I am now convinced Touchwiz sucks.

A

///AMG

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So I caved and bought a Z2 that just came today. I set it up literally the EXACT same way as I did my Note 3. I mean everything on the screen is exactly the same in the same position with all the same apps and the same widgets etc. Literally carbon copy and the Z2 feels absolutely zippier than the Note 3. It never lags through anything, and screen rotation doesnt take forever either. Transitions are wayyyy better.

I always thought Touchwiz was OK nothing wrong because I have been using it for a while and I dont really care to mess with my phones much anymore but Sony's light skin is miles ahead of Touchwiz. I havent used a Nexus device as my Daily and stock android since the Galaxy Nexus, but it makes me wonder just how bad it is compared to a Nexus device. But not enough to make me want any Nexus phones.

That is all.
 
What the hell are you talking about, Touchwiz is beyond fast, never lags, your phone was just shit.

Kidding, I agree, Touchwiz is kind of crap, multi window is cool but there is just not enough screen real estate. There are some other cool features but nothing worth the lag that comes with Touchwiz. You should try a phone like a Nexus 5 or another phone with stock Android. It'll probably be even quicker then your Xperia.
 
PCunicorn said:
What the hell are you talking about, Touchwiz is beyond fast, never lags, your phone was just shit.

Kidding, I agree, Touchwiz is kind of crap, multi window is cool but there is just not enough screen real estate. There are some other cool features but nothing worth the lag that comes with Touchwiz. You should try a phone like a Nexus 5 or another phone with stock Android. It'll probably be even quicker then your Xperia.
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I always think about the nexus devices. But I need the battery life and I wanted water resistance and it was my number one feature I wanted when buying a new phone this year. If a nexus device comes without a gimped battery and water resistance I am in.
 
You wanted the comparison vs a Nexus device:

My friend thinks my Nexus 4 (ART (No dalvik), custom ROM, definitely better than stock battery life) feels faster than his Galaxy S5 overall.

We tested it out briefly:

- Menu transitions and application-switching are certainly faster and smoother on my nexus 4.

- Webpage loading is a toss-up depending on the page. Scrolling within webpages is also about even. No huge differences.

- Obviously the camera quality and speed is far superior on the GS5. I'm sure the gaming is much better on the GS5 as well.


He likes all the Samsung features, so he doesn't care. He also had a LOT of stuff running in the background, but disabling those programs didn't help much.

I'm guessing the GS5 will finally feel faster when it switches over to ART with Android L.

I bet I could streamline his install and usage enough to make the GS5 speed difference more apparent, but then that would disrupt his workflow. He knows what he is doing - not a noob.
 
I doubt ART is going to make much of a difference. Most (read: all) of the core stuff is native code already anyway.
 
In a galaxy far far away, in an age long forgotten, there was a time when TouchWiz used to be a decent skin, lighter than Sense, admired for its options, its support for media playback etc.

Such tales are still told, but the memories are fading...

(my S3 with TW wasn't too bad, may it RIP)
 
jwcalla said:
I doubt ART is going to make much of a difference. Most (read: all) of the core stuff is native code already anyway.
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I've never found any noticeable difference with ART on either of my devices, both running CM/AOSP KitKat. (As a result, I've stuck with Dalvik to date for maximum compatibility). There seems to be a lot of misinformation on its purpose and the scope of its potential to improve performance; as I understand it, only app launch times are affected, nothing within an app.
 
brettjrob said:
I've never found any noticeable difference with ART on either of my devices, both running CM/AOSP KitKat. (As a result, I've stuck with Dalvik to date for maximum compatibility). There seems to be a lot of misinformation on its purpose and the scope of its potential to improve performance; as I understand it, only app launch times are affected, nothing within an app.
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Its the run time environment, it literally affects everything. However I doubt it will have as big of an impact as most are hoping for, seeing as the big difference is just when it compiles code.

Also there are more issues with Android then just the RTE and that is mostly the OEM's.
 
That is why installing a custom ROM is the first thing you do with with a Samsung phone.

TW was usable once. It works great on my Gingerbread Captivate Glide, but is complete shit on my Galaxy Note.
 
MrCrispy said:
In a galaxy far far away, in an age long forgotten, there was a time when TouchWiz used to be a decent skin, lighter than Sense, admired for its options, its support for media playback etc.

Such tales are still told, but the memories are fading...

(my S3 with TW wasn't too bad, may it RIP)
Click to expand...

TW was great on my S3, the hardware acceleration really made it feel smooth and snappy. Alas, all good things come to an end. R.I.P Galaxy, Long Live Nexus.
 
I used Samsung phones almost exclusively outside of Apple the past 3 years and I guess I was just so used to Touchwiz. I never really noticed how bloated it became since there was always a bump in hardware performance to go with the extra crap.

I am also convinced my Note 3 maybe just not built well or I just compromised for so long since my Note 2. The speakers are terrible even with volume + and the camera is just bad it's also terrible to hold. I honestly haven't been so impressed with a phone in a long time the Z2 is just so amazing all around. I might just buy the Z3 in a fee months and replace my Note 3 which I am swapping out my old Note 2 with.
 
///AMG said:
I am also convinced my Note 3 maybe just not built well or I just compromised for so long since my Note 2. The speakers are terrible even with volume + and the camera is just bad it's also terrible to hold. I honestly haven't been so impressed with a phone in a long time the Z2 is just so amazing all around. I might just buy the Z3 in a fee months and replace my Note 3 which I am swapping out my old Note 2 with.
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That is the one of the major things I hate about Samsung phone. Speakers should not be on the bottom anymore!
 
Do I need to comment on this thread?

I've been saying it. If you've had the opportunity to try different Android phones of similar hardware, the one with TouchWiz is the worst of nearly all if not ALL of them. This is why I'm not surprised Samsung flagship users goes back to Apple.
 
Archmage said:
I bet I could streamline his install and usage enough to make the GS5 speed difference more apparent, but then that would disrupt his workflow. He knows what he is doing - not a noob.
Click to expand...

a lot of it might be the "feel" of the device

if the device lags 30% of the time when switching apps (instead of 10% on a nexus 5), then it'll feel slower, because you're anticipating a longer lag

I'd suggest people to switch "window animation scale" and "transition animation scale" settings to 0.5x (my custom ROM allows 0.25x)... it'll feel faster too :D

http://androidforums.com/samsung-galaxy-s3/573148-simple-tip-speed-up-ui-your-phone.html
 
NickJames said:
TW was great on my S3, the hardware acceleration really made it feel smooth and snappy. Alas, all good things come to an end. R.I.P Galaxy, Long Live Nexus.
Click to expand...

TW was okay on the S3 when the S3 was released. The 4.3 update ruined the phone. I get random lags all the time - even when putting in the pin on the lock screen. No amount of tweaking on the stock S3 ROM fixes it.

///AMG said:
I used Samsung phones almost exclusively outside of Apple the past 3 years and I guess I was just so used to Touchwiz. I never really noticed how bloated it became since there was always a bump in hardware performance to go with the extra crap.
Click to expand...

100% Agree. Walk into any phone store and compare the S5 to other brand's flagships. It's astonishing how much it lags on even basic tasks. You just don't realize how bad it is until you use other phones. Do Samsung employees even use Samsung phones?

Samsung is probably the No.1 Android phone manufacturer in the world, and probably the No.1 reason people feel Android is not performant. Samsung is king of mid-range phones around the world, but I hope the Android One program really hurts Samsung's sales. Maybe then they'll realize they need to change.
 
I want to start messing with things on my Note 3 more, but for now, I'm not seeing any slowdowns or issues that would be a cause for concern...meh.
 
I always put animations at .5x speed in the dev options and once I turned off "smart rotation" on my old Note 2 it didn't take forever to rotate (since it's not waiting on the camera to see if your face is still parallel to it or not). I don't remember my old Note 2 being that slow, but I ran de-bloated Touchwiz-based ROMs too.

But since moving to my One M8, it's definitely faster, but I would have to attribute at least some of that to the much faster SoC too (S801 vs Exynos 4412).
 
The real issue is Samsung started locking bootloaders with S3 and using evil security mechanisms, and each update further breaks it. I know its not their fault, its the US carriers, but still. Unlock + custom rom on Samsung phones is almost essential.
 
Hasn't bothered me enough on my Tab S and Note 3 to bother installing a custom ROM.
 
MrCrispy said:
The real issue is Samsung started locking bootloaders with S3 and using evil security mechanisms, and each update further breaks it. I know its not their fault, its the US carriers, but still. Unlock + custom rom on Samsung phones is almost essential.
Click to expand...

I am kind of beyond that right now. I dont want to waste hours messing with it only to find it doesnt work later on and hours more trying to find one that doesnt break things here and there.

I pay top $ for out of the box performance. This is why I put such a emphasis on hardware, but I really didnt think much of Touchwiz because the last time I really used anything other than the Note, Galaxy and iPhone was my Thunderbolt and that was a terrible experience. I also dont know what happened to the battery life on my Note 3. I did a factory restore on it 2 months ago and it helped but its continually getting worse. I really only get 1.5hrs of screen on time now and I dont play any games. All I do is talk, text , reply to emails some music (less than an hr) and browse. My Z2 so far gets 5hrs screen on time, which is something I never got with my Note 3. I think the later updates screwed battery life on the Note 3.
 
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