smartassv2. I still get good battery life despite the big OC, and I haven't noticed any instability at all. Also helps that I UV'ed 50mv I've always preferred performance over battery life. I'd rather have a snappy device that dies an hour quicker, than a slightly laggy device that lasts longer.
Yea, that's what I was thinking. Unfortunate. But I really want that Nexus 4, especially at that price! I'll be honest, I love google right now. They're pushing the boundaries(in a good way) on pricing for top end devices, and I f**king love it!
Dat S4 Pro Quad....WANT
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hardly have any lag with my settings now
Mine can't handle any UV at 1.4GHz I noticed that while playing shadowgun, it kept freezing and not responding to anything but a battery pull
The only other thing that might keep me away is no 4G Hopefully the camera is a beast
Yeah the S4 quad looks really good. I can get the same performance with my N7 running at those speeds, but no way near the efficiency. I am also interested in the audio chip, because the S4 one is supposed to be really good, compared to the Tegra 3 one.
l0st.prophet has been very active in the N4 forums, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of us end up there. There is already an ex-desire S user off topic thread lol

markj338 said:
I hardly have any lag with my settings now
Mine can't handle any UV at 1.4GHz I noticed that while playing shadowgun, it kept freezing and not responding to anything but a battery pull
The only other thing that might keep me away is no 4G Hopefully the camera is a beast
Yeah the S4 quad looks really good. I can get the same performance with my N7 running at those speeds, but no way near the efficiency. I am also interested in the audio chip, because the S4 one is supposed to be really good, compared to the Tegra 3 one.
l0st.prophet has been very active in the N4 forums, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of us end up there. There is already an ex-desire S user off topic thread lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I still notice lag even at 1.5GHz sometimes. Annoying. Hmm that's strange, even at 1.5GHz I don't have any instabilities with UV. I really want to upgrade, to me the Inc S is showing its age internally. Especially in RAM, 2GB of RAM will be heaven. Still in love with the gorgeous color saturation in the screen though!
Meh, 4G isn't to big a deal for me. I have it available in Whitehorse, but HSPA+ is good enough for when I don't have wifi. I just can't resist the price, and I'm thinking about going on pay-as-you-go instead of the ass-rapingly expensive contracts. I practically never call anyone (who does these days?) so I only need data.
The S4 Pro's GPU especially looks very promising. Much better than the Mali 400 in the Exynos 4 series, according to early reports. Plus it's as close as I'll get to a Cortex A15 cpu That's great news, I was hoping the N4 would have a decent audio chip.
Hehe, let's all conspire to take over the N4 forums. All Inc S user's at once abandon this device, and move full force into the N4 forums! :silly::victory: Seriously though, the more people that come from this great community to the N4 forums, the better. :good:

ZaySk said:
I still notice lag even at 1.5GHz sometimes. Annoying. Hmm that's strange, even at 1.5GHz I don't have any instabilities with UV. I really want to upgrade, to me the Inc S is showing its age internally. Especially in RAM, 2GB of RAM will be heaven. Still in love with the gorgeous color saturation in the screen though!
Meh, 4G isn't to big a deal for me. I have it available in Whitehorse, but HSPA+ is good enough for when I don't have wifi. I just can't resist the price, and I'm thinking about going on pay-as-you-go instead of the ass-rapingly expensive contracts. I practically never call anyone (who does these days?) so I only need data.
The S4 Pro's GPU especially looks very promising. Much better than the Mali 400 in the Exynos 4 series, according to early reports. Plus it's as close as I'll get to a Cortex A15 cpu That's great news, I was hoping the N4 would have a decent audio chip.
Hehe, let's all conspire to take over the N4 forums. All Inc S user's at once abandon this device, and move full force into the N4 forums! :silly::victory: Seriously though, the more people that come from this great community to the N4 forums, the better. :good:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's not fair Oh well, you use 1.5 more than I do I think its processor is showing its age. Some things I am used to using my N7 for, and the IncS is THAT much slower at doing things. But on Venom, everything is super smooth Same with your rom actually, although I used the ultra smooth rosie (I am too on Venom)
I am thinking about getting off a contract too, and buying the phone outright. But, when you add both up it would probably be cheaper still to go on a plan here, for maybe $50 a month or whatever they will give the N4 away free on
Yes, the GPU is a monster, apparently it smashes the Tegra 3 which has a massive GPU, super powered. The Tegra 3 is soo powerful, even at the underclocked speeds I have it at now, I can't actually imagine what you could do with more power at this time.
Don't abandon this device because I am staying here until May next year!

hi. i see many here who have bought this gorgeous tablet. im in the planning of buying it. i honestly dont want the exynos version cause of my past experience with this chipset being hot and no so stable. and sadly its the only one available here.
im TOO much convinced to get iPad Air 2 because it wipes the floor with these 2 tablets. but i really dont like Apple at all. so much so, i HATE apple! but the S-Lag is pushing me more towards Apple more than ever before... lag on a 2014 Flagship tablet is PLAIN UNACCEPTABLE!
anyways, lets come to the point. WHATS YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH THIS TABLET? whats the best thing about it? what did u find so-so in this tablet? and what is the worst thing according to YOU in your tablet? pls mention ur model (10.5 or 8.4 and also share the chipset, Snapdragon 800 or Exynos 5420 and also Wi-Fi only or Lte one)
(its only gonna take 3 mins to type and reply to this thread, so pls share ur experience. might be very helpful for some!)

You lost me as soon as you said that the iPad wipes the floor against this tablet. Lol
Sent from my SM-T800 using XDA Premium HD app

I have zero lag with my Exynos Galaxy Tab S 10.5 WiFi running stock NK1 firmware and debloated and all graphic intensive games play smooth and it multitasks faster then my Note 4. The screen is in a league of its own and my jaw drops every time I look at it. Battery life is awesome at around 8-9 screen on hours and tablet runs cool to the touch at all times and it scores around 40,000-41,000 in Antutu which isn't too shabby considering it only uses the the 4 x 1.9ghz cores during the test. Well worth the $399 @ Best Buy and development is decent for it with CM 11 being stable and Lollipop coming in a month or so. I bought three of them instead of the Galaxy Tab Pro 12.2 because it's LCD looked crappy just like IPad Air 2.

Worst thing is scrolling in many apps like tapatalk and even play store is jerky not smooth, both in stock and cm port. Best thing is the screen. If it weren't for the screen I wouldn't get it

guys, 3 days and only 2 people shared their experience? come one dont just view the thread, share what you think to help others buy it.

Not clear to me what the point of this thread is. Much of the discussion on the entire forum is about peoples' experience with the tablet. Maybe if you ask a more specific question, you'll get more of a response.

I'm using this tablet for 4 days now I came from the iPad retina. The screen is so beautiful comparing with the iPad but it has its downsides.
Pro's
-screen
-android (can stream mkv to this device)
-battery life
Con's
-sometimes lag (hopefully the lollipop update will kill the lag)
-design (it's not bad, but the iPad feels more high quality)
Conclusion
I'm using the tablet for watching series and movies in my bed, for this purpose it's the best tablet I've ever been acrossed. Hopefully the lollipop update kills the lag and activate full 64 bit (I've heard the cpu works I'm 32 it mode at the moment)

Model: T800 WiFi (10.5)
Processor: Exynos 5420
I got my tab 2 weeks now and I'm really impressed by it.
I have to say that I've debloated it and trying to get more out of it because I'm not really happy with the amount of RAM used. Out of almost 3GB it uses 60-70% on idle, with no running apps.
I believe this is due to TouchWiz and (I think) some other Samsung stuff.
As for the screen: It's absolutely amazing! Big and Amazing! But, a battery drainer for sure, especially with full brightness.
About the battery life: Reasonable. I don't really watch movies on it and use it more for work, 3rd monitor, reading. Basically everything except watching movies. And still I find that the battery performance could be better. It's not bad, but I find myself plugging it in way too often then I would like. (But I guess that's the sacrifice you make for getting a big awesome screen).
I've also tried the latest CM11 ROM for it, and performance wise it got better.
Faster, smoother and way less RAM used (700MB instead of almost 2GB), but I found that it's missing a lot of Samsung features the stock ROM has to offer (which in turn made it useless IMO, unless you don't need them.)
And I'm also sure that the Lollipop update will do a lot of good things for it, and let's not forget the custom roms that will probably be made once Lollipop is available for this tablet. Things can only get better!
I wouldn't change my Tab S for anything else, although it may sound like I'm a bit negative about it, I absolutely love it.
My experiences so far, hope it helps you decide.

GeorgeP said:
Not clear to me what the point of this thread is. Much of the discussion on the entire forum is about peoples' experience with the tablet. Maybe if you ask a more specific question, you'll get more of a response.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i have said that in the 1st post man . simply state Pros and Cons you found out in this tablet. what do u use it for mostly and how long does it run (battery life)?

Test
---------- Post added at 10:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:45 PM ----------
DUHAsianSKILLZ said:
Test
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can finallt post on here! Anyway I have the Galaxy tab s 10.5 with exynos chipset.
I have had this since lauch and no problems so far.
Display, The display is awesome event in direct sunlight you can still see it. Heck its even bright at night. It can rung videos up to 1440p and its way better then lcd. But there is one thing to look out for. Since its amoled, you may get burnt or stuck pixles. I have only one as of now. I have no idea how it happened but its really really tiny to see it. To aviod this problem is to not use applications such as facebook for 6 hours straight. Then you should be fine if you watch movies.
Speakers, great treble and some bass. The quality of it is clear and plays most music perfectly. Depending on some movies they may be quiet but for most its really loud. There are one speaker on the left and right on each side which is a good placement for a thin tablet.
Vibration. Oddly enough this tablet has vibration for nonfications and even when you type! Its not the best like most phones but works well.
Hardwarebuttons/keys. There is a backlight when you press the back or recent apps buttons. They light up which is a plus for me and the home button works well. The home button fingerprint scanner is ok.. But the Ipad air 2 scanner is better. This is due that samsungs home button is oval or the software has been made perfectly like the ipads. But it works most of the times.
Wifi, signal on this tablet rocks! It can detect my neighbors wifi signal and still have 3 bars. It works well on most routers and downloads are faster and more stable since its wifi antenna is really strong.
Battery, I get about 8 hours of screen on time which is really good. I wish i could get more but this is better than the ipads.
UI, samsungs Ui may be laggy but can be fixed by installing nova launcher and disabling knox / some system apps. The multitasking feature works well but not all apps are supported. You would need root to use all apps for multitaking. Also, Samsung lacked of getting updates to this tablet. There has ony been 2 or 3 updates since launch. After the first week I rooted and later install cm11. Its been blazing fast so far with no stutters. There is also custom roms for both the 8.4 and 10.5 inch tablet.
Build quality, very fragile. One drop and there goes your tablet. I would recommend getting a case or somesort to protect this tablet. The screen does pretty well in scratches too. Camera is good for outdoor use and has a great flash. The back has a good cover to put your hands on and prevent slipping. Altougb it has vert thin bezels in which it can be hard to hold in one hand.
Customization, more than the ipad and you can also fox the lag but doing a few things. Rooting can get you way more things like backing up your whole rom in case of a bootloop in which you can restore too. You can also flash custom roms and get tons of features. You can also add sd card for more storage.
App support for this tablet is ok. Most apps work well and some intensive games lag because it isnt optimised for this tablet. I only get lag at the loading screen.
Overall, this tablet is a great one with tons of customozation and features, but its fragile like the ipad air 2. But alteast its a bit thick then the ipad air. If you are a video watcher/ streamer, this tablet is good for you as it had great battery life,screen quality, and also different modes of color ehanments to choose from. Heck this is also my tv remote as it can change channels do other stuff with the ir sensor.

I've had my 8.4 WiFi Tab S for about a month now, here are my thoughts:
1) The stock ROM is laggy, and really betrays the specs of this tablet. Even installing Nova launcher and debloating as much as I can did little to speed it up. This was my biggest disappointment out of the box, and continued to frustrate me until I finally rooted it and installed CM11...more on that later
2) RAM usage/allocation is not good on the stock ROM. Dolphin browser for example will crash when more than a few tabs are open, where on my other devices this is not an issue.
3) The screen is gorgeous - it really is a class leader. Nothing comes close to Samsungs SAMOLED displays, this one has a 1600 x 2560 360ppi dazzler. It's really that good.
4) Most stock Samsung apps are gimmicky and useless. They just take up memory and shouldn't be there, or at least be optional to install.
5) This is XDA, so it's likely if you're reading this you're thinking about rooting the tablet. My advice? In the case of the Tab S 8.4 - DO IT. Do it NOW. CM11 in particular washes away my concerns above, and the tablet performs as it's specs suggest - super quick, minimal lag and powerful. It's like having a new tablet all over again, and things will only bet better once Lollipop comes out.

aami.aami said:
hi. i see many here who have bought this gorgeous tablet. im in the planning of buying it. i honestly dont want the exynos version cause of my past experience with this chipset being hot and no so stable. and sadly its the only one available here.
im TOO much convinced to get iPad Air 2 because it wipes the floor with these 2 tablets. but i really dont like Apple at all. so much so, i HATE apple! but the S-Lag is pushing me more towards Apple more than ever before... lag on a 2014 Flagship tablet is PLAIN UNACCEPTABLE!
anyways, lets come to the point. WHATS YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH THIS TABLET? whats the best thing about it? what did u find so-so in this tablet? and what is the worst thing according to YOU in your tablet? pls mention ur model (10.5 or 8.4 and also share the chipset, Snapdragon 800 or Exynos 5420 and also Wi-Fi only or Lte one)
(its only gonna take 3 mins to type and reply to this thread, so pls share ur experience. might be very helpful for some!)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
iOS is a much better OS than Samsung's Android. Let's be honest, the software really lags. But I'm buying the specs, and putting in CM. So with CM, and the specs... it works very well for me. No complaints. Depends on what kind of user you are and what you plan on doing with the tablet. I like a customized ROM, great battery for watching movies and surf the web and do very little gaming... Tab S 10.5 is perfect for me.
---------- Post added at 11:47 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:46 AM ----------
interfreak said:
I've had my 8.4 WiFi Tab S for about a month now, here are my thoughts:
1) The stock ROM is laggy, and really betrays the specs of this tablet. Even installing Nova launcher and debloating as much as I can did little to speed it up. This was my biggest disappointment out of the box, and continued to frustrate me until I finally rooted it and installed CM11...more on that later
2) RAM usage/allocation is not good on the stock ROM. Dolphin browser for example will crash when more than a few tabs are open, where on my other devices this is not an issue.
3) The screen is gorgeous - it really is a class leader. Nothing comes close to Samsungs SAMOLED displays, this one has a 1600 x 2560 360ppi dazzler. It's really that good.
4) Most stock Samsung apps are gimmicky and useless. They just take up memory and shouldn't be there, or at least be optional to install.
5) This is XDA, so it's likely if you're reading this you're thinking about rooting the tablet. My advice? In the case of the Tab S 8.4 - DO IT. Do it NOW. CM11 in particular washes away my concerns above, and the tablet performs as it's specs suggest - super quick, minimal lag and powerful. It's like having a new tablet all over again, and things will only bet better once Lollipop comes out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This guy's response is dead on. :good::good::good::good::good::good:

Running CM11 and I have nothing to complain. Just onhe thing annoys me, the hardware button on the bottom (in landscape). I would like to press iut with my thumb, but that's too far away. Especially when I am browsing lying in bed, pad on my chest/belly.

I have a tab s 8.4 LTE Exynos for about a month now.
Hardware build is fine but could be better. Tablet is very delicate, you have to be careful with it. Feeling in the hand is great, especially the soft back.
Display is absolutely amazing, but you already know that. Really bright, it can also go insanely dark if you want, and sharp as a knife. Colors can punch your face in, or be more natural, depending which mode you want and choose. One thing is for sure, expect screen orgasm all day every day with tab s
Software is mixed bag. There are great software additions for productivity etc but the best option is to put different launcher on it (Nova is great, but I found that smart launcher works even better).
Performance is good but with a different launcher it becomes much better. You have to keep in mind, this display has an insane number of pixels, runs what is probably the most heaviest android skin in existence (TouchWiz), and has note 3 procesor inside. With all this in mind, I was actually surprised with the performance, with multitasking and games as well.
Games run perfectly with some lag here and there on more demanding titles. I love how you can play GTA:San Andreas for example, then go multitask do a ton of other things, and then just hop back to GTA and it will not reload the game, you can just continue playing where you left of.
Speaker is good, lacks more bass, but loud and clear, I have no problem with it.
Battery is good, about 7h average of screen time. I use it heavily with 50% brightness, reading articles, browsing, games and a ton of movies and youtube. With power saving mode, or if you root the tablet and debloat you can go even further with battery.
Also I'm not rooted, yet.
Should you buy this tablet? For me, answer is yes. Kudos to all other great tablets out there, but I wouldn't trade this display for anything in the world.

very unsatisfied
Very unsatisfied. Would return immediately if possible . The screen is just too large and too wide, also the text is very small, and color temperature should be warmer .
Also not possible to hold it in one hand .
Very very unstasfied for reading and browsing . Very bad buy for me .
For watching movies it would be OK i guess .

I am using the 8.4 Wifi Tab S. I have it rooted and debloated a large number of system apps by using Titanium Backup. Using a stock ROM with Nova Launcher makes this thing fly. Also using CM11's latest build from 12/2/14 and everything is working fine so far. I highly recommend using Nova Launcher even if you are not rooted.

peterf81 said:
Very unsatisfied. Would return immediately if possible . The screen is just too large and too wide, also the text is very small, and color temperature should be warmer .
Also not possible to hold it in one hand .
Very very unstasfied for reading and browsing . Very bad buy for me .
For watching movies it would be OK i guess .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nothing wrong with the tablet, but with your decision to buy it.
So you are the one to blame, not the tablet.
Buy phone for elderly. It has a small screen with big fonts. Perfect.
---------- Post added at 03:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:01 PM ----------
I have a tablet for one day, so I can't really post a long experience essay, yet, but so far i am totally impressed and love it from the inside out.
From software perspective it is Android as android (tried at least hundred custom roms in last 4 years or so, from phones to tablets), nothing to blow my mind there. I have to mention i came to TabS from Asus Infinity and it is like i am discovering a whole new world. TabS really is that better. The one thing that ruined the Asus tablet, which was perfectly fine from specs perspective, was the cheap internal storage, which was so slow that sometimes I had to wait more than 30s or a minute for screen orientation to change. I won't go into details, but it was a 700€ tablet which i almost threw into the wall because of all the frustration it caused me. So, maybe i am not looking objectively here, but TabS is faaaar superior.
There are some hiccups now and then, but i don't really think it is due to Samsung apps or HW.
From experience i think it is just the android that has problems. CM is just so heavily tweaked to overcome it, but put AOSP rom on the device, and i bet after few days you'll get the same problems as with any vendor built roms. Not as much, but still. I could be wrong though.
Anyway, from a day of playing with the tablet, i am impressed.
It is responsive, the screen is gorgeous and currently there is nothing to complain about.
I did root it, but didn't debloat it yet, because i don't see a reason to do it, yet.
If it comes to that, there are still other options - like CM and so on.
So far, very happy.

I recieved mine yesterday and a couple of quick thoughts:
-Screen is incredible, my <480P videos look terrible and pixelated almost because the screen is too good. Not the screens fault.
- TouchWiz is annoying and crappy. Nova Launcher helps but i hate the pull down menu. I wish CM offically supported this but it looks like you XDA guys <3 have done a solid job porting CM11 over. If i decide to keep it , I will root and flash CM on here.
-Alot of cool free gifts with the tab, NY Times. Marvel, etc.
-Fingerprint scanner is not bad. Alittle bit finicky though.
-love the MicroSD Card,
-the back is a bit slimy and annoying to hold up.
-Seems like there is some lag switching between apps. I wish this had a better CPU.
All in all, I am unsure what to do. I like the tablet but I think a N9 would be great also. I have 2 weeks to decide, if I see a good deal on a N9 I might switch to that. I would be worried in a year or so the Tab S will be quite laggy...
thoughts?

This cursed tablet is causing me depressions . It is so cold and big, not cozy and warm . It is the devils work . Unusable in landscape and even more in portrait . I warn you !!! Dont buy this piece of crap, buy something smaller with lower resolution what u can hold in one hand .
---------- Post added at 05:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:55 PM ----------
But I cannot return it because I bought it from internet from china . I want to change DPI in android so text is larger and even this is not possible . Total unreadable microscopic text . Hate it 1!!!!!!!

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https://www.dropbox.com/sc/2biqnw9ujjfe5h3/AACRNBe-RzFe4F_qKrqiemy0a
So that you see the difference between my nice EIZO monitor in "text" setting, which is perfect for browsing and office work, I can work non-stop with this monitor.
And the Tab S 10.5 in "Basic" display setting - which is the warmest (but there is not much difference in white temperatuer between the 3 settings).
After 20 minutes of browsing on this tablet my eyes are crying "WTF are u doing to us". Add headache to this and then u know how it is to work with this tablet .
If I would see this comparrison earlier I would not buy, but the reviews are not reviewing this most important stuff as thorough as they should . I BLAME THE REVIEWERS FOR THIS !! may the rot in hell .