Anyone with a Note II or S3 experience screen latency? My iPhone 3GS screen would register my finger instantly, but my Note II takes a while before registering finger input. It's not a huge amount of time, but it's certainly noticeable compared to an iPhone. I notice it especially when I play Jetpack Joyride, or when I'm scrolling. Anyone else experiencing this?
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Galaxy Note II screen latency?
- Thread starter PRogers86
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Skripka
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Not here either. Stock or ROM'd doesn't matter.
The Note II and S3 probably have an additional frame (maybe 2 if they don't have JellyBean yet) of touch latency over the iPhone. That sort of latency is noticeable in the form of "it feels a hair slower", which might be all you are seeing.
If it's something more significant than that you may have a bad touch screen hitting some more pathological noise filtering cases which could be slowing it down.
If it's something more significant than that you may have a bad touch screen hitting some more pathological noise filtering cases which could be slowing it down.
DriZzLe
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No latency on my GS3 with ICS or JB. Butter smooth & responsive.
I went from the iPhone 4 to the Note 2 and have definitely not noticed this in everyday use. I have played some Jetpack Joyride on it, but I can't really compare as I've only probably logged about 20-mins with that particular game on either platform.
Also my iPhone feels tiny now...
Also my iPhone feels tiny now...
Okay, so the screen seemed more responsive after turning off the Power Save features, but still ever-so-slightly less responsive than my iPhone. Playing Jetpack Joyride, the iPhone responds to my finger instantly. However, the Note 2 has a slight delay still (but much less noticeable with Power Saver turned off). Hopefully I'll get the opportunity to mess around with my friends Note 2 this week and compare. I find it very interesting that nobody else has noticed a difference in touchscreen response in the switch from iphone.
And yes, my iPhone 3gs feels like a Cracker Jack toy now.
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Emil Sinclair
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Is this a common fault? I was thinking of buying one.
Seems like an easy way to test would be to see if you have the lag in the 1st part android apps menus/chrome/gmail etc, if not that it's just the particular app you're using. I tried out a note 2 at a t-mobile store and the only lag I noticed was a slight delay when using the s-pen but it was still pretty fast.
There is no issue.
Yes, this touch screen lag exists on ALL android phones. I went from the iPhone 4, to iPhone 4S...eventually to Galaxy Note 1, HTC One X, Galaxy S3, then Galaxy Note 2.
Anybody who says it doesn't exist just doesn't notice it, but it's definitely there. Maybe they haven't compared theirs to an iPhone lol.
It still even exists on the fastest android device out, the Nexus 4. Here's a great video example of it in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E406xXr4Mok
Skip to 2:05
You can see on the iPhone the image next to his finger visually stays there the entire time he's scrolling up and down no matter how fast he moves his finger. On the Nexus 4 you can definitely tell when his finger is going up the image is under his finger, and when he's scrolling down the image is above his finger.
This is pretty much my only gripe with Android. Mostly noticed it from my favorite game Muffin Knight, loved it on my iPhone the touch controls are suppperrr responsive. As soon as I press jump before I can even lift my thumb off the screen the character jumps. On my android phones I touch the screen to jump, I see the character jump after I lift my thumb off the screen. It's a veryyy slight delay, like I said most people don't and can't notice it, but it does bug me a bit and there's no fixing it.
Dear Google Android 5.0 team.....FIX THIS SO EVERYTHING ABOUT MY ANDROID PHONE IS BETTER THAN MY GIRLFRIENDS! Thanks
after watching this vid i went back to compare between the note 2 and the iphone 4. my note 2 is no where near that bad what was shown in that video. but i can see a tad bit after watching that video . but again no where near that bad.
since i dont have an iphone 5 i cant compare to that just my iphone 4.
No, just no. That's not Android that's causing that, it's *CHROME* that's causing it. Chrome is a laggy piece of shit - there are tons of bugs and reports on this. It has *HUGE* lag compared to every other app. The Chrome team sucks at doing mobile apparently.
Android's UI doesn't have anywhere close to that amount of lag. And having played with an N4 recently, it completely matches my iPad 2 on touch responsiveness. I tested not just with scrolling in lists, but also with things like dragging icons around on the homescreen. The N4's touch screen is really fast, competes head to head against the iPhone 5 without a doubt.
Touch latency is also pretty much entirely the hardware and the touch controller firmware - Android just passes along the events it receives to the app, it doesn't add any latency itself. There are plenty of devices with touch controllers that just aren't as good as what Apple has, with firmware that just isn't as good as what Apple does. This has nothing to do with Android, though, and isn't something Google can fix.
Well Chris himself states in that video "and it applies to every application used on the phone"
On Android I notice this throughout all my apps on all of my phones. Be it chrome, dolphin, the app drawer, facebook, muffin knight, angry birds, you name it. Same higher touch latency on my Android phones than on any ios device.
Maybe you don't notice it, but me and Chris Pirillo do
I'm waiting on my Nexus 4 to come in right now actually. But I have a Galaxy S3 and an iPhone 4 right next to me currently, and the iPhone 4 beats the Galaxy S3 in touch response, and my girlfriends iPhone 5 beats the iPhone 4, I'd say it's literally instant now it's like there's no more touch latency for the iPhone 5.
When I get my Nexus 4 in I'll have to make a slow motion video for you guys or something lol. There's always the people that say they don't have it on their phones, and then the people that talk about how the touch response isn't as good as their iphones. I think the people who say they don't have any touch lag just can't really notice it...just like 90% of people out there won't notice a difference between call of duty running at 30fps on a console vs 120fps on a gaming PC. Most people just wouldn't notice the difference, and that's what is going on here.
And I'm pretty sure this has nothing to do with actual hardware and IS Android at fault. Here's an excerpt from an article describing why exactly android has so much touch latency compared to ios.
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I honestly cannot tell the difference...
side by side videos below that I shot of the iPhone 4 and SGH-i317 below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqZqM5E4ZjA
http://youtu.be/yADoov7AdZM
edit: I'll charge up my GoPro and see if slow mo works if yall really want... It's not exactly a scientific test, but I'm pretty damn sure that the games respond to touch exactly the same.
side by side videos below that I shot of the iPhone 4 and SGH-i317 below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqZqM5E4ZjA
http://youtu.be/yADoov7AdZM
edit: I'll charge up my GoPro and see if slow mo works if yall really want... It's not exactly a scientific test, but I'm pretty damn sure that the games respond to touch exactly the same.
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Then why did he use an app that is known to be much worse than everything else in the video?
What devices do you have?
The iPhone 5 is still ~4-5 frames of latency or so, just like the iPhone 4 was. Nobody has come anywhere close to instant - we're still a good order of magnitude away from that.
Please do, I would be very interested in objective measurements of the touch latency with a slow mo camera. Sadly I do not have such a camera to test myself. Although maybe a go pro at 60fps would be good enough, I'll have to try and get my hands on an N4 again.
That explanation is complete horseshit and was repeatedly debunked by everyone. It not only got Android's architecture explanation wrong, it also got iOS's architecture completely wrong as well. I have no idea how a random post by a fucking intern is now quoted as truth, but whatever.
On my S3 if I use dolphin, stock, or chrome browser the touch response is pretty much the same, the only thing that chrome lags in is loading the webpages so I usually use Dolphin as it seems the fastest. But the actualy touch delay seems the same throughout all apps on my android phones.
As I stated earlier I first switched from ios to android a year ago for the Galaxy Note's huge screen. Loved android and went on to the HTC One X, Galaxy S3, and Galaxy Note 2. My Nexus 4 just shipped out yesterday so I should be able to test that one soon, I hear it's the best android device as far as touch response goes so I'm excited to try it out!
Perhaps you just aren't as sensitive to the problem as you claim then. Chrome has a good 2-3 frames more latency than the stock browser, which is bigger than the difference between a Galaxy Nexus and an iPhone.
I'd record the lag test on your devices then. Sniper's video showed no lag between the two.
Perhaps you just aren't as sensitive to the problem as you claim then. Chrome has a good 2-3 frames more latency than the stock browser, which is bigger than the difference between a Galaxy Nexus and an iPhone.
So google added 2-3 frames of latency for the Chrome app for Android but kept the ios Chrome app touch delay free? I just tried out Chrome on my old iPhone 4, and while the pages load horribly slow, once it's loaded it definitely responds quicker than chrome on my Galaxy S3. I'll get a slow mo video up for you guys. You wouldn't be able to tell the difference in a normal speed video since it's so slight, it's more something you just "feel" but it will show up in slow mo i'm sure.
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Chrome on iOS is just a wrapper around Safari, just like all browsers are on iOS. Chrome on Android is actually Chrome. I have no idea why Google released a Safari skin on iOS, I guess just to get more people on the Chrome sync train?
Ahh, I did not know that, that would explain why chrome and safari on ios both feel the same. Yeah the sync function is pretty nice when you use Chrome as your main desktop browser too so that's understandable.
His video wasn't in slow motion. It's hard to tell 2-3 frames of latency difference in a video going 30fps and you also can't tell when his finger hits the screen only he can feel that. It's not so bad that you visually see lag on Android all the time it's just more of a "laggy feel" vs using an iPhone.
Here is a SLOW MOTION video I recorded of my Galaxy S3 oced to 1.7ghz vs the iPhone 5. Stock browser on both phones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVDMOP1pWCQ
If you can't see the difference now then idk what to tell you lol. This isn't so much of a "problem" on android just more of an annoyance if you're one of the people that can feel the difference. I'm sure they'll eventually get it fixed and caught up to the iphone touch reponse.
Is your S3 running JellyBean or ICS? Also FYI, but CPU clock speed doesn't matter for shit here. Your CPU is practically idle - it isn't involved in the bulk of the touch processing, and it isn't involved in scrolling other than telling the GPU what work it needs to do. This isn't testing the software, either, it's testing the touch controller and it's firmware.
Can you also do the same test both with just a basic list, like the settings app?
Software can't fix a hardware issue. It's sad, but Android OEMs still skimp on things like touch controllers and other stuff that doesn't show up on the spec sheet. Just like TV and monitor OEMs don't seem to care much input lag
I'm running Serenity 1.2 it's a JB rom. JB definitely is quicker than ICS and like I said they are catching up. It's hard to even see the lag without slow motion, it's just something you can "feel". There is a lot of info on the net how they improved touch response time from ICS to JB, so why would you say it has nothing to do with the Android OS when an Android update alone improved the response time on the same old hardware?
Well, FYI, CPU speed does matter here. This is directly from developer.android.com, or you can just google "CPU Input Boost"
"Android 4.1 reduces touch latency not only by synchronizing touch to vsync timing, but also by actually anticipating where your finger will be at the time of the screen refresh. This results in a more reactive and uniform touch response. In addition, after periods of inactivity, Android applies a CPU input boost at the next touch event, to make sure there’s no latency."
Part of Project Butter is boosted CPU speeds JUST WHEN you touch the screen to help increase responsiveness.
Because JB fixed the problem the old architecture had. The system is no longer adding any delay itself.
The CPU boost there is to give the app time to process the touch and draw before "dropping" a frame - once you're sustaining 60fps no amount of overclocking will reduce latency. This is necessary because typically governors will "lag" intentionally and that would result in the first frame or two after a touch the system would still be running at idle clocks. Let's say at stock speeds it's handling input and redrawing in 15ms, and with your overclock it's doing that in 10ms instead - there won't be any difference visually as in both cases the frame won't be displayed until the 16ms mark anyway.
If you actually run a systrace with the back and forth test you just did you'd see that there's a *ton* of spare CPU cycles per frame as browser's draw loop is very basic - it's just a handful of draw texture commands and nothing else.
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The Note 2 has ATROCIOUS input lag of the order of what feels like 300ms in some cases. It's a pathetic excuse for a touchscreen device that costs $600.
I've tried many Android devices and the only phone that has low input lag is the HTC One X with the Tegra 3's DirectTouch technology. It's almost as good as the iPhone but still visibly slower than the iPhone 5.
The entire newer generation of Samsung phones have horrendous input lag compared to the older Galaxy S II. My SGS2 has around 100ms of input lag.
This is the truth. Don't ever believe anything anyone says to the contrary until you examine the device yourself. They're either blind or lying fanboys. If you're coming from an iPhone you'll notice the lag immediately.
I've tried many Android devices and the only phone that has low input lag is the HTC One X with the Tegra 3's DirectTouch technology. It's almost as good as the iPhone but still visibly slower than the iPhone 5.
The entire newer generation of Samsung phones have horrendous input lag compared to the older Galaxy S II. My SGS2 has around 100ms of input lag.
This is the truth. Don't ever believe anything anyone says to the contrary until you examine the device yourself. They're either blind or lying fanboys. If you're coming from an iPhone you'll notice the lag immediately.
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I'd go with lying fanboys. Coming from iPhones (lots) and Owning the GS3 (I had two, then switched to Note 2 (I own two as well.. one for me and one for the gf). They do have a slight lag in comparison to my iphones which are older and much slower.
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Exaggerate much?
I wonder how this hasn't been brought up in one of the several (very positive) reviews from pretty much every reputable tech blog/review site then..?
I actually have noticed that my Note 2 (or any other Android device) isn't quite as responsive as iOS on the iPhone 4S/5, but you really have to be looking for it or paying attention to it. It's nowhere near to the point of degrading the UI and experience of using the phone. I have never experienced any input lag anywhere near 50ms, let alone 300ms (yes, I can tell when response is < 50ms). It's probably considerably lower than that in the core OS/App UI's.
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Exaggerate much?
I wonder how this hasn't been brought up in one of the several (very positive) reviews from pretty much every reputable tech blog/review site then..?
I actually have noticed that my Note 2 (or any other Android device) isn't quite as responsive as iOS on the iPhone 4S/5, but you really have to be looking for it or paying attention to it. It's nowhere near to the point of degrading the UI and experience of using the phone. I have never experienced any input lag anywhere near 50ms, let alone 300ms (yes, I can tell when response is < 50ms). It's probably considerably lower than that in the core OS/App UI's.
Only out of the box. The moment you set it up for real world usage (and that includes intelligently filtering apps that appear poorly designed) it'll start lagging everywhere.
Buttons don't even get depressed until you've already pressed and removed your finger from the screen. Lists beging scroll like molasses only after you've dragged your finger for inches on the screen and then proceed to stutter and freeze while scrolling. I can literally place it side by side with my iPhone 4, and then touch a list item on the Note and then with the same finger quickly touch a list item on the iPhone 4. The iPhone 4 would have processed the click before the background even gets hilighted on the Note. I can also do this with my SGS2 but it's difficult.
It's a hardware problem with no solution. They might even be using different controllers in different batches which could explain any "legit" affirmations of no lag.
The lag on the Note 1 I use at work and other people's Note 2s which I've used completely destroy the user experience for me. I feel like smashing it against a wall whenever I pick it up and try to do something. My ancient SGS2 is far superior to the Notes and my even more ancient iPhone 4 is superior to every Android device in existence.
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This is the kind of input lag I see on the Note and Note 2. Other phones are way better than this but still lag.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDwtdqmjCnE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDwtdqmjCnE
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To be fair here, there are PLENTY of times using ios that you have to repeatedly touch an icon to get a response.
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No one is refuting that. The problem with devices like the Note 2 is the PERMANENT input lag EVERYWHERE.
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^honestly I never notice it.
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Maybe you should look at the video I posted above. GIven the velocity that he's moving his finger that about same amount of lag present throughout the UI.