[Q] Why is my Nook HD+ embarrassingly slow?

[brentil]

I had bought a Nook HD+ to be the replacement for my aging 1st generation Kindle Fire (Otter) tablet. However after having had it for 6 months now I've been rather disappointed with it. On paper it should have been better than my OG KF in every way but in reality that has not been true.

Nook HD+

• Released 2012
• 1.50GHz TI OMAP 4470 (ARM Cortex A9 + PowerVR SGX 544)
• 1 GB of memory
• 32 GB storage (controller without issue too)
• CM11 Nightly 2014.08.02 installed to internal storage
• Davlik, stock kernel, not overclocked

Kindle Fire

• Released 2011
• 1GHz TI OMAP 4430 (ARM Cortex A9 + PowerVR SGX540)
• 512 MB of memory
• 8 GB storage
• CM11 Nightly 2014.08.02 installed to internal storage
• Davlik, stock kernel, not overclocked

Whenever it comes to anything relating to the screen though this old as dirt KF tablet still performs better than this much newer and on paper better device. The Nook HD+ is obviously better as most apps perform much better like browsing FB app, looking at web pages with lots of content, running any number of non-visual intensive apps.

Places the Nook HD+ bogs down.

• Paging around in the home screen stutters when loading icons even if the page has already been loaded.
• Closing an app and returning to the home screen is extremely sluggish and then requires reloading of each page.
• The boot animation is completely embarrassing, it jitters and skips like it's been beaten to death.
• Scrolling through large pages of data in Chrome jitters rather badly.
• Some games with intensive video requirements are just nasty at times. Running really slow or slowing down over time.

This video shows the KF next to the Nook HD+ to show how horrible the start animation is. After loading I page left then right and you can see the home page stutter on loading the icons when I come back left.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEJK-VUZunk

This video shows loading PvZ 2 where just the loading screens alone are running slower and jitter more. Then when loaded menus take longer to load and are very jittery compared to the KF.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCG8GKIWyso

Note - I even removed the overclock from the KF for these tests.

I realize the resolution is greater on the HD+ than the KF but the Amazon KF HD 8.9" uses the same hardware as the HD+ and it doesn't have the same issues. I also recall when running the stock firmware the system was much more responsive than it is under CM11 (any version).

This really seems like a lack of a good video driver or something wrong with the memory management.

I'm looking for serious discussion on this and not "well mine works fine so it must be yours..." or suggestions of running some random ROM or running TRIM or tweaking some random setting. This is something more than basic settings as I've already tried several over the last 6 months along with fresh installs of CM.

 

[Deleted member 2092952]

Your hd+ looks normal. I wouldn't think about it too much as its more than likely not getting better than that.

I just bought a new phone and the hardware made android so much more snappier then it was on the last one no matter how much people had tweaked the roms.

Just how it is. Its a cheap tablet with a nice size screen and hardware not quite capable.

 

[Odenknight]

Your hd+ looks normal. I wouldn't think about it too much as its more than likely not getting better than that.

I just bought a new phone and the hardware made android so much more snappier then it was on the last one no matter how much people had tweaked the roms.

Just how it is. Its a cheap tablet with a nice size screen and hardware not quite capable.

I've installed CM11 for two of my friends on their HD+'s, and their is snappier than mine. All are fresh installs. There is a very noticeable difference between mine (purchased in June, 2013), and theirs (purchased in May & June 2014). I didn't write everything down, but there was very little difference in the information for each device as reported by Quadrant.

 

[leapinlar]

I've installed CM11 for two of my friends on their HD+'s, and their is snappier than mine. All are fresh installs. There is a very noticeable difference between mine (purchased in June, 2013), and theirs (purchased in May & June 2014). I didn't write everything down, but there was very little difference in the information for each device as reported by Quadrant.

You maybe experiencing lag since you have been running longer (since 2013, not just with CM11). Also you may have a different emmc chip than they do. There are hardware differences between some devices

Sent from my BN NookHD+ using XDA Premium HD app

 

[Odenknight]

You maybe experiencing lag since you have been running longer (since 2013, not just with CM11). Also you may have a different emmc chip than they do. There are hardware differences between some devices

Sent from my BN NookHD+ using XDA Premium HD app

Thanks for the info. I'll ask them to send me the device info and I'll compare them both. Based off of what you said earlier, it may be due to too many writes to the chip? If so, I can live with that. I did abuse the heck out of it.

Thanks to you, VG, and everyone else in the community who put all of this together.

 

[leapinlar]

Thanks for the info. I'll ask them to send me the device info and I'll compare them both. Based off of what you said earlier, it may be due to too many writes to the chip? If so, I can live with that. I did abuse the heck out of it.

Thanks to you, VG, and everyone else in the community who put all of this together.

That is exactly what I meant. But if you run CM11 enough, it may speed up due to it running TRIM in the background.

Sent from my BN NookHD+ using XDA Premium HD app

 

[Deleted member 2092952]

Idk. Had two of these, one for three months and this one since around when you got yours. It performs as I remember and as I expect.

But since your comparing directly to another aren't ALL electronics that way? This display is more blue than that one, this hard drive has more errors that that one. This cpu can be oc'd more than that one.

There's always things causing speed differences. Background services, amount of free space - its best to have >50% free space, amount of installed apps, what leapinlar pointed out, etc.

In one month they could have no noticeable difference. Tis all I'm saying.

[You might was to switch over to using art instead of dalvic as well if not already. It may/may not help in making it feel faster as its suppoed to be the PBT™ (Performance Boosting Thing). Mine is on art. You may also want to go into the recovery and do a full backup before that.]

 

[neoage]

[You might was to switch over to using art instead of dalvic as well if not already. It may/may not help in making it feel faster as its suppoed to be the PBT™ (Performance Boosting Thing). Mine is on art. You may also want to go into the recovery and do a full backup before that.]

Pardon my ignorance, but how do you do this?

 

[Deleted member 2092952]

Pardon my ignorance, but how do you do this?

This post is for a phone, but it is the same for all devices (I just randomly picked a post):

http://forums.androidcentral.com/android-4-4-kitkat/404625-enabling-art-android-4-4-3-devices.html

Quote "To enable ART, Go to settings => About Phone =>Then go to Build Number and tap on Build Number until it ask if you want to enable Developer Options (or something in that effect) Once you say yes, Go back once and above About Phone you should see Developer options.

Under Developer options, go to "Select Runtime" (which should be on Dalvik) and select ART. Once you do this it will need to reboot your phone and then it will go through an update process on your Apps. Depending on how many Apps you have this can take a bit. I suggest doing when you won't need your phone for a few minutes and also make sure to plug your phone into power to help it go faster.

Once it is done, I suggest testing one or two apps to make sure they work. Then I would reboot your phone one more time. (This seems to fix a noticed app lag after the update). Once it comes back up, use your phone as normal and enjoy the free speed boost and a little added battery life. I have not noticed any issue with the 168 apps on my Nexus 5 nor any stability issue with the device, but again you millage may vary on your device and apps."


Some additional notes:

I stress doing a full recovery backup first. If you don't have enough internal space available, then that may cause it to be unusable when android starts up due to it failing while configuring art.

Phones (and other low internal storage devices) are a bit problematic due to amount of space available. My htc sensation couldn't enable art from not enough internal space. But the nook hd+ (for instance) has plenty (assuming its not all used).

Art is supposed to be enabled automatically in the next android release.
"With the L Developer Preview, ART is now the default runtime."
https://developer.android.com/preview/api-overview.html

Art requires more space due the fact that apps are pre-compiled during install:
"ART, on the other hand, uses an Ahead-of-Time compiler (AOT) to process application instructions before they're needed so things run more smoothly for the user."
http://lifehacker.com/android-art-vs-dalvik-runtimes-effect-on-battery-life-1507264545

You'll possibly lose about half a GB or more. It just depends on how many apps including the apps included with the rom.

 

[cutefuzzybunny]

The reason why the hd+ has poorer performance is probably due to it dragging a 1920x1080 (2073600 pixels) screen while the Fire has a 1024x600 screen (614400 pixels). Processing a full 1080p screen vs a 600 makes a big difference. The 544 isn't much of an upgrade over the 540 to make up for it. While it doubles the frame rate in graphics by about 2x over the 540, its having to push more than 3x the pixels.

Apple had the same issue with the ipad 3 when they went to the retina screen. It was a bit of a dog on pushing the retina screen, hence the quick rollout of the ipad 4 with a much faster cpu and gpu.

Lastly, amazon has a lot of pretty good paid developers optimizing the heck out of the Fire. I doubt its running a stock google display/graphics driver.

One of the things with high density displays. They're pretty and nice for text but you need plenty of horsepower to run them.

 

[brentil]

I signed up for alerts but doesn't seem like I was getting them.

I was comparing it to the OG Kindle Fire because it was the first real Android tablet and it's old as dirt now. Also as mentioned in the other performance vs stock thread when running the default Nook HD+ OS the interface is a lot more responsive and games perform better too. It seems like there's something missing between those kernel's/drivers and the CM version.

Of note these commits might help us with some of our issues. It looks like they're enabling a 128 MB swap partition for this device.

http://review.cyanogenmod.org/#/c/68840/