ANegativeZero
Lurker
Could this be an HTML5 script issue with the Charge? But Myspace.com, youtube full site loads ok. Sites I know of with issue:
1. worldofwarcraft.com - stock browser freezes, Mirens 9 of 10 times freezes, Opera ok, firefox ok
2. amw.com - stock browser freezes, Miren ok - some flash slow, Opera ok but parts of page not loaded, firefox ok but parts and flash not all loading.
3. apple.com - stock browser mostly ok on main page, software section freezes, Miren ok a tiny amount of more lag than normal but not freezing, opera mostly ok but nav bar issues and some images do not load or not showing properly until moving around in page. firefox ok but some scripting (nav bar menu) is not responding to clicks, no freezes.
Original post:
The issue is not a hardware problem but a software one. I tried several websites and had no issues at all (full sites: cnn.com, engadget.com, arstechnica, playstation.com, wired, and a few others). I went to worldofwarcraft.com and it bombed out and started freezing right away in the browser. This does not lock up the phone and you do not need to take the battery out or do anything wierd like shut off the phone. It may take a good 20 seconds+ to get a response to even a click, so you have to be patient to 'fight' it to get to leave the trouble site in question.
I went to worldofwarcraft repeatedly and it got stuck consistently. I turned off javascript, no luck, plugins on demand, no luck. plugins disabled, no luck. browser set to desktop instead of android, no luck. Despite other websites running fine without any issue. Even when the warcraft site acted up, soon as I could get it to go to cnn or google news, it worked fine as if nothing was wrong!
I used the miren browser and it also acted up and could not handle loading the warcraft site without acting up. I did notice once I zoomed in to paragraph level (instead of viewing the whole site at one time), it actually worked okay! Unzoomed and it got stuck. I went back to the stock Charge browser and even zoomed in it still acted up (but this was when the browser is back to full default settings). In all the different tests and checking sites, around the 9th or 10 the time I went to warcraft's site on the stock Charge browser and it worked okay (didnt even have to zoom in). But I left the site and went back and it got stuck again.
This is not a hardware issue, because I was able to use the youtube app and downloaded/played 15+ videos at HQ and it never bogged down. Search feature in the youtube app was fine, I was never able to reproduce any freezing issue outside the one website in question. I also went to CNN as full site and not mobile, played videos embeded in the website and they played okay without the browser freezing. It did cause the video to have some sync issues caching, but that was not the freezing issue as I could easily move around while the video was playing with very minor slow down (even then the site was easily scrollable without problem). Yet sure enough, if I went to the warcraft site, it froze up again.
Its been a few moons since I worked on asp pages, but I am under the impression that some code/function is being used that is just not liked by the Charge OS/engine. It's not limited by the stock browser itself as the Miren browser still acted up, so it is not an issue with the stock browser and more likely with the software in the OS / software set used in web browsing. The good news is, this can be fixed as I am convinced it is not a hardware issue (other website videos play without issue, etc). Whether Samsung will fix it, droid developers can identify and address it, custom rom can resolve it..who knows. Considering the phone is arguebly just officially released as of 24 hours ago, okay...I'll forgive the few teething issues, despite how visible it may be.
Any other Charge owners know of websites that cause the freeze? Maybe by getting more info together we can identify the symptom that is consistent among the sites in question. So far other sites load perfectly fine for me.
I owned a Blackberry 8300 vanilla, iphone 1, iphone 3G, 3GS, Palm pre (for a short while) and up until today was an Evo 4G owner. I have no regrets with the Charge (perhaps better to say afer a month or so), and its not just 0 day technolust pride. The phone is great, feels great and is extremely light. Its like taking the battery out of an existing phone and saying "thats how the Charge feels in weight". I almost feel like the Charge needs more weight as it has 'room to spare' in terms of weight! Sorry, yes yes I know, no one wants a heavier phone, okay. It's hard to imagine holding the phone and thinking there is also a battery in there.
Anyways sorry for the long wall of text but I hope this helps more Charge users identify this one glaring, but not common issue (for me), it is one I have high hopes can be fixed. Fortuantely it's very limited in how it occurs and does not seem to affect the rest of the phone.
One more thing, right when I was about to post this, I checked the warcraft site on the Charge browser and its working fine now, also on Miren as well. Sounds like a code issue where something is being used on the website at some point and the Charge just doesnt like it. Hmm, could it be some rendering issue, since Miren at one point worked okay once zoomed in? I did hear in some forums how the benchmark app Quandrant had low scores on this phone (for a 2011 phone) which were really disapointing but it may be possible due to the Quadrant software not being optimized for the Charge (or the Charge optimized as other Android phones are). Sounds more and more like the Charge being as great as it is, is missing something/needs improving for how the OS software is written.
PS. Anyone on the fence to get this phone waiting because of the web browser lag, dont worry about it. Go to a local verizon, play with the phone and surf the sites you normally surf and see if its okay with what you want to use it for. For me, so far the most frequent sites I use do not have this issue (I dont even use warcraft anymore but it was still neat to check for me). It's a software issue and it can be fixed.
PPS. The dock with battery is AWESOME! I wouldn't be suprised if other phones have the dashboard feature when plugged in, but this is great. My poor Evo 4G was pretty much accessory starved (thanks HTC! /sarcasm), so it was pretty much a vanilla Evo. But I am LOVING this dock. It's got room to charge an extra battery if I really ever needed a spare battery (I dont care for it, but its always nice to have the option than not). The neat thing is when I plug it in, there is a small dashboard which has excellent key features that makes it feel like a mini desktop assistant. Clock, weather, music, video shortcuts. Very nice. Am tempted to get a few more docks so I can have one at my desk at home, desk at work and bedside (I use the phone alarm/clock features all the time).
1. worldofwarcraft.com - stock browser freezes, Mirens 9 of 10 times freezes, Opera ok, firefox ok
2. amw.com - stock browser freezes, Miren ok - some flash slow, Opera ok but parts of page not loaded, firefox ok but parts and flash not all loading.
3. apple.com - stock browser mostly ok on main page, software section freezes, Miren ok a tiny amount of more lag than normal but not freezing, opera mostly ok but nav bar issues and some images do not load or not showing properly until moving around in page. firefox ok but some scripting (nav bar menu) is not responding to clicks, no freezes.
Original post:
The issue is not a hardware problem but a software one. I tried several websites and had no issues at all (full sites: cnn.com, engadget.com, arstechnica, playstation.com, wired, and a few others). I went to worldofwarcraft.com and it bombed out and started freezing right away in the browser. This does not lock up the phone and you do not need to take the battery out or do anything wierd like shut off the phone. It may take a good 20 seconds+ to get a response to even a click, so you have to be patient to 'fight' it to get to leave the trouble site in question.
I went to worldofwarcraft repeatedly and it got stuck consistently. I turned off javascript, no luck, plugins on demand, no luck. plugins disabled, no luck. browser set to desktop instead of android, no luck. Despite other websites running fine without any issue. Even when the warcraft site acted up, soon as I could get it to go to cnn or google news, it worked fine as if nothing was wrong!
I used the miren browser and it also acted up and could not handle loading the warcraft site without acting up. I did notice once I zoomed in to paragraph level (instead of viewing the whole site at one time), it actually worked okay! Unzoomed and it got stuck. I went back to the stock Charge browser and even zoomed in it still acted up (but this was when the browser is back to full default settings). In all the different tests and checking sites, around the 9th or 10 the time I went to warcraft's site on the stock Charge browser and it worked okay (didnt even have to zoom in). But I left the site and went back and it got stuck again.
This is not a hardware issue, because I was able to use the youtube app and downloaded/played 15+ videos at HQ and it never bogged down. Search feature in the youtube app was fine, I was never able to reproduce any freezing issue outside the one website in question. I also went to CNN as full site and not mobile, played videos embeded in the website and they played okay without the browser freezing. It did cause the video to have some sync issues caching, but that was not the freezing issue as I could easily move around while the video was playing with very minor slow down (even then the site was easily scrollable without problem). Yet sure enough, if I went to the warcraft site, it froze up again.
Its been a few moons since I worked on asp pages, but I am under the impression that some code/function is being used that is just not liked by the Charge OS/engine. It's not limited by the stock browser itself as the Miren browser still acted up, so it is not an issue with the stock browser and more likely with the software in the OS / software set used in web browsing. The good news is, this can be fixed as I am convinced it is not a hardware issue (other website videos play without issue, etc). Whether Samsung will fix it, droid developers can identify and address it, custom rom can resolve it..who knows. Considering the phone is arguebly just officially released as of 24 hours ago, okay...I'll forgive the few teething issues, despite how visible it may be.
Any other Charge owners know of websites that cause the freeze? Maybe by getting more info together we can identify the symptom that is consistent among the sites in question. So far other sites load perfectly fine for me.
I owned a Blackberry 8300 vanilla, iphone 1, iphone 3G, 3GS, Palm pre (for a short while) and up until today was an Evo 4G owner. I have no regrets with the Charge (perhaps better to say afer a month or so), and its not just 0 day technolust pride. The phone is great, feels great and is extremely light. Its like taking the battery out of an existing phone and saying "thats how the Charge feels in weight". I almost feel like the Charge needs more weight as it has 'room to spare' in terms of weight! Sorry, yes yes I know, no one wants a heavier phone, okay. It's hard to imagine holding the phone and thinking there is also a battery in there.
Anyways sorry for the long wall of text but I hope this helps more Charge users identify this one glaring, but not common issue (for me), it is one I have high hopes can be fixed. Fortuantely it's very limited in how it occurs and does not seem to affect the rest of the phone.
One more thing, right when I was about to post this, I checked the warcraft site on the Charge browser and its working fine now, also on Miren as well. Sounds like a code issue where something is being used on the website at some point and the Charge just doesnt like it. Hmm, could it be some rendering issue, since Miren at one point worked okay once zoomed in? I did hear in some forums how the benchmark app Quandrant had low scores on this phone (for a 2011 phone) which were really disapointing but it may be possible due to the Quadrant software not being optimized for the Charge (or the Charge optimized as other Android phones are). Sounds more and more like the Charge being as great as it is, is missing something/needs improving for how the OS software is written.
PS. Anyone on the fence to get this phone waiting because of the web browser lag, dont worry about it. Go to a local verizon, play with the phone and surf the sites you normally surf and see if its okay with what you want to use it for. For me, so far the most frequent sites I use do not have this issue (I dont even use warcraft anymore but it was still neat to check for me). It's a software issue and it can be fixed.
PPS. The dock with battery is AWESOME! I wouldn't be suprised if other phones have the dashboard feature when plugged in, but this is great. My poor Evo 4G was pretty much accessory starved (thanks HTC! /sarcasm), so it was pretty much a vanilla Evo. But I am LOVING this dock. It's got room to charge an extra battery if I really ever needed a spare battery (I dont care for it, but its always nice to have the option than not). The neat thing is when I plug it in, there is a small dashboard which has excellent key features that makes it feel like a mini desktop assistant. Clock, weather, music, video shortcuts. Very nice. Am tempted to get a few more docks so I can have one at my desk at home, desk at work and bedside (I use the phone alarm/clock features all the time).
