Develop Bugs

The Galaxy Nexus, even with roms, is not as fast as the Exynos GSII

I have a GSM Galaxy Nexus and it has AOKP build 25 with Fugomod kernel on it and this thing still is laggy. I tried many different roms and kernels and it still lags. I'm pretty sure my GSII was faster.
Some people say they have a buttery smooth Nexus and I'm jealous of you because mine feels like a 700mhz single core phone with 256mb of ram.
What's the deal? Why is it lagging (stock keyboard, browsing, app drawer, etc)
And I'm not trying to "bash". I want to keep the phone but the slowness is frustrating.
UPDATE 2/27/11 - I wiped my phone and flashed the Apex 1.02 Rom and now the phone is really fast. Some occasional hiccups but not a big deal.
I'm a very happy GN owner now.

You're holding it wrong.
Edit: somebody delete this thread, OP posted exact same post on a similar oriented thread..

bk201doesntexist said:
You're holding it wrong.
Edit: somebody delete this thread, OP posted exact same post on a similar oriented thread..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I accidentally posted it in a thread I was reading.

You are either doing it wrong or trolling. My guess is trolling.

Aridon said:
You are either doing it wrong or trolling. My guess is trolling.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So nobody can state their Galaxy Nexus is laggy? If so then you're a troll? I don't understand that logic.

I'm so sick of people comparing the galaxy nexus to the gs2. They are different classes of phones. The gs2 is running on a screen with a much lower resolution and an old version of android. If I take my PC which runs any game great on my 19" monitor and then connect it to my 46" HDTV the same games run laggy because my video card is working much harder to run the game at the higher resolution. Also if I play a game on windows xp and then play the same game on windows 7 the game tends to run slower because as operating systems evolve they tend to need more resources and also add new enhancements that add more strain on the hardware. I'm sure you can put android 4.0 on a HTC dream but will it run well? Not a chance because android 4.0 uses more juice then android 1.5 that the dream came with. I bet if you could install android 2.3 on the galaxy nexus it would fly like a bat out of hell.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

I came from an E4GT and my GN feels just as fast.

Put foxhound 1.1 stock,my phone runs buttery smooth and Ferrari fast,with 24hrs of battery,everything on,3hr screen. You gotta find the right rom kernel combo man.I pottered around with aokp and apex and Franco for 2 months and then tried foxhound one day. Never going back. Just keep at it. Its fun man.
And guys please don't flame the guy,its very distasteful.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus

OMG MEGAHERTZ PROCESSOR RACE!!1
I don't quite get it. Is this a pissing contest? The Gnex runs way fast for a cellphone.
Maybe I'm getting old.

crossover37 said:
So nobody can state their Galaxy Nexus is laggy? If so then you're a troll? I don't understand that logic.
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Click to collapse
cablemike01 said:
I'm so sick of people comparing the galaxy nexus to the gs2. They are different classes of phones. The gs2 is running on a screen with a much lower resolution and an old version of android. If I take my PC which runs any game great on my 19" monitor and then connect it to my 46" HDTV the same games run laggy because my video card is working much harder to run the game at the higher resolution. Also if I play a game on windows xp and then play the same game on windows 7 the game tends to run slower because as operating systems evolve they tend to need more resources and also add new enhancements that add more strain on the hardware. I'm sure you can put android 4.0 on a HTC dream but will it run well? Not a chance because android 4.0 uses more juice then android 1.5 that the dream came with. I bet if you could install android 2.3 on the galaxy nexus it would fly like a bat out of hell.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ok I get what you're saying but Google knew this so why didn't they add a more powerful GPU to handle these issues?

psycho2097 said:
Put foxhound 1.1 stock,my phone runs buttery smooth and Ferrari fast,with 24hrs of battery,everything on,3hr screen. You gotta find the right rom kernel combo man.I pottered around with aokp and apex and Franco for 2 months and then tried foxhound one day. Never going back. Just keep at it. Its fun man.
And guys please don't flame the guy,its very distasteful.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll try foxhound, thanks.
What's your reason for not using the latest 18.4 Franco Kernel and instead opting for the 14.4 version.

crossover37 said:
I'll try foxhound, thanks.
What's your reason for not using the latest 18.4 Franco Kernel and instead opting for the 14.4 version.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unsure about that poster's experience, but 18.4 is awesome for me, and so far synergises really well with CM9.

crossover37 said:
So nobody can state their Galaxy Nexus is laggy? If so then you're a troll? I don't understand that logic.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You said:
"Some people say they have a buttery smooth Nexus and I'm jealous of you because mine feels like a 700mhz single core phone with 256mb of ram."
That is so far outside the norm that you are either trolling, have a defective device or flashed and did something so screwed up that its messing with your device. So either:
1. Do a complete wipe, including formatting data, cache, dalvik and system. Install AOKP, gaaps with trinity kernel (basic one for all devices). Reboot. Download auto start manager and kill anything like maps or talk that you don't want running at startup. Go into settings and set cpu to 1.2, 400mhz with on demand or performance scaling. Set on boot checked. Reboot. Then tell me the phone is slow.
2. Don't use live wall paper. Most of them are not optimized for ICS
3. Return your device and get another one its broken.

My laptop is faster than your GSII.

crossover37 said:
Ok I get what you're saying but Google knew this so why didn't they add a more powerful GPU to handle these issues?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
because google knows this is already powerful enough and the only place that it would make a difference is in benchmarks. Remember the nexus is the reference phone the developers are supposed to base their applications on. So in theory all app should run perfectly on all nexus devices. Basically any app made in 2012 should run perfectly on this phone. Think of it this way this is the minimum hardware requirements for apps and if a manufacturer goes beyond the specs its all gravy basically bragging rights but realistically this device has more than enough power to handle what google intended it for.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

I'll play since I've recently made the jump as well and I think I'm coming in with an "unbiased" opinion. Keep in mind I'm much happier with my GN than I was with my I9100, which I'm also keeping at least until kernel source is released for ICS. Using CM9 on the Nexus and using CM9 on the SGSII, no comparison for me, Nexus wins, hands down as far as fluidity and feel goes, ignoring the fact that so many things still don't work on the SGSII.
There are ever so slight cpu and gpu advantages that I've noticed on the SGSII. Very occasionally might be felt as a lag or stutter. For the most part however I find the GN "smoother" over all. Alternative launchers (Nova) lag for me on the GN going in/out of the app drawer, but removing widgets from the app drawer cured that. I may have to wait an extra second, maybe two, for the desktop to be fully fluid following a boot. I've never experienced keyboard lag, or alike.
In the end however, I didn't buy the GN because I thought it would kill the SGSII performance wise and the specs didn't lead me to believe that would be the case. A couple of non-performance or Android related things I really appreciate are the feel of the phone in my hand, and the action of the buttons. What I used to jokingly refer to as the "panty liner shape" of the phone is comfortable in my pocket.
It might take some more kernel experimenting on your part to find one that feels good for you. When I was on AOKP I found Leankernel to be absolutely buttery. Slight cpu/gpu advantages aside, I feel that the GN is the better phone overall and it's still a bloody fast unit, and my next device will be a Nexus as well. I'd say 95% of the time the phone feels as fast, and potentially more fluid, than my old phone.

So this year we're gonna have all these new quad core phones coming out which is great, but when the new version of android comes out we will get it right away and all those new quad core phones will be waiting up to a year to get it and by then the new version of android will be out yet again. You don't get a nexus phone for it's powerful processor look for it support and long term commitment. I had 5 android phones in the last year and I will never get anything other then a nexus because of all the stress I had trying to get updates for my other phones. My last phone the optimus 3 d was a very good phone butwe just got gingerbread a few weeks ago and lg is saying we will get ice cream sandwich in the third quarter f 2012. By then my nexus phone will probably have the new version of android. And I'm sure that lg will be dropping support for that phone because they'll have a new 1 out. But my nexus phone will most likely be supported through 2013.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using XDA App

The OMAP SoC in the Galaxy Nexus is superior to that in the GS2. It was the best SoC available for the release date they wanted.
Maybe the Exynos can benchmark higher but as Fancisco pointed out
"Most GPU workloads on 4460 with a 720p screen are limited by the
memory bandwidth, not the GPU computation ability"
I am fairly sure the OMAP SoC we have has a much higher memory bandwidth than the GS2 ^.^

TheRiceKing said:
The OMAP SoC in the Galaxy Nexus is superior to that in the GS2. It was the best SoC available for the release date they wanted.
Maybe the Exynos can benchmark higher but as Fancisco pointed out
"Most GPU workloads on 4460 with a 720p screen are limited by the
memory bandwidth, not the GPU computation ability"
I am fairly sure the OMAP SoC we have has a much higher memory bandwidth than the GS2 ^.^
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not quite. Not sure about the exact memory channel speed but they both utilize same exact memory setup dual channel LPDDR2
OMAP was the SoC that Google chose
It's essentially a terrible choice with grossly outdated gpu in a platform where GPU will start to drive every day operation
This isn't to say that Mali400MP setup is the greatest in the GPU choice but eventhough it's inefficient, it's able to push through with raw power
I may get a bit of flake for this but Nexus does micro-stutter in some instances in places like the stock app drawer (this is addressed with nova launcher but question was does the GNex stutter).
I wouldn't blame the slight lagginess or stutters on the hardware just yet seeing how ICS is still fairly new and there is also the issue with maturity of apps running ICS.

Thanks guys for your responses. I'm not trying to be a pain; just annoyed that my old phone felt smoother.
I installed Apex rom and so far it feels very fast so hopefully it will stay this way. I kept the kernel that was packaged with the rom.
Another reason I thought it was slow was because I would type on the desktop site of XDA. Using the app doesn't cause the keyboard lag. It still is strange why the keyboard would lag like that while posting on XDA.

My Thoughts On Android 4.0.4 (GSM) GNexus

So as a person who has ranted on this board before on how ****ty 4.0.2 was, I just wanted to give my thoughts on 4.0.4
The main point I want to make is that this update is really really really good!
Good Points:
-WAY Smoother overall.
-Browser Is WAY smoother and much better at rendering pages properly (Big thing for me since I constantly use the browser throughout my day).
-I don't think chrome is even necessary at this point. They will probably just merge the two.
-Camera seems much better, although my not a huge photo guy.
-Battery life is incredible! On 4.0.2 I would barely make it till the end of my day (6pm-9pm). Right now I still have 68% left. My results aren't the norm since, I rarely use the phone for long periods of times. But the difference is definitely noticeable in my daily useage.
-Switching between 3G/4G seems much better now. Everything tends load quicker now. (Twitter, browser, pulse, etc.)
There are other good points, but these are what most matter to me.
Bad Points:
-Still a slight lag between pushing multitask button and the apps showing up. But it is much improved over 4.0.2
-Some slight lag when opening app-drawer (transition is not smooth, but not bad either) However in app-drawer everything is smooth
-Minor gripe that might only bother me, is that the calender widget now shows the colored squares that represent different calendars in the middle of the box for each event, I thought it looked much better when it was smaller and in the top left corner.
There might be others, but these are what really bug me.
So yea, I think this is great update and this how the nexus should have launched.
Btw I am curious about what SMP PREEMPT Mar 13 means under kernel version?
Thanks for taking the time to read this. =)

In the secret menu (you can access dialing *#*#4636#*#*, in the first section) It is selected 'WCDMA Preferrer' or GSM/CDMA Auto (PRL)?

Mrbigshot said:
-Some slight lag when opening app-drawer (transition is not smooth, but not bad either) However in app-drawer everything is smooth
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you using a live wallpaper? I noticed this too until I switched to a static wallpaper.
My main favorite of the update is auto-brightness actually works now, and has nice transitions when increasing/decreasing the brightness.
No native mounting of USB OTG storage yet though

taylerdurden said:
In the secret menu (you can access dialing *#*#4636#*#*, in the first section) It is selected 'WCDMA Preferrer' or GSM/CDMA Auto (PRL)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow, I did not even know about this menu. Mine has WCDMA Preferrer, should I change this to GSM? I am on T-Mobile

catpunt said:
Are you using a live wallpaper? I noticed this too until I switched to a static wallpaper.
My main favorite of the update is auto-brightness actually works now, and has nice transitions when increasing/decreasing the brightness.
No native mounting of USB OTG storage yet though
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! You were right on, now the transition is really smooth after I switched to static wallpaper. Hopefully they can fix the problem with live wallpapers down the line and hopefully it is not a GPU limitation.

4.0.4 fixed the Wi-Fi drop out problem with some routers.
This's a really big improvement.

My Bluetooth works now .on 4.0.2 yakju it didnt

Mrbigshot said:
Wow, I did not even know about this menu. Mine has WCDMA Preferrer, should I change this to GSM? I am on T-Mobile
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Keep it on default. (Wcdma prefered)

Multitouch bug has gone
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

Mrbigshot said:
Thanks! You were right on, now the transition is really smooth after I switched to static wallpaper. Hopefully they can fix the problem with live wallpapers down the line and hopefully it is not a GPU limitation.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
GPU limitation I'd say, same GPU that's in the Nexus S.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

gonucks said:
GPU limitation I'd say, same GPU that's in the Nexus S.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not the same GPU.
It has been beefed up considerably.
Nexus S GPU runs slower and is fed by single channel ram.

gonucks said:
GPU limitation I'd say, same GPU that's in the Nexus S.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same, but different.
Galaxy Nexus has an overclocked version.....also its being fed by dual-channel memory now. It's on average 100% faster in GL benchmark off-screen tests. Though dual-core CPU plays a bit of a role but GL benchmark is mainly GPU. So yea on average you can expect the Galaxy Nexus SGX540 to be about 100% faster than the Nexus S SGX540 or about double the GPU performance.
Of course, it still pales in comparison to SGX544mp2 and Mali-400
But I doubt it's GPU limitation holding back live wallpapers.....more like live-wallpapers not being optimized. I'd prefer to run a black background or something anyway to save battery....live wallpapers were fun for a little bit, but got boring fast.
You can check it out on anandtech
Edit: ^^ beat to post by 2 minutes haha

Is our gpu really that much slower than mali though? I thought i saw one particular benchmark between the two like 8 Mflops vs 5 Mflops...seems same ballpark to me. Just a lot more pixels to push in the HD screen
Over in the G note forum a thread exists claiming their mali gpu is too weak for their screen and that they experience stutters and lag. Makes me not feel so bad having our current gpu.

RogerPodacter said:
Is our gpu really that much slower than mali though? I thought i saw one particular benchmark between the two like 8 Mflops vs 5 Mflops...seems same ballpark to me. Just a lot more pixels to push in the HD screen
Over in the G note forum a thread exists claiming their mali gpu is too weak for their screen and that they experience stutters and lag. Makes me not feel so bad having our current gpu.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Haha, really?

One thing that I am happy about is that on the lockscreen when you go to camera it goes straight into the camera rather than going to the homescreen AND THEN going into the camera app.

Why is panorama square? Is it just happening on my end? Started with 4.0.2 it's been square not rectangular shape.

RogerPodacter said:
Is our gpu really that much slower than mali though? I thought i saw one particular benchmark between the two like 8 Mflops vs 5 Mflops...seems same ballpark to me. Just a lot more pixels to push in the HD screen
Over in the G note forum a thread exists claiming their mali gpu is too weak for their screen and that they experience stutters and lag. Makes me not feel so bad having our current gpu.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's slower....around 50% slower than the Mali-400. But it's definitely not too weak.
There are a lot of things to account for.......the TI OMAP has HD coding capabilities which help it display things to the 1280x720 screen the Galaxy Nexus has much much easier and faster while being less "performance hungry" it's a pro of the TI OMAP that very few people take into account....Exynos can hold its ground though. In general though, the TI OMAP is a bit faster CPU wise than the Exynos, they trade blow really.
Nothing we use our phones for are really even taxing the GPU/CPU. Yea a few games here and there, but the Nexus can run them all fine. Android in general isn't really "Great" for playing games compared to iOS at leeast because of fragmentation etc...but it's great to use it for daily use and it does it's job.
Maybe when we start doing some crazy video/photo editing on smartphones.....CPU/GPU will play a much larger role. The biggest leap for android was probably single to dual-core and now, things aren't as big of a leap in general user experience performance.

So what custom ROM is the OP running? As he mentioned smoother 3G/4G switching...

Scottatron said:
So what custom ROM is the OP running? As he mentioned smoother 3G/4G switching...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He's talking about the stock 4.0.4 OTA.

I think most people are getting a little overexcited about the "smoothness".
In my experience, 4.0.4 is not really "WAY SMOOTHER". I personally can't tell the difference and I pay a lot of attention to stuff like smooth transitions, scrolling, delays, multitasking, ...
The battery life is definitely improved though. I get a lot more "screen" and a lot less "android os".

How's ART

Reading reviews I always see them speaking aabout a lag compared to say HTC one m8
I was wondering if it improves on art
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Free mobile app

PunishedSnake said:
Reading reviews I always see them speaking aabout a lag compared to say HTC one m8
I was wondering if it improves on art
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It definitely helped me. I was having some terrible keyboard lag that was mostly resolved by switching to ART

Also helped me a great deal. Most of the lag was gone with animations set to zero and switching to nova. Changing to art then made it nexus 5 smooth for me

There are reports of ART messing with Bluetooth audio though. But it's been said to help with UI performance, yes

ART pretty much eliminated the UI lag for me. It was within tolerable range before the switch, but it's pretty much gone with ART. I would certainly recommend giving it a try.

Enddo said:
There are reports of ART messing with Bluetooth audio though. But it's been said to help with UI performance, yes
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use Bluetooth audio in my car every day.

The reason I went from note 3 to m8 was due to size. How big is the g3 compared to the m8?
I miss removable batteries and hoping T-Mobile carries the 3gb ram version
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Free mobile app

G3 is a little wider, same height. T-Mobile will have the 3GB version
Sent from my XT1028 using XDA Free mobile app

rogerrhoads said:
G3 is a little wider, same height. T-Mobile will have the 3GB version
Sent from my XT1028 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Awesome I hope to hold one in hand
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Free mobile app

PunishedSnake said:
The reason I went from note 3 to m8 was due to size. How big is the g3 compared to the m8?
I miss removable batteries and hoping T-Mobile carries the 3gb ram version
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Free mobile app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think g3 is a lot bigger. I sold my m8 because it was so tiny. note 3 is where it's at
Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

At the risk of angering a lot of people on here I wish to put forward the view that 99% of the increase in performance people believe they get on ART is just placebo at this time.
The ART build on the G3 is the ART build that came with android 4.4.2 - this is now very outdated and in no way reflects the power of ART on the Android L. There are various articles and youtube videos showing that there are virtually no differences between dalvik and ART on android 4.4.2 and indeed most top developers recommended (and still do!) that you don't use ART until android L.
In terms of real world experience, I have had my D855 since release day, I spent one week on Dalvik, then one week on ART, I was amazed by the performance increase (I tweeted about it a lot!) then I switched back to Dalvik for the last 4 days and I have had no drop in performance.
Anyone who has spent a lengthy period on ART I implore you to switch back to Dalvik for a few days, you will be surprised by how little the differences actually are.

Lennyuk said:
At the risk of angering a lot of people on here I wish to put forward the view that 99% of the increase in performance people believe they get on ART is just placebo at this time.
The ART build on the G3 is the ART build that came with android 4.4.2 - this is now very outdated and in no way reflects the power of ART on the Android L. There are various articles and youtube videos showing that there are virtually no differences between dalvik and ART on android 4.4.2 and indeed most top developers recommended (and still do!) that you don't use ART until android L.
In terms of real world experience, I have had my D855 since release day, I spent one week on Dalvik, then one week on ART, I was amazed by the performance increase (I tweeted about it a lot!) then I switched back to Dalvik for the last 4 days and I have had no drop in performance.
Anyone who has spent a lengthy period on ART I implore you to switch back to Dalvik for a few days, you will be surprised by how little the differences actually are.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly my experience. I was happy with ART then I swiched back, still happy

Lennyuk said:
At the risk of angering a lot of people on here I wish to put forward the view that 99% of the increase in performance people believe they get on ART is just placebo at this time.
The ART build on the G3 is the ART build that came with android 4.4.2 - this is now very outdated and in no way reflects the power of ART on the Android L. There are various articles and youtube videos showing that there are virtually no differences between dalvik and ART on android 4.4.2 and indeed most top developers recommended (and still do!) that you don't use ART until android L.
In terms of real world experience, I have had my D855 since release day, I spent one week on Dalvik, then one week on ART, I was amazed by the performance increase (I tweeted about it a lot!) then I switched back to Dalvik for the last 4 days and I have had no drop in performance.
Anyone who has spent a lengthy period on ART I implore you to switch back to Dalvik for a few days, you will be surprised by how little the differences actually are.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've been an advocate of ART since 4.4 KitKat. On my nexus 5, ART makes multitasking faster than when using Dalvik. I also see a little less stutter when scrolling through pages with a lot of 'post' type elements. This isn't a night and day comparison, but it is definitely noticeable on my end. You can say it's a placebo, but in my eyes, there is a micro-stutter on Dalvik when pressing the multitasking button as well as when switching to another app.
I'm not saying you're wrong and demanding that I'm right. It's just been my experience. I switch apps and multitask a lot, so it's very noticeable for me. I don't see any benchmark improvements, I don't see any increase in battery life, but I do see a difference on my Nexus 5.
I'll give the G3 a week or so on Dalvik before I make the switch though. It depend on how often I see this UI lag that everyone has been talking about. I'll be getting my G3 sometime today. Hopefully before lunch
I should note that I don't sacrifice anything when using ART. All of my apps work on ART just like they do on Dalvik. So it's not like I'm losing anything by using ART instead of Dalvik(on my N5)

Lennyuk said:
At the risk of angering a lot of people on here I wish to put forward the view that 99% of the increase in performance people believe they get on ART is just placebo at this time.
The ART build on the G3 is the ART build that came with android 4.4.2 - this is now very outdated and in no way reflects the power of ART on the Android L. There are various articles and youtube videos showing that there are virtually no differences between dalvik and ART on android 4.4.2 and indeed most top developers recommended (and still do!) that you don't use ART until android L.
In terms of real world experience, I have had my D855 since release day, I spent one week on Dalvik, then one week on ART, I was amazed by the performance increase (I tweeted about it a lot!) then I switched back to Dalvik for the last 4 days and I have had no drop in performance.
Anyone who has spent a lengthy period on ART I implore you to switch back to Dalvik for a few days, you will be surprised by how little the differences actually are.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did just that because I wanted to use Xposed and it's Lag City everywhere!! The slowness is really getting on my nerves.. maybe it's time for a factory reset..
Let's hope Xposed runs on ART in the very near future...
*edit*
I found the reason for the lag, it was xPrivacy! once I got rid of it, the lag improved quite a lot. Not as good as a brand new phone but much better than previously. Interestingly enough xPrivacy didn't lag my note 3 at all..

I ran my D850 on Dalvik for the first day. It seemed a little laggy.
Switched to ART on the second day - thought I saw a small improvement, but it could have been placebo. Installed Nova and froze a bunch of the bloat.
Here's the kicker: I then installed Xposed and used the D850 for several hours before I realized that it had switched back to Dalvik. I never noticed a drop in performance. I would argue that changing the launcher, installing Xposed mods, and the G3 TweaksBox, made a much bigger impact on performance than ART.

This phone also takes a much longer time than normal to "settle" in. I was having terrible keyboard lag the first day which slowly let up over time. Now a week and a half later I don't have issues with it but I did switch to ART on day 2. I don't have any apps that aren't incompatible with ART so I won't be switching back. All I know is I lagged like a ***** the first day and a half and switching to art gave me a bit of speed over time. Now it's flawless. Would it be the same with dalvik? Maybe. I'm not willing to try. I need the phone for work and I type long emails and it was horrendous before.

Is Touchwiz really slower than stock Android?

We all love to rag on Touchwiz for being a bloated lag beast and pray for the day we can flash CM to get rid of it. However, there is a way to compare stock Touchwiz vs stock Android on two devices with exactly the same hardware specs and surprisingly, the difference is not that significant.
The takeaway is that Touchwiz seems faster loading video while stock Android is faster loading web content - I have a theory for this based upon how Touchwiz parses javascript, but that's another thread . On a benchmark basis the two are within a few hundred points of each other.
Anyway, here is an interesting video of a guy testing the S4 Play Edition (pure Android) vs the S4 Touchwiz Edition, both all stock and brand new with no rom optimizations or debloating. It's interesting and shows that while stock Android may be a bit faster overall, the difference is far less than one might have imagined. Of course the results may be different on the Tab S.

Nice, but surprising report. Guess the skeptics will need something else to complain about.
Sent from my SGP512 using Tapatalk

If only those 2 models were comparing Exynos vs Snapdragon.....then we would have a better understanding.
But I can say for sure, in daily use, Touchwiz is noticeably slower than stock.

kenkiller said:
If only those 2 models were comparing Exynos vs Snapdragon.....then we would have a better understanding.
But I can say for sure, in daily use, Touchwiz is noticeably slower than stock.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The thread is about TOUCHWIZ Vs ANDROID not Exynos vs Snapdragon. In this test anyway there doesn't appear to be much difference between the 2 running on the same platform. YMMV.
Apparently, Kitkat 4.4 introduced aggressive cpu throttling at much lower temps than prior Android versions. This may be something that is causing slowdowns you have perceived with prolonged use. While this increases battery life, it crushes performance. Fortunately a good kernel should be able to address this. In this case the hardware is fine, it is the OS which is screwing things up. I guess Google saw that people care more about battery life than blazing performance.
Anyway, here is the article. Interesting.
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/sa...at-performance-cpu-throttling-dvfs,26414.html
Again this is for the S4. Not sure how it applies to the Tab S.
Here is a thread by a dev who was able to disable the DVFS throttling on the s4. He claims that is to blame and not KitKat directly. Will research to see if thee is anything similar for the Tab S.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2674928

Ok, I see that using Wanam Xposed you can disable Samsung DVFS in Advanced Settings. No idea if this works on our Tab S but I disabled it and nothing seemed to break on reboot. This should not increase benchmarks, just stop excessive throttling. One would guess you will see better performance and worse battery life.
We'll see.

mitchellvii said:
Ok, I see that using Wanam Xposed you can disable Samsung DVFS in Advanced Settings. No idea if this works on our Tab S but I disabled it and nothing seemed to break on reboot. This should not increase benchmarks, just stop excessive throttling. One would guess you will see better performance and worse battery life.
We'll see.
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Hi Mitchell, did the battery life turn out worse?
Still deciding whether to root my tab our not (root loses a tv streaming program in belgian which is quite handy)

All I have to say is load up my alpha rom and see for yourself. It's like the difference between a tablet that came out this month (CM) and a tablet that came out three years ago (TW) performance wise.
I've gone from thinking about selling it to wondering how many years its going to be before they can produce a tablet that makes me want to upgrade.

eousphoros said:
All I have to say is load up my alpha rom and see for yourself. It's like the difference between a tablet that came out this month (CM) and a tablet that came out three years ago (TW) performance wise.
I've gone from thinking about selling it to wondering how many years its going to be before they can produce a tablet that makes me want to upgrade.
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Soon as you're ready to pop out an 800 I'll be on it.

mitchellvii said:
Soon as you're ready to pop out an 800 I'll be on it.
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There is a pre-alpha build up for the t800. Unfortunately I don't have one to debug but I hear it boots, touch screen works, but no wifi.

eousphoros said:
There is a pre-alpha build up for the t800. Unfortunately I don't have one to debug but I hear it boots, touch screen works, but no wifi.
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Oh cool. I'll hold off on trying it until WiFi gets going but will watch for it.

mitchellvii said:
Oh cool. I'll hold off on trying it until WiFi gets going but will watch for it.
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It will probably be a bit. I don't own the 800 and mainly posted that to show it was possible. If I finish the 700 before the baby is born and no one else has picked it up then I'll try to get it finished.

thomas_pieps said:
Hi Mitchell, did the battery life turn out worse?
Still deciding whether to root my tab our not (root loses a tv streaming program in belgian which is quite handy)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can use rootcloak + xposed module. the tv streaming app will not detect your root.

mitchellvii said:
I guess Google saw that people care more about battery life than blazing performance.
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Yes and this is one reason why I get sick of people moaning about battery life all the time. It's a mobile device constrained by current technology and what size battery can be squeezed in.
Yet people still expect 3 days battery, super duper speed and a nice slim light device.
For me I accept the limited capabilities of a battery in a mobile device and think they do a pretty good job as it is.
I want a mix of performance and battery, but I'll gladly sacrifice a bit of battery life for a lag free , smooth device.
However the more people moan about battery life the more the scales will tip to battery life at the cost of performance.

I would be willing to except a tablet a mm thicker to have a bigger battery
Sent from my SCH-I545 using XDA Free mobile app

thomas_pieps said:
Hi Mitchell, did the battery life turn out worse?
Still deciding whether to root my tab our not (root loses a tv streaming program in belgian which is quite handy)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you can use a root hider application to hide that application from root

Snappy enough?

Got hold a 2013 model (16GB/WIFI), I've put Purity ROM which I believe is running stock kernel. I must admit, I was expecting it to be a little bit snappier, not sure if I am being too harsh on it, having used a Nexus 5 every day since release day. I've uploaded a quick video, does it look about right?

Looks fine to me. What is the problem?

t0p8uzz said:
Got hold a 2013 model (16GB/WIFI), I've put Purity ROM which I believe is running stock kernel. I must admit, I was expecting it to be a little bit snappier, not sure if I am being too harsh on it, having used a Nexus 5 every day since release day. I've uploaded a quick video, does it look about right?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Looks fine to me. You can try cutting back on the animations a bit or adding a custom kernel like ElementalX if you want a bit of a boost.
Sent from my Nexus 7 Flo running Paranoid Android 4.4.4 using XDA premium 4 mobile app

LinearEquation said:
Looks fine to me. You can try cutting back on the animations a bit or adding a custom kernel like ElementalX if you want a bit of a boost.
Sent from my Nexus 7 Flo running Paranoid Android 4.4.4 using XDA premium 4 mobile app
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How can I cut back on the animation properly? When i dropped the transitions to .5 in dev mode, my screen went mental and start going red etc

Keep in mind that the Nexus 5 is a different processor. The N5 has a Snapdragon 800 while the N7.2 has a Snapdragon 600.
But aside from that...the tab is moving just fine.

AarSyl said:
Keep in mind that the Nexus 5 is a different processor. The N5 has a Snapdragon 800 while the N7.2 has a Snapdragon 600.
But aside from that...the tab is moving just fine.
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The CPU difference should not to be seen from the video as it is only showing the UI and app opening experiences. During those times, mostly either the CPU is jumping what's most close higher to 800MHz or GPU is kicking one step up. Either way, running some UI elements or opening app animations on 60 FPS is not forcing neither of the Socs to their max frequencies (I am talking about Snapdragon S600 and S800).
I have watched the video very carefully under different resolutions to make sure of the snappiness. The only part that seems like under 30 FPS is where "app drawer" is called. But that's only because it's a bad animation trick. The best way to make sure the UI is running at (or above) 60FPS is to see how "recent apps" are fading away when "clear recents" button is pressed or scroll up and down thgouth mails (SMSs if it's a phone).
And also enabling "force GPU rendering" and "sdisable hardware overlays" options under develper options will certainly help.

Yeah, seems about right, you can probably get some more snap out of it by using a kernel that will let you boost the clock a bit. The N7 can at least be boosted to 1.7ghz without even trying, and 2.0 is not unheard of.

Thanks for the confirmation fellas ...