Dianne Hackborn has posted on Google+ about some common myths regarding Android’s graphics rendering pipeline, and we have a rebuttal to that one as well. Interesting stuff, but I want to talk abut something related: Android’s gaphics performance. I’m hearing a lot of talk about how Android’s effects and transitions and such aren’t as smooth as those on iOS, but on my Galaxy SII, everything is super-smooth. So, I’m wondering – what’s it like for you?
Considering the consistent talk on the web about Android’s less-than-stellar graphics performance, I expected to have to deal with this issue as well when I bought my Galaxy SII (after iOS and Windows Phone 7, I only needed an Android device to round out my collection).
Imagine my surprise when I found that graphics performance was about on par with iOS on my iPad 2 and WP7.5 on my HTC HD7, and a little better than on my (much slower, spec-wise) iPhone 3GS. When the phone was new, I assumed that maybe after installing lots of applications, the problem would rear its ugly head. However – it didn’t. A few months down the line, and it’s still fast and responsive.
I did notice one thing: shoddy graphics performance on Samsung’s own lock screen (which I replaced with another one, which does perform perfectly). Could this mean it’s not necessarily Android itself that’s at fault, but OEMs? Or, put differently – does it differ per application?
Even browser performance is perfect. In fact, it’s often a little better than on my iPad 2 (WP 7.5 is no match at all). Everything loads fast, scrolling is butter smooth, panning is fine, and zooming is just as fast as on my iPad 2.
So, what is it? Is it simply a lack of sheer raw power, and is the Galaxy SII fast enough to handle it all? Does it differ per phone? Is it RAM, processor power, GPU? Does Android version matter? What are your experiences?
What really kills me are these people who insist on running live wallpapers and all kinds of widgets that sing and dance, and then complain that everything is choppy, and that they have to recharge their battery every 3 hours. Well, duh???
Remember kids, always go for performance over style. You’ll be happier that way in the long run
Live wallpapers do not affect the performance of apps, and to be honest I’ve never found them to affect the home-screen scrolling performance or battery life either.
The biggest thing that affects battery life is apps that sync in the background, and simply using the screen.
Depends on the wallpaper. I saw a video of the Transformer Prime recently where a guy was demo’ing the tablet and everything was running silky smooth, and then he put on a live wallpaper, and things started to stutter just a bit, and that was on a quad core CPU.
I do use a live wallpaper – the stylish Microbe one that’s coded by Google. No problems here.
Depends on the wallpaper, some are very efficient but most of them are ugly ugly hacks.
Also, a complex wallpaper or even a few badly written widgets easily eats up the 2.5 pixel budget Dianne mentioned so I tend to skip the wallpapers and go easy on the widgets.
Just FYI, Microbes was written by Samsung, not Google.
This sounds remarkably similar to the iPhone users that have every possible function of their phones turned on all the time, wifi, GPS, iCloud syncing, Photo Stream, iTunes Match, Game Center, etc, then load up the phone with apps that call home every 15 seconds. And then they complain because the battery does not last more than 2 1/2 hours.
Granted these phones ship with these features, both functions and graphical abilities. And they can all be turned on at the same time. But that does not mean that you will get the optimum use out of your device if you run it with every function under the moon turned on, nor should you expect it to. I don’t, and my iPhone’s battery lasts 2-3 days. And my Samsung Galaxy2 Android work phone does as well.
Based on what the manufacturers are shipping these days, consumers are demanding ultra-thin phones with large screens, which leaves very little room for adequate graphics hardware or battery.
Edited 2011-12-07 11:35 UTC
You’re simply wrong. Android is pretty good, and I also have a Galaxy S2, but it simply still isn’t as smooth and responsive as the original generation iPod Touch I bought (and returned!) several years ago. To say otherwise is to delude yourself.
Yes, it’s pretty smooth. It just isn’t *as* smooth. And especially it isn’t as responsive — that is, the lag between your finger and the animation is much greater on the Galaxy S2 than the iPhone in many places.
Unfortunately I don’t have an iPhone so I can’t do a video comparison right now, but it is absolutely the case. (Although the Galaxy S2 is the best of the Android phones I’ve tried, and it does come close.)
Isn’t some of androids “lag” intentional? For example, the “rotation lag” is actually there to avoid hysterical rotations while you are, for example, lying down playing with your phone/tablet.
By the way, my Nokia N9 beats all your androids and iphones in UI speed. It is still a dead (i.e. murdered) platform, which should show that having the fastest UI is not the only requirement for winning the phone war.
No. When we’re talking about “lag” we mean the unintentional delays.
And actually the rotation lag actually wasn’t intentional! It is a lot faster now on modern phones than it used to be on the old Android 1.x phones.
I’ll just keep quiet about the UI performance of N9./s
That swipe is actually quite annoying at the end of the day.
When I go back to my older devices, I all the time try to swipe on them or wake them up with double tap. Shows just how intuitive the UI is when it replaces your years old habits within a day or two…
I’m just not seeing that, and I have them side-by-side *right now* (well, iPad 2). It’s completely identical here.
it is not completely identical ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hhhhhhhhhhhhhh
The IPOD might have been smooth with IOS 2 or 3. But nowadays it is a load of bull.
With IOS 4.2x my 2gen IPOD touch lags and stutters all the time.
You can pay me and I will make a Youtube video showing just how bad it is.
Edited 2011-12-06 23:12 UTC
I have a 4G iPod Touch and it also stutters. Sometimes it even takes 2 seconds to unlock the screen. The transition between apps and search screen has always been laggy, but IIRC scrolling used to be a lot smoother.
i actually have an original first gen iphone and a galaxy s2. i’ll compare when i get home.
Well, the actual animations are actually really smooth. However, input lag and jitters during interactions were dominant in Android.
Interestingly enough, it’s only the input that has the problem of UI lag.
And please, iPod Touch until the Cortex A8(3rd gen or pair to 3Gs) was horribly laggy. the only non laggy thing was scrolling. Ironically Android was less laggy than 1st gen and 2nd gen iOS devices.
I got a Samsung Galaxy S2 as well, and i think its the usual “PC-Dilemma” Android is suffering from.
The S2 got enough power to cover that, just like high-end PCs are doing it (and i noticed the S2 can get quite hot on the outside when i play some more gfx heavy games).
You see:
iOS / iPhone is a platform with limited amount of hardware you must code for. Just like on gaming consoles. You can optimize your software way better that way. On the other hand, Android is just like any other OS on the PC market where you have to deal with a lot of different hardware and you can easily break stuff by updating your base (android). Performance wise its hard to optimize anything and you have to do hacks for specific platforms if you want to get performance gains.
Personally, i prefer having hardware diversity. A bit of tinkering here and there and you can even run on old smartphones android quite stable and fluid. For the non-technical ppl.. well.. i dont really give a damn. They can crawl in their marketing swamp and buy whatever they get a hard on.
Nuff said.
Try telling that to Bethesda.
Bethesda is a sibling of idSoftware… That still hasn’t released Rage for Android.
Will you write a S2 review or has that window closed already?
And don’t you need a N9 and a Pre3/Touchpad? 😉
I was also hoping for a s2 review by thom. I’m surprised he hasn’t written one yet.
I was struggling a bit with the S2 – it’s supposed to get ICS pretty quickly so I was waiting for that to catch two birds with one stone. Then again, the device is sold as it is now, so maybe I’m going to review it anyway.
I’ve been using it full-time as my phone anyway, so I could probably whip something up in a few days. Mmmmm. It’s going to be stormy weather anyway this week, and there’s the European Championships Curling – perfect opportunity actually.
time for a new broom then Thom?
I’m more interested in Wayland.
The Samsung Galaxy S II (gawd, could they have come up with a longer name?) has one of the fastest SoCs available right now, with one of the most powerful GPUs available for Android. There’s a *lot* of CPU/GPU power in there to brute-force their way through the Android 2.x graphics pipeline. The drivers for the Exynos GPU are also optimised, especially in later versions of 2.3.x.
Other phones have less powerful CPUs and/or GPUs and/or less optimised drivers, so they have more/less lag/stutter/graphical issues.
As with everything in the land of the PC, it all depends on the hardware/drivers.
If you really want to get into the nitty-gritty details regarding SoCs and their relative performance in Android and iOS devices, read through some of the phone reviews on http://www.anandtech.com
The graphics benchmark graphs are especially interesting to pore over.
For example, there’s an inexpensive phone out of China running MIUI based on Android 2.3.5 that simply blows away the competition in a lot of graphics/browsing tasks. They spent a lot of time optimising the drivers and other software on the phone, allowing the much slower CPU to keep up with the big boys.
I’m currently using a Nexus S, and had a Nexus One before that, and I don’t see any difference in the responsiveness or smoothness of the UI compared to my wife’s iPhone 4.
I am willing to bitch about sometimes choppy widget refreshing on my Galaxy Tab 10.1, but given that the iPad doesn’t even have widgets, I’m not sure you can compare. As for app performance, it’s fast any clean with any decently written app (which is most of them).
It’s not just about the OS or even its renderer. I’ve found on my Nook Color that the UI can be laggy as hell depending on the launcher used. When I switched from the default ADW Launcher to Launcher Pro, I saw a dramatic increase in fluidity and responsiveness, to the point that I felt I was on an iPad-class tablet. Even on my old Motorola Cliq, Launcher Pro took it from miserable to usable.
I’ve also seen iOS-quality graphics on the Nexus S, though the screen itself seemed sub-par. I think it’s a combination of good hardware specs and good coding that make for a pleasant UI experience under Android.
Edited 2011-12-07 00:36 UTC
Well Thom, the you’ll be blown away when SGS2 gets Android 4. I have Galaxy Nexus and there is just no comparison to my Nexus S.
I still find a bit of jitter annoying, but that just me with my good eyes and PC FPS addiction @60Hz.
Frankly only WP7 pleased my eyes when it came to jitterless operation, until I got my hands onto Galaxy Nexus.
My phone has occasional jitters while NewsRob is syncing (lots of disk & network IO) and Listen is playing a podcast in parallel, but otherwise, nope not a lagfest. HTC Desire with 2.2.
I would like to highlight the second post’s credits section:
Information about Android’s historical roots taken from In the Plex by +Steven Levy and Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Er…
I think the complaints of user fluidity are mostly old news. Android used to be horrendous. The new versions are getting better and better, and I think there isn’t much of a difference anymore. I still think the iPad2/iPhone 4S has a slight advantage, but you do have to pay attention.
Something like the Galaxy S is already very nice. It’s just once in a while you notice that some animation is a bit too long, or something doesn’t quite move how you would expect it to.
However that’s more design tweaks and I heard Android 4 solves some of those.
I still prefer iOS for other reasons, but Android is now equivalent as far as UI responsiveness goes on modern hardware.
I am an admitted android fanboi. However, I have to say I do see the jitter. To me it is even obvious when looking at a tiny ipod nano compared to *any* android device, even the latest generation (I have an HTC sensation with latest cyanogen, mildly jittery).
The debate of this is surprising to me because it is very obvious IMO.
Maybe the issue is people’s ability to see the jitter? For example some people can see the refresh on old monitors and others can’t. Just a theory, no idea.
I always thought it was lack of hardware acceleration in android ui which is now fixed in ICS. I’m really curious to see if all the people who can see it are happy with ICS, that is what I’m hearing.
I have noticed a bit of lag when sliding to unlock, for instance. My brother has a jailbroken iPhone 3G, but I haven’t tried it enough to make a comparison.
I’m the owner of a LG Optimus T P509. It’s a cheaper device with a 600 MHz CPU (with a built-in Adreno 200 GPU) and 512 MiB of ram. The device (while not filled to the brim with bells n’ whistles from the get go) ran well but not perfect. Minor lag when starting apps or moving to the homescreen, I suspect from having to reload everything.
After I loaded it with a custom 2.3 rom (with better kernel, driver, and system optimization) however I experience less lag even after I have added in the eye-candy that I can’t live without.
While I can’t say conclusively my experience with custom roms leads me to believe that proper optimization is key for Android performance. Some rom performance is plain horrendous while others run how I wish Windows would.
I’ve briefly fiddled around with a Sony tablet and a couple of Android phones.
They’re not as smooth as an iDevice, but it didn’t bother me that much.
What did bother me was the quality of the touch screen, it wasn’t as accurate as an iDevice. It even made me wonder a few times if I actually had to double tap certain icons as one touch often didn’t work.
What I disliked most was the confusing cluttered interface. I felt the stress hormones enter my system. This is not what you want on a phone or a tablet that are meant to be quick ‘n’ easy.
you ask “why is Android laggy, while iOS, Windows Phone 7, QNX, and WebOS are fluid?” … ?
here it is:
“If you want to achieve 60fps, you have 20 milliseconds to handle each frame. This is not a lot of time. Just touching the flash storage system in the thread that is running the UI can in some cases introduce a delay that puts you out of that timing window, especially if you are writing to storage.”
thats why! because of bad design, bad code, poor control of superiors inside Google Android group, bad decisions…
prove:
“As of Android 3.0, the browser now uses tiles, so it can maintain a consistent frame rate as you scroll or zoom…”
after 4 years that decide to go with tiles.
I really hope that Google will be better at software quality than Microsoft (often it is)…
and again:
“Nexus S CPU can easily draw the tiles to the window at 60fps”
Dianne think that if CPU can draw that it is the best way ?!?! – but is it most efficient way? they need to work a lot at Google to change this type of thinking…
I haven’t noticed any lag, or it’s very little irregularly, unless something has crashed, which happens more frequently then I’d like. on my Samsung Captivate (AT&T’s Galaxy S) with Android 2.2.
I can’t tell a difference between my wife’s iPad, the iPhones I support, and Android on my phone. My wife can’t tell a difference between her iPad and her Captivate. Of course, this as long as live wallpapers aren’t running.
I was playing with an Asus Transformer demo with a live map as it’s background, and it was painfully slow. My wife’s Captivate had a little lag until I turned off the live wallpaper.
As an aside, I hate animations in operating systems. Turning them off is usually the first thing I do, but Android has found a nice balance.
I had an iPhone 3GS before I switched over to Android. My first Android device was a HTC Hero, which was an underpowered piece of garbage. I was running the stock ROM on it, but after switching over to Cyanogen (can’t remember which version), it helped out a great deal, but the device was still underpowered and had issues. I got a Galaxy S Showcase (I500) about a year ago, and am running stock 2.3.5 on it, and I am not having any type of problems at all.
The only widgets that I have running is Beautiful Weather and TweetCaster Pro on it. Responsiveness on it is just fine, and is just as smooth as when I had my 3GS. Now, I am a bit anal and will use my Task Manager to kill any running applications (just to ensure better battery life), but graphics are great when I’m watching a video on YouTube or Netflix. When I had a live wallpaper running, I did notice it would hurt the performance on the phone, but I think that was more due to the wallpaper utilizing more memory and was of a hardware problem than one with Android itself. And, the novelty of live wallpaper wore off pretty quickly for me.
The only problem that I ever have with it is watching ESPN3 streaming videos, as that seems to grab every single bit of available memory available and will slow down my phone. Transitioning between screens and apps is very smooth, and I have no delays on the device that I can notice.
Edited 2011-12-07 14:22 UTC
My Galaxy Note definitely has some lag spots despite being one of most powerful devices on the market.
(stock TouchWiz 2.3.6, no live papers).
Screen switching – butter smooth, always
Orientation switching – smooth, little lag
Contact scrolling – little choppy, minimal lag 1st time (looks like cold cache)
Browser zooming – semi smooth, ok
Browser scrolling – mixed bag, sometimes smooth other times (even on simple pages), choppy as hell, irritating
Picture zooming , ok but not at IPhone level
I have an HTC Aria (or Liberty or Intruder) and even though it only has a 600 MHz cpu and 384 mb of memory (and pitiful internal storage), it runs fairly smooth on CM7 (Android 2.3.3). When I still had it on the stock rom with HTC Sense (shudder), it was horrible.
Frankly, if you aren’t using AOSP or the Nexus line, you won’t see anywhere near the performance as those of us who do. From personal experience, the carriers/manufacturers custom skins and roms just aren’t as good as what comes out of google.
My wife’s HTC Inspire 4G is blazingly fast on CM7, but it is alot better than my little Aria.
…I have an iPhone 4s and a WP7 phone and my SIL and a good friend both have recent android hardware (S and I forget what my friend has, got it last year).
The WP7 phone is the smoothest followed by the iPhone when scrolling. The two android phones follow closely behind that.
My visual opinion of course. But honestly, I don’t care if you catch glimpse of the slightest little skip when scrolling through apps… not a biggy. They all start apps quickly and then all the apps work great. The android has a nice selection of apps, as does WP7 tho’ neither compare to the quantity of stuff available to the iPhone. But I’ve found everything that *I* need/use on both WP7 and iPhone and I am sure they are available on the android. (Does anyone know if Geochache.com app is available on Android?)
Anyway… I have really become fond of the WP7 UI and when my wife’s contract is up in February, I am going to get another WP7 phone and trade her my 4s (sell her 4) and close out my other phone account with my current HTC HD7…
@Tuishimi – Geocaching does have an app on the Android Market:
http://www.geocaching.com/android/
There you go then. Complete.
HTC Incredible (verizon) swirling galaxy background. I don’t see any input lag. Almost zero app lag unless I’m dealing with a program that thrashes through memory like a topographic maps program etc.
Here are some numbers for input lag on tablets.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amazon-kindle-fire-review,3076-…
Perhaps people are basing their experience on the first time they open their web browser? I notice it takes a second for the internet app to start, then any other time I go back it’s instant (still loaded?)
I have to agree with you there, Thom. I have the HTC Incredible S, which isn’t as powerful as the Samsung, but I still don’t notice any problems.
My old HTC Magic however… that’s a different story. It lagged a bit when it was new, and with android 2.2 it is barely usable. But that’s old hardware by todays standards, so I’m not surprised.
I hear a bit about the lagging from other people, but they don’t seem to use android phones, so I guess everyone is happy.
However, since I use Droid X2 on Verizon, the phone comes with much bloat that I’ll never use. My phone is rooted but I haven’t yet disabled the bloat (yet being the keyword..). I do see some truly terrible slowdowns at times I find unacceptable. Most of the time rendering speeds are plenty good.
I have been using the HTC Desire HD (Single Core 1Ghz Snapdragon). With cyanogen the transitions are smooth 98% of the time, however every now and then something’s going on which causes it to be a little jittery. I suspect it’s doing some sort of garbage collection but have not had time to test/investigate further.
I have a standard wall paper background and fancy widgets running a desktop/screen clock and weather widget. I also have my calendar on another desktop/screen. Nothing updating constantly.. auto updates every 6 hours.
I may be the only one on here who uses a WP7 phone day to day.. thought I would share my experience…
The OS is silky smooth in general.. there are a few things that spoil it… I have experienced jittering on the Start screen and most noticeably the Please wait animation (no idea what that’s called) – I love that animation (yes I am sad).
I don’t think everything is as simple as people are making out as there are so many other variables to take into account… My iPhone had scrolling issues, my Old android phone did and now my WP7 phone has issues on the odd occasion… its part of having a piece of technology that can do multiple things at once..
I bought an HTC arrive the day they came out for sprint. Freaking love it
Ever since mango came out almost all my complaints disappeared.
The UI is definitely the most fluid on any regular basis vs my 4th Gen iPod Touch and my android reader.
It really is amazingly smooth…
My Samsung Nexus S is also super-fluid, even with myriad of applications installed.