Galaxy S4 laggy?

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CJLewis87

Senior Member
May 29, 2013
87
22
36
Shrewsbury, U.K
UXELLR said:
With stockUAME2 my phone is usually stutterfree. But at least once a day it starts to hang. There is lag in appdrawer and browsing trough homescreens.

After a restart everything is fine again. Hope its not like the emc bug in s3, where it finally dies.

Does any have an idea, how I can track down the cause of the problem? Or is my best bet to wait for samsung to improve their rom.
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It does seem a bit odd. I find the device pretty fluid, but agree that you get the odd "jank" here and there. I notice it particularly in the app drawer once in a while, occasionally swiping through home screens, but mostly loading the gallery (seems to take 0.5 seconds to respond) then opening new albums can be a little jerky. I seem to remember a similar gallery issue on the S3 which was later fixed via firmware upgrade. Then again, as people have said, a device with this hardware should absolutely fly; it seems Sammy has some work to do in software optimisation to marry with the top-end hardware.

Incidentally, most of time I find myself with "power save mode" enabled and find this really fluid, at least in comparison to the S3 where frames would drop massively with that mode enabled. I've also disabled S-Voice home button double tap, and changed animations to 0.5x (I don't like turning animations completely off as that spoils the UI experience a little for me).

I read somewhere today that a new firmware build from May 14th and new change log was made available for Hong Kong, so perhaps the United Kingdom BTU update shouldn't be far off which would iron out some of these issues?
 
UXELLR

UXELLR

Senior Member
Apr 22, 2011
93
53
Yes, the phone for me runs great most of the time, even on powersavingmode whitch I seldom use.

I think they have tried, and did a o.k job, to hide the laginess of touchwiz in S4. In s3 there was always some stutters scrolling trough list. For example in settings. Now they have made the list shorter, with tabs of each area, so we don't see it.

But for me now, its the suddenly hang/lag/stuttering thats it's the problem. As if it runs on one core at 800, or something is updating.

I tried closing programs, free ram, tur of wifi, set it in airplanemode, but the only thing that helps is a restart.

And of course don't get me started on the camera shutter lag...moving objects is a blurred mess even in well lit rooms.
 
C

CJLewis87

Senior Member
May 29, 2013
87
22
36
Shrewsbury, U.K
UXELLR said:
Yes, the phone for me runs great most of the time, even on powersavingmode whitch I seldom use.

I think they have tried, and did a o.k job, to hide the laginess of touchwiz in S4. In s3 there was always some stutters scrolling trough list. For example in settings. Now they have made the list shorter, with tabs of each area, so we don't see it.

But for me now, its the suddenly hang/lag/stuttering thats it's the problem. As if it runs on one core at 800, or something is updating.

I tried closing programs, free ram, tur of wifi, set it in airplanemode, but the only thing that helps is a restart.

And of course don't get me started on the camera shutter lag...moving objects is a blurred mess even in well lit rooms.
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I agree, the camera shutter lag needs fixing, and so do some of the moving object(s) issues. However, I have managed to snap some brilliant shots using the new camera and that has been one of my favourite upgrades since moving from the S3 (some great shots of my Rottweiler on drama etc., like the duel camera/video too). As for the general TouchWiz scrolling, I also agree. Even the chat bubbles in messages/contacts page would stutter on the S3, where now they seem buttery smooth. The only stutter I seem to get now is in call/message logs. As you say, the advanced options have been split into tabs now, but even scrolling up and down developer options etc. is fine.

So to have all those improvements, and then have this random jank every now and then, is just puzzling. It's got to be down to optimising the software, which we'll hopefully get in the next update. As for JB 4.3 (or 5.0 etc), Sammy are doing to need to do a better job optimising TW. Don't get me wrong, unlike many, I'm actually a fan of TW and like its UI, but it seems to be an unnecessarily heavy skin, which is hampering outright performance.
 
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rabbit140

Senior Member
Nov 2, 2012
74
8
Warsaw
I've recently had a chance to get my hands on the Galaxy S4 in my local T-mo store. I was really curious how well it would perform in UI compared to my Nexus 4. Holy Mother of God, it was TERRIBLE (scrolling in the app drawer, scrolling in settings). As for a >600% phone, this should never happen. When I've taken my Nexus out of my pocket I just couldn't believe how the new S4 was laggy. I don't know if it's widespread or not, but judging by many YouTube videos showing this lag, it might be. I'm glad that I hadn't waited more and went for Nexus.
 
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Vexxx

Senior Member
Oct 10, 2012
92
15
StuartTheFish said:
I don't know how you guys see all this lag, I don't have any!
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Some people may be more sensitive to even minor lag/stutter or tolerate other better than other. I wondered when some people complained about delay when opening e.g. contacts. Obviously delays do not bother me as I did not ever notice this delay. But stutters drive me crazy and I notice them immedeatly. :)

Reminds me of when friend was playing a game with computer and I asked how come the stutter did not bother him. He did not understand what I was talking about and game was fine in his opinion. Lucky him, he did not have to buy latest hardware all the time. :p
 
StuartTheFish

StuartTheFish

Senior Member
Nov 9, 2011
2,507
772
Vexxx said:
Some people may be more sensitive to even minor lag/stutter or tolerate other better than other. I wondered when some people complained about delay when opening e.g. contacts. Obviously delays do not bother me as I did not ever notice this delay. But stutters drive me crazy and I notice them immedeatly. :)

Reminds me of when friend was playing a game with computer and I asked how come the stutter did not bother him. He did not understand what I was talking about and game was fine in his opinion. Lucky him, he did not have to buy latest hardware all the time. :p
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It's not me tolerating lag, or not noticing it due to being used to crap, I literally don't have any!
 
S

skibadee

Senior Member
Apr 12, 2011
621
88
Bristol
StuartTheFish said:
It's not me tolerating lag, or not noticing it due to being used to crap, I literally don't have any!
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So you keep saying...

You must have one of the uber premium, completely lag free s4s, that only a very select few were lucky to get their mits on.

Maybe everyone else's are from a very very large batch of faulty lag/stutter prone devices. ;)

Or you just can't see it/want to see it.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using xda premium
 
D

deppy

Member
May 14, 2013
23
4
Berlin
When I was on Stock for the 10 minutes I had it, I suffered no lag. When I moved to CM, I suffered no lag. When I used CM with "ChronicKernel", I suffered lag and a huge battery drain.

I think it's just about finding the right combo of things if you modify your phone at all.
 
TheYar

TheYar

Senior Member
May 27, 2008
147
31
I just picked up a new one from Verizon. It is unbelievably laggy. I'm constantly missing taps and swipes because it is just not keeping up. Staring at "please wait" for simple stuff like saving a photo. I'm shocked. Any kernel recommendations?
 
G

GuestX0019

Guest
you should be latest version DL, assume it is same as att--not sure

put animations to .5 and check "disable hw overlays" all under development

it shouldn't lag like that--you aren't rooted are you

most people are fine. if it is that bad, exchange it

both mine are smooth and all works well
 
R

rsndetre

Senior Member
Mar 6, 2012
134
34
TheYar said:
I just picked up a new one from Verizon. It is unbelievably laggy. I'm constantly missing taps and swipes because it is just not keeping up. Staring at "please wait" for simple stuff like saving a photo. I'm shocked. Any kernel recommendations?
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My S4 has no lag, but a HTC One that I tried displayed this type of problems. By that I wanted to point that is not related to a specific manufacturer but probably is related to how you use it. Kill some apps, shut down some features, see what is causing it.
 
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pifsworld

pifsworld

Senior Member
May 1, 2010
344
31
I can't see any lag and I've been using the HTC one before this and the s4 seems smoother to me but I can't see the lag you mention.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using xda app-developers app
 
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cyrilreal

cyrilreal

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May 22, 2014
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cyril.real.free.fr
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    paddylaz
    Could a better man than me please please EXPLAIN why there is lag?

    I understand about software optimization and all that.....but we're on the galaxy s FOUR now. I mean, why is there STILL dialer lag? Are the software engineers stumped as to how to fix it? Does apple have some sort of patent on something in iOS that rids it off 99% of any lag?

    I would love for someone to concisely explain this. Project butter obviously helped........but the GS4 is a powerhouse - what sort of processor will be needed for zero lag??? 3ghz? 10? I just don't get it.


    As much as I hate apple, the difference is iOS users get excited about firmware updates because they bring new features, whereas the majority of GS users get excited because the new firmwares are fixing bugs and ui issues. Depressing.
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    4
    nathsgames
    nathsgames
    skivnit said:
    Either bull****ing or badly configured phone. Mine does not lag at all and all the so called gimmicks work just fine for me. I can scroll with moving my eyes and use hand gestures. Everything is fine except for the smearing but that doesn't bother me.

    Swyped from another galaxy
    Click to expand...
    Click to collapse

    POS, friggin thing overheats, freezes, lags. It's a toy, nothing more, nothing less. I took my second one back today as it was just as bad as the first.

    How could you destroy such a great product +Samsung Mobile ? I mean I am returning mine today as the lag just makes it unuseable. The extreme lag. Also just a real pain to do anything like heaven forbid, change an icon on the Homescreen or move a widget. Also none of the new features work. And the camera next to almost doesn't respond. Oh, and you can't email a picture from the Share menu on the picture itself. I also didn't find it very bright at all and overall just horrible. For a new or light user maybe OK. But for a Samsung lover it's just horrible. Touchwiz has just gone horrible.

    And in Gallery, the photos hardly ever load. If they do, they can freeze the whole phone. If you actually get to view a photo, and turn the phone sideways, the photo stays in portait. You have to press a button to rotate the photo! And vice versa.

    You can't even replace the bottom row of icons and you have to go Menu - Edit just to move an icon or resize a widget. It just plain sucks. The lag is inexcuseable.

    And the email program has changed from black screen to white screen, making it really hard to view the emails.

    Overall the colours are really garish and cartoony. You really can't tell it's a 1080P screen. It also doesn't feel like 5".

    When you compare the Galaxy S4 to a HTC One or an LG Optimus G you can tell there's a lot missing in the Samsung.

    I would say the Galaxy S4 is on par with quality and brightness of the Sony Xperia Z.

    And that's saying something.

    I have owned every Galaxy phone since the Galaxy S. I use a Note II daily. I love Samsung

    But they have destroyed the Galaxy name with the S4.
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    3
    naveediftikhar
    naveediftikhar
    OK to all those guys who say that the lag is due to the touch wiz interface... Seriously.. It's like saying that iphone4 was small cause of the screen size and not due to Apple's final decision... It's the final product that matter.. If Samsung decides to implement certain features in their phone it should be implemented perfectly.. I don't want to buy a 600 dollar phone only for it to get better with time.. I want the baby to shoot stars from the word go... S3/s2 all for better software's with time isn't an excuse.. It's just poor management and customer support.. Samsung has always been poor at fixing bugs and all...i have never seen a single HTC device after sensation to have any software issues out of the box.. But my s3... Damn the baby lagged like hell in it's settings menu.. transitions were buggy which i accept got better with time but i had to live through hell for 3 months cause where i live it cost me 50000... So yeah "it's just the home button lag" doesn't cut it... Its a freaking quad core phone..i myself was a Samsung fan boy for a while but all this no source code don't care about the developers attitude of Samsung put me off... and what's the point of buying s4 if you eventually gonna Debloat it why not buy a s3 as all new features are practically just bloatware..!
    Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium
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    3
    Baldilocks
    Baldilocks
    neilmc1983 said:
    One way to reduce the time going back to the home screen when pressing the home button is to go in to s-voice setting and untick 'Open S Vocie by double pressing the home key' This will speed up going back to the home screen

    And you could reduce the animation scale in the developer options to 0.5x, this will speed up things

    but to eliminate actual juddery lag, then there's no hope. touchwiz is slow. it will never be as smooth and slick as an iPhone or Nexus 4 etc..
    Click to expand...
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    I prefer Nova Launcher anyway. Just because it has so many more options.
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    B
    Bagbug
    Samsung's fanboys wont admit it , but the SGS2/3/Note1/2/10.1 lag out of the box.

    Just walk in a Staples or a BB and try a Note 10.1. It is extremely laggy.

    You need to disable all the crapwares/bloatwares if you want to feel this tablet runs like an iPad.

    I never understood why Samsung let their demos(out of the box devices) be so unpleasant to use.

    Some are saying Google cant live without Samsung but I say a Motorola Google X available with all the carriers would remove Samsung from the number one Android phones.

    Samsung need to be bumped asap
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