Confused - why such high specs?

[omnius]

I've been looking at the specs on the most recent android phones and noticed they seem almost too beefy. Looking at the sgs3 for example, the hardware in that phone is through the roof.

But now I'm also questioning whether I want to stay android. I look at these new behemoths, but then I play with them in store, and I also watch demos of them and I see... stutter. Lag. Countless problems posted on the forum for each device.

But what makes me second guess the most is when I see a device like the Lumia 900, which has specs that pale by comparison. Yet the phone runs extremely fast, no lag or stutters, and minimal issues. Highly stable and fast, next to zero battery pulls or hard resets.

Regardless of whether or not you like the OS it's tough to argue how well it performs against phones with twice or even 4x the specs like the s3

 

[gale65]

Do keep in mind that you'll mainly see complaints on forums and blogs. You don't often hear from the larger percentage of people that have had no problems with their phones.

 

[Crashdamage]

I have little or no lag or stutter. And Jelly Bean 4.1 makes Android smooth as butter. My phone is totally stable, never needs a reboot much less a battery pull.

A Lumia 900 runs WP7 well on relatively low-spec hardware simply because it's doing less work. No multi-tasking, smaller, lower resolution screen, etc.

WP7 is the most God-awful thing I've ever seen. Suitable only for children and the legally blind.

 

[damewolf13]

Well I don't know about the "children and the legally blind" part,
but I also have not noticed any lag with my new SGS3 at all!

 

[Bnice]

I'm confuse. Android specs is too beef? Not to be rude but is someone forcing you to by a high spec Android device? If windows is what you want and like, by all means go for it but don't be mad with Android, you think windows not going to up their specs..?

 

[itsallgood]

You should keep in mind that the display phones have had countless people playing around with settings and installing apps. So don't be surprised of the lag on the in store displays. You have to remember that the more apps you install on and Android phone the more at risk you will run into lag because of fragmentation of the apps and the different OS's. (This is to be expected.) As to the high end spec.'s, they do make a difference depending what you need your cellphone to do. I have an Atrix 4G and at times have some lag, but not being slow. But it's not because of the phone, but because of having over 200 apps, over 20 widgets and apps I have running in the background at all times.

 

[Crashdamage]

The sheer number of apps installed doesn't matter. Installing/uninstalling apps doesn't cause 'fragmentation'.

But poorly coded apps can of course cause trouble.

And widgets...now that's something that can make a device run like molasses on a cold day. The fewer the better. I use none - zero.

 

[Dracconus]

The reason the phones are so "hearty" is because for the most part it's a necessity. As operating systems increase people work on more and more compatability causing more code, and more operands, functions, and variables to be within that program defining the way that it runs given each operating system. Adding to that they're growing in sheer size, and also due to their "compatibility" they're causing simplistic issues that (most of the time) your phone is sorting out in the background.
There's millions of different things that you need to take into consideration when pondering a question like this...literally; but these will give you a good start on what you're trying to figure out.

 

[matttye]

Jelly bean vastly improves the smoothness of Android, a problem that has plagued it from the beginning.

Do a search for jelly bean on YouTube..the difference is incredible. Browsing on a Galaxy Nexus running JB looks smoother than on the international Galaxy S3 which has far superior hardware.

 

[OptimusLove]

Wow, You are complaining about TOO HIGH specs? My phones specs is the lowest specs you'd wish in a phone,600MHz processor, 175MB RAM, 190MB storage(thank god for SD cards) and the screen size at 2.8"!

See? And look at you guys(not only the OP), You have Galaxy S2/S3s or ONE Xs and yet yo complain about TOO HIGH specs?

What if you guys were using the phone that I have? How will you live with it?

 

[Wilkas]

I've been looking at the specs on the most recent android phones and noticed they seem almost too beefy. Looking at the sgs3 for example, the hardware in that phone is through the roof.

But now I'm also questioning whether I want to stay android. I look at these new behemoths, but then I play with them in store, and I also watch demos of them and I see... stutter. Lag. Countless problems posted on the forum for each device.

But what makes me second guess the most is when I see a device like the Lumia 900, which has specs that pale by comparison. Yet the phone runs extremely fast, no lag or stutters, and minimal issues. Highly stable and fast, next to zero battery pulls or hard resets.

Regardless of whether or not you like the OS it's tough to argue how well it performs against phones with twice or even 4x the specs like the s3

My One X doesn't stutter or lag at all, it will run anything and is certainly future proof as is my wifes S3. My missus had the lumia and yes the menu system is pretty smooth but seriously, how wrong can you go with tiles and black backgrounds with white text... the OS is awful too, really restrictive beyond anything I've ever seen and thanks to microsoft for cutting the price of it in half just after I bought her one because they refuse to update to the latest software.

The whole point of the forum is to find out fixes for problems, people generally don't post that their phone works amazing, they post when there is a problem with it. It's also worth mentioning that the newest version of android has something in called project butter which is supposed to make it even smoother but I've found ICS to be brilliant and can't say I've ever had stuttering or lag.. I think it might be phones out of the box haven't had their firmware updates on yet to put the manufactures problems right.

 

[omnius]

I don't wish to be contrary but I've heard people using the "I have no lag" line on forums since Froyo. While we all know it's totally safe to declare (after all nobody's getting on a plane to your home to call you on it), the lag on android os up to and including ICS is commonly known now.

Very little lag I'll buy. Zero lag, to be blunt, you're either lying, don't know what lag even looks like, still haven't unboxed. I don't think the openness of Android is worth it anymore. I would much rather that Google had forced the OEMs to use stock. I wish overlays had never come into existence. I'm well aware of rooting as a solution. It should never have been needed in the first place. You can be sure that the only difference between a Nokia WP8 and a Samsung WP8 will be hardware. As it should be. As for whether or not you like WP7, the fact that the most recent one runs truly lag free on a single core with 512 RAM speaks to which OS is better optimized and polished. What a huge difference in specs.

I'm also not buying the screen size and display etc argument. If that were the case, why does the difference in smoothness and stability still exist on android phones running similar displays to the Lumia? People using store display demos is no explanation. The Lumia demo should also be equally affected. Store displays don't account for all the video demos that show stutter and lag.

Yes people only comment on forums and blogs when there's a problem. I should then expect all of the WP7 blogs and forums to have an equal percentage of complaints. Note I said percentage, not total.

I'm not getting all down on Android but they need to tighten up their game sooner rather than later. Fragmentation needed to be addressed a year ago, OEM overlays need to be burned at the stake, updates need to be faster, and lag issues cleaned up. Right now the only advantage Android has is being able to make pretty homescreens (so what), and a large app ecosystem. Once WP8 beefs it's app market (and you know they will. They've already signed the big gun developers and it's not even out yet), what advantage will Android have left?

Name calling WP7.5 is childish and narrow minded. It's quite a well done UI and OS now. You should take a look at how popular the android launcher Launcher 7 is if you think people don't like the UI. Once WP8 comes out, combined with integration with windows PC's in everyone's homes and offices, I think we all know what's going to happen. In case you haven't been paying attention there's a lot if excitement and anticipation building for it. CONSUMER anticipation.

 

[Demache]

Well you have to remember Android is far far heavier OS than WP is, since its running a fully featured Linux kernel. The fact that you can install a completely working install of Ubuntu on an Android further demonstrates this along with being plug and play with many PC peripherals. Does WP have that same kind of flexibility? No, because in order to make an OS that quick and lean, you need to remove features like that. And for WP that's fine, since the majority will never use those features.

Not saying WP's approach to OS design is bad, but your comparing very fundamentally different operating systems here especially when your talking about performance.

 

[!on]

Most phones are set at conservative clock & battery consumption values. When I got Froyo there was some lag in some rare instances; I believe it depends on what instance we're talking about but for me it was lock screen & that caused a problem with stopping the alarm in the morning, so I really couldn't put up with that & updated. My performance improved & that was before I heard about overclocking & stuff. For the average Joe who can't be bothered about updates, never mind root, they'd probably put up with a small amount of lag, unless it hinders something important.

I think you may be making a mountain out of a molehill, there's probably reasons why the shop demo was lagging & it might be unfair to tar the rest of android with the same brush.

Dare I say, problems may exist in apps, rather than the phone. Updates for apps come every other day, for the phone updates are much less frequent.

 

[Wilkas]

I've had android since 1.5 (cupcake), I know exactly what lag is like and I don't have it on this phone, ZERO lag. Could be because I know how to keep my phone clean and running lag free due to the experience I've had with android and the apps I use. That and the fact it's Quad Core keeps it ticking over nicely.

The reason WP7 runs without lag is because it is stripped down, tiles with very little colour and basic animations, running angry birds on it vs angry birds on mine (a relatively undemanding game) and you see the difference between single and multicore processors.. I would take the latter any day. Use your common sense, look at the UI on WP7, it's so basic, lovely looking but basic. That's why it runs so perfect on a single core Nokia. Worth mentioning that WP8 has been tested on up to 64 cores so don't expect to see any single core processors on the new software.

You are saying I'm childish for name calling, I expressed my opinion on WP7 with facts.. it is restrictive and I would have rather had a Lumia on Symbian than WP7. I would say it's childish to tell someone they are a liar or basically stupid because they disagree with your opinion. I was raised to respect others opinions not dragged up to attack them and accuse them when they disagree.

Look around the internet, Microsoft damaged itself with the WP8 update fiasco and a lot of people wont ever buy anything by them again because of it... can't even bluetooth a song with it why would you want something that doesn't offer a service that's been out for 10 years lol. Also there's a lot of excitement every time there is a new iPhone coming out but that still doesn't affect Android, neither will WP8.

 

[Crashdamage]

Very little lag I'll buy. Zero lag, to be blunt, you're either lying, don't know what lag even looks like, still haven't unboxed.

NO system has zero lag. Any phone, any PC, no matter the power of the hardware or OS will sometimes take a second - or a few - to perform an operation or open a program. Nothing - including the Lumia 900 - always responds instantaneously. I've used one some. It certainly DOES sometimes stutter.

I don't think the openness of Android is worth it anymore.

Then clearly you don't understand the point of open source. That's a shame.

I would much rather that Google had forced the OEMs to use stock. I wish overlays had never come into existence.

On this we agree, vanilla Android for everyone would be better/simpler. But rather than Google *forcing* it, I wish manufacturers had *choosen* vanilla.

You can be sure that the only difference between a Nokia WP8 and a Samsung WP8 will be hardware.

Not true. Nokia has already been granted permission to do some customization. Just how far M$ will let them go remains to be seen.

As for whether or not you like WP7, the fact that the most recent one runs truly lag free on a single core with 512 RAM speaks to which OS is better optimized and polished.

Again, WP7 is certainly NOT totally lag-free. It's just not. And again, Jelly Bean redefines Android smoothness and polish.

I'm also not buying the screen size and display etc argument.

??? Size and resolution make a HUGE difference in the demands on CPU/GPU!

Once WP8 beefs it's app market (and you know they will. They've already signed the big gun developers and it's not even out yet), what advantage will Android have left?

Agreed that M$ is just getting started. They will do - must do - and spend whatever it takes. And when Windows8 and WP8 are released and the Windows Market gets rolling the game changes.

But Android has a monster lead of hundreds of millions of devices worldwide, public name reconition, apps & developers...and you may not think so, but the openess of Android is a BIG advantage.

Name calling WP7.5 is childish and narrow minded. It's quite a well done UI and OS now.

It is what it is. An ugly Playskool UI that insults user's intelligence. The worst I've ever seen or used. YMMV.

In case you haven't been paying attention there's a lot if excitement and anticipation building for it. CONSUMER anticipation.

Yeah, people are really pumped up...zzzzzz

 

[Shocky]

The Galaxy S3 is lag free, not sure what your taking about.

Also with popular devices you will always find people reporting problems as that's normally why users even come to forums in the first place, too solve problems or ask questions.

The same can be said for any phone, it's worth noting Nokia devices are not selling very well and the user base for new devices is allot smaller anyway.