Why is this phone so slow?

[biscuitlad]

Not wanting to go off topic from another thread, but I sympathize with this user talking about the Note's camera:

What's frustrating is the lag.

Yes, the lag is completely unacceptable. Really, totally hopeless. My two year HTC Desire's camera was twice as fast as the Note.

I was out today trying to photograph my little lad on a steam train. One photo, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait... oh, sorry. The f**k*ng train's gone. I was so p*ss*d off. The lag on the camera is like going back nearly 8 or 9 years for digital cameras. It's just hopeless - it's so slow I'll have to carry a camera on special occasions as I know the Note's camera is likely to miss the best shots.

It's not just the camera which is rubbish in terms of its response, the entire phone is slow. Turn it on, wait, wait, etc. Unlock the phone click the camera icon, wait, wait, wait, etc. So annoying to see all these geek speed tests about CPU speed, when all that matters to most users is how fast apps load up, how fast the phone responds. None of those tests show this. The Note is woefully slow in this respect. I just don't understand how Samsung could release such a laggy product.

Please don't tell me to root or install some dodgy version ICS. I bought a product. The product just isn't good enough, IMHO. 2 years ago when I bought my HTC Desire I had a phone that was faster, more responsive than an iPhone and could do more than any other smartphone on the market.

Thought I was doing the same with the Note. Sadly, after a month, I'm pretty disappointed. So wish I'd waited for the HTC One to come out, or that I'd got the Nexus. Big screen is fantastic, but it's not worth having a camera that's so slow between shots. Hopefully ICS update will improve things. But I doubt the camera performance is going to get much better.

In summary, my mate's say I've got an OAP's phone (bigger text for those whose eyes are weak). Maybe that's true - certainly the phone's speed is ideally suited to the "older user"!

After a month's use, I've had plenty of requests about whether I'd recommend one. Increasingly I'm saying no, can't say this is a phone I'd recommend, there's just too much that's not right about the phone (stupid button placements, crap software, poor linked functionality between contacts / browser / phone, etc). Maybe the Note II or Note III will be better. Bit late for me - I'm stuck with this one for the next two years...

 

[t sport 1978]

Wow. Breathe...
Mine and many other's dont suffer this lag that you are ranting about.
I hope you find the solutions, but i think you have made your mind up and as you said "its too late for you"

Anyway, good luck.

 

[Kamau]

Forgive me for saying this, and trust me when I say I'm not trying to come across as hypocritical, but why would you go to a place where there is amusement for your child, and not take along a camera? When I take my family out to someplace like that, I'm dragging along a camera to capture those moments I know will pop their heads up.
Saying that, there are apps that will allow you to snap pics one behind the other, called fast bursts. The camera app called "Camera ICS" also has that feature built into it.
I keep reminding folks that above all else, these are cell phones that just happen to do a couple other things, but they were never intended to take their place.
I know your frustration, trust me. I've had one or two phones like that myself that just made me pull out what little hair I have left. All I can say is I hope you better luck with whichever phone you have/get.

 

[biscuitlad]

Wow. Breathe...
Mine and many other's dont suffer this lag that you are ranting about.

Didn't you reply on the same day to another thread complaining about lag?

I've quoted one thread on the camera, you replied to another, and there's been half a dozen such threads on this forum, and about the same on XDA.

C'mon, let's not get embarrassed about our phone here. It's laggy.

The question of the thread is, why is it so slow? I put my HTC Desire next to this phone and click the gmail app (making sure the app is not sitting in RAM). The Note is a brand new phone, with a faster processor. Why does it take so long to load gmail?

There are plenty of people saying the same about the S2. It's just a lot faster all round.

 

[biscuitlad]

I've done some more testing about the lag. And it seems more complex than I first thought. Fresh reboot of my phone this morning and it's loading both gmail and the camera app much quicker than yesterday, so maybe everything was running slower due to some app or other. Nothing was showing as running in RAM in the task manager yesterday, same as today, but that doesn't mean much as lot of things seem to run as hidden processes.

But today, no lag at all with gmail. Haven't got my wife's Desire to test it against, but can't believe it would load any faster.

Camera loads fairly quickly too, though it still takes about 4-5s before you can shoot a second picture.

Is it possible there's a memory leak somewhere, and the phone gets slower the longer it goes without a reboot? Before this morning, mine hadn't been powered off for about two weeks (when it did the randomly shutting down trick that has been mentioned on here several times).

Anyone noticed anything like this?

 

[t sport 1978]

Didn't you reply on the same day to another thread complaining about lag?

I've quoted one thread on the camera, you replied to another, and there's been half a dozen such threads on this forum, and about the same on XDA.

C'mon, let's not get embarrassed about our phone here. It's laggy.

The question of the thread is, why is it so slow? I put my HTC Desire next to this phone and click the gmail app (making sure the app is not sitting in RAM). The Note is a brand new phone, with a faster processor. Why does it take so long to load gmail?

There are plenty of people saying the same about the S2. It's just a lot faster all round.

Funny how you quote a post in which i said:

"I cant say I have ANY of the mentioned lags or slowness, I have the very random reboots once in a blue moon."

I have had a couple of random reboots, but in 4 months of hammering it day and night, a couple of reboots is nothing.

Your lag and other problems are on your phone, you don't represent the majority.

You need to troubleshoot your phone, but as i said earlier i think its too late for you. Its quite clear that you have made your mind up, you have no interest in fixing the issue at all other than trying to make this phone look bad.

Each to their own i suppose, we all use forums for different purposes, you choose to rant and rave, I choose to be slightly more constructive.

 

[Vicdude]

Mine is laggy, i'm just hoping that ICS will sort a few things out

 

[B2L]

Funny how you quote a post in which i said:

"I cant say I have ANY of the mentioned lags or slowness, I have the very random reboots once in a blue moon."

I have had a couple of random reboots, but in 4 months of hammering it day and night, a couple of reboots is nothing.

Your lag and other problems are on your phone, you don't represent the majority.

You need to troubleshoot your phone, but as i said earlier i think its too late for you. Its quite clear that you have made your mind up, you have no interest in fixing the issue at all other than trying to make this phone look bad.

Each to their own i suppose, we all use forums for different purposes, you choose to rant and rave, I choose to be slightly more constructive.

I definitely have to agree with you, I've noticed no lag or slowness on mine. Although, my wife's Note seems to have lag occasionally. The lag on her device typically only happens when trying to back out of an app. She will have to press the back button 10-15 times to exit an app like Facebook, before the device responds and closes out the app.

 

[biscuitlad]

Each to their own i suppose, we all use forums for different purposes, you choose to rant and rave, I choose to be slightly more constructive.

No mate, constructive is when you add something of value to the debate.

You've added nothing.

 

[t sport 1978]

No mate, constructive is when you add something of value to the debate.

You've added nothing.

I took the bait here thats for sure, trolls loves to fish.

Me out.

 

[t sport 1978]

I definitely have to agree with you, I've noticed no lag or slowness on mine. Although, my wife's Note seems to have lag occasionally. The lag on her device typically only happens when trying to back out of an app. She will have to press the back button 10-15 times to exit an app like Facebook, before the device responds and closes out the app.

You know what, my wife's one is exactly the same! She has a white one and her one is somewhat slower than mine.

I have a rather obsessive tendency of killing apps to free up memory though, whereas my wife does not. Wonder if there is anything in that.

 

[Bodestone]

You know what, my wife's one is exactly the same! She has a white one and her one is somewhat slower than mine.

I have a rather obsessive tendency of killing apps to free up memory though, whereas my wife does not. Wonder if there is anything in that.

The only 2 areas I notice lag are waiting for the screen to light up to unlock and when pressing Back to exit some application, the second being intermittent. I usually exit apps where the option exists rather than just going to the home screen.

 

[GiggityGiggity]

I totally agree with you biscuitlad regarding the overall slowness of the phone. I've stated in another thread that I'm really unhappy with it. On the verge of calling it a day with the Note - Android Forums

From what I've read it seems that there are two kinds of Note owners: those who have laggy phones and those that don't. If you're one of the lag free owners then good luck to you. However, I've read posts in some threads that seem to imply that if your Note is laggy it's YOUR fault for not having set it up correctly. This is ridiculous.

My Note was laggy brand new straight out of the box. I noticed it immediately because I'd come from using a Galaxy S2 which was silky smooth in every area. I've had my Note for over a month now, with over 100 apps installed and everything set up just how I wanted it and it was still laggy. No better or worse, just the same lag as before.

Because of a separate issue (the phone randomly locking up) I've just had to factory reset my phone. It's back to 'brand new straight out of the box' condition. I haven't installed any apps or entered any settings and guess what..... it's laggy. No surprise at all to me as I wasn't expecting anything different. It's exactly the same speed as when I first got it.

I have no idea what's causing it. Whether it's regional variations having small differences in programming or some other issues but there's no doubt it is an issue straight out of the box. Actually let me correct that: It is an issue straight out of SOME boxes.

 

[biscuitlad]

Well, in fairness, I think we should wait until the update comes before passing judgement.

Samsung do seem to be adding some functionality to the s pen as well, so if we get a fast responsive phone with some more useful s pen stuff, I'm sure it'll make the likes of us a lot happier!

 

[McGilli]

I seem to have a nice, fast Note.

However, I did buy this phone, in part for the camera.

Depending on where I go I will take my DSLR if it's important, otherwise I'd use a point and shoot. But mine is so old so i retired it, and my original iPhone 1 and decided to get a newer device with phone and nice 1080 vid camera.

so after reading this post, I realized that I hadn't tried taking pictures in a fast, burst kind of manner. I'd only done single shots.

So. I tried shooting pix as fast as I could - and - not great, but not much slower than my old point and shoot.

I was wondering if maybe some peoples lag - especially with the camera depends on if you are saving your photos to the internal memory, or a sdhd card? I made sure I bought a Class 10 SDHD card, that actually performs as a class 10 device. And that is what I save to.

Just a thought. but again, overall, I DO wish the camera was quicker between shots...

 

[biscuitlad]

Now that's the sort of answer I was hoping to hear - unfortunately I don't have an SD card, it just saves onto the memory that came with the phone.

What sort lag do get between shots? Mine's about four seconds (guesstimate), possibly longer, but that could just be my perception during the heat of the moment!

 

[ChampN252]

I'm getting one soon and one I used in best buy was blazing fast. Never used a phone so fast. I will go back if I get a laggy one

 

[Befe]

Mine also seems very sluggish in all its normal operations - like flipping the screen and starting up. Have been thinking it might be running on one 'cylinder' (CPU). I woder if there is test available to find out if there definitely is a hardware (or firmware) problem?

 

[kmn5]

Hi all.
new here, just wondered onto this forum while web searching on why my Note N-7000 is slow.
But unlike the people that were slow out of the box,
my Note was pretty quick (as fast as my iphone 4S) when I first got it.
Had it for 2 months now, and it's started to lag hard.
I've checked it with AVG's android scanner, to confirm no viruses or malware or anything on it.
I've deleted all non essential apps (I know the free apps can be a drain cause they collect info for advertising).
I regularly shutdown any apps I'm not using in the task manager.
and even clear out the memory once a day. But it still lags.
rebooting doesn't really help either...

I don't have ICS yet, I've tried forcing it to check for updates, but it says none are available.
the phone is still on 2.3.6
Build number : GINGERBREAD.UBKK2
Kernel 2.6.35.7-N7000UBKK2-CL70203se.infra@SEP-81 #2

anyways, since it wasn't slow out of the box, I'm not sure what is different now that would cause the slow down....

 

[ifb-online]

Is anyone here experiencing slowness running one of the available power saving options? Switch power saving off and see if it makes a difference.

Ian

 

[Slownote3]

I think I have officially the slowest Note 3 in the world.

Its brand new and has been remarkably slow since I started putting on my contacts.

I run 10000 contacts, however on my Note 2 this seemed to work - now forget about it.

I hve done all the Developer Option tweaks on the web, wiped the rom through safe bootup, made the home button faster....

Im lucky even if I can have a contact come up at all.

The Contact manager seems to be woefully inadequate in this phone.

I would have swapped it back to the note 2 by now had my wife not dropped the phone a week after I gave it to her and cracked the screen.

By seriously, this is supposed to be faster than the previous version of Note - instead it would have to be the slowest piece of junk I have ever purchased (relatively speaking) and I could not honestly recommend the Note 3 to anyone who has a few contacts. unless you want to remember was it was like to use a 386/SX-33 computer - know what I mean!

BTW - if you have a fast Note 3 - then celebrate - I'm more than happy to swap if you cant help me with a fix for my slowbie!

 

[Slownote3]

Is anyone here experiencing slowness running one of the available power saving options? Switch power saving off and see if it makes a difference.

Ian

Tried disabling power savings options and was gifted with the following message when entering conatcts "Contacts isn't responding. Do you want to close it?" Well NO obviously - I want to look at a contact... any ideas on what else to do with this phone?