anyone else going back to smaller screen from bigger one?

When I type on my HTC One there is this very small but perceptible lag between hitting the screen and the letter appearing. It very often makes me think I have mistyped and I stop to check that it's done what I expect. This has been discussed in the past and I seem to remember that it may be that IOS has closer integration at a low level driver interface between the O/S and the hardware (due to both hardware and software being under Apple's control). This was also my experience on the Nexus 4 and Nexus 7 I used to own, and also on the no name Android tablet I still have.
The saving grace for me is the Swype keyboard on Android, this outweighs the lagginess.

You on sense 5.5 and android 4.3 ? I just checked that myself and honestly I can't see any lag at all the letters are appearing instantly. I can't honestly remember seeing something like you are describing. I will keep on the look out for it though.

Think we can all say now though Android is pretty well optimised compared to what it used to be.

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Again, I get shouted down if I mention battery comparisons, but the fact is when I use both my 5S and my HTC One in equal amounts for real world things, the HTC invariably flattens first. When I am away and not with my car I carry round an external battery pack for recharging my phones. Invariable on a long day out I will need to top up the HTC but not the 5S. If I am really careful about which apps I close down and which services I leave running then I can nurse the HTC through a few more hours, but with the 5S I don't even have to consider such issues.

I used to struggle get through my day on my HTC one if I was using it heavy but since I upgraded to 4.3 the battery life seems to have taken a noticeable increase.

TheSloth · 24-11-2013, 22:05

Going back to iOS on the basis of using an original Galaxy Note is a bit drastic - it's a two year old phone and later handsets will give you a far better Android experience, especially if you don't have a bolted-on UI like Touchwiz which accounts for a lot of the lag (and gobbles a lot of RAM).

It would be interesting how the N7000 would perform with, say, Cyanogenmod 11 (running KitKat) onboard - I'd imagine it would be a lot smoother.

I've just got a Nexus 5 and haven't noticed any lag as yet. KitKat brought yet more performance tweaks (better memory management etc.) so couple that with a modern quad core handset and no skinned UI and lag's no longer an issue.

alanwarwic · 24-11-2013, 22:43

I use a tiny Pulse Mini for nights out.
The £25 cost Mini is so slow I lost a full 3 seconds of my life when I had the misfortune to use it the other day.

But really, no matter what size phone I use, it is always too small for use any length of time tabletesque !

jonner101 · 24-11-2013, 23:03

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Again, I get shouted down if I mention battery comparisons, but the fact is when I use both my 5S and my HTC One in equal amounts for real world things, the HTC invariably flattens first. When I am away and not with my car I carry round an external battery pack for recharging my phones. Invariable on a long day out I will need to top up the HTC but not the 5S. If I am really careful about which apps I close down and which services I leave running then I can nurse the HTC through a few more hours, but with the 5S I don't even have to consider such issues.

Its not that that the battery on the Nexus 5 or HTC one is bad, in fact some Android phones the battery is excellent and would probably beat the iPhone 5s if you were doing a sort of non real world empirical test.

The issue is that sometimes apps can misbehave like the recent google services issue. Sometimes you can get apps running down the battery in the background.

The nexus 5 has a quick browser but the iPhone 5s scrolling and pinch zoom is definitely much smoother. The iOS 7 animation is pants though and needs to be disabled. ( which thankfully you can from 7.0.3 onwards )

Again some people may not notice but if you get used to a certain level of os smoothness you notice it more when switching over to a different system

ShaunIOW · 24-11-2013, 23:25

I have an HTC One and think its a great phone but do find it a bit bulky and wish it were a bit smaller, I certainly won't be going for a larger screen phone and sometimes wish I'd waited and got the One Mini but the lack of storage (and no card slot) and smaller battery put me off. I do find the screen on the HTC One very nice to use especially as I have large hands but as a phone is a phone primarily for me and I just use the internet and apps side of things as a backup or when no laptop or tablet is available I think I could live with a smaller screen again - ideally 4".

qasdfdsaq · 24-11-2013, 23:46

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When I type on my HTC One there is this very small but perceptible lag between hitting the screen and the letter appearing. It very often makes me think I have mistyped and I stop to check that it's done what I expect.

Does this occur with any keyboard or just the stock one?

qasdfdsaq · 24-11-2013, 23:49

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The issue is that sometimes apps can misbehave like the recent google services issue. Sometimes you can get apps running down the battery in the background.

The nexus 5 has a quick browser but the iPhone 5s scrolling and pinch zoom is definitely much smoother. The iOS 7 animation is pants though and needs to be disabled. ( which thankfully you can from 7.0.3 onwards )

But the beauty of Android is both those things are entirely under your control. Apps like Greenify can prevent other apps "misbehaving" by stopping or hibernating resource hogs automatically. You also have a wider choice of browsers all of which perform differently, and there's no need to stick with the stock browser or derivatives of it.

jonner101 · 24-11-2013, 23:53

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Does this occur with any keyboard or just the stock one?

I disagree about there being lag on the android keyboard. I can't say I've noticed this. It's more with pinch/zoom and scrolling inside apps where you notice a difference.

for me this is a big pro for the Android device not only are there switchable keyboards but the stock Android imo is so much better than the iOS one. I hate the fact that the letters are always capitalised in iOS.

jonner101 · 25-11-2013, 00:07

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But the beauty of Android is both those things are entirely under your control. Apps like Greenify can prevent other apps "misbehaving" by stopping or hibernating resource hogs automatically. You also have a wider choice of browsers all of which perform differently, and there's no need to stick with the stock browser or derivatives of it.

This is mainly a con of Android for me as I don't feel like having to mess around with utilities to maximise battery life.

Also as we do web applications a particular bug bear of mine is having different web browsers which can take the same bit of html or javascript and css file and do something completely different with them. So I'm very much for standard web browser engines

IslandNiles · 25-11-2013, 00:13

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Originally Posted by IslandNiles

I disagree about there being lag on the android keyboard. I can't say I've noticed this. It's more with pinch/zoom and scrolling inside apps where you notice a difference.

for me this is a big pro for the Android device not only are there switchable keyboards but the stock Android imo is so much better than the iOS one. I hate the fact that the letters are always capitalised in iOS.

This is interesting. Only the other day, my friend was complaining about keyboards for his Nexus 4. He had just started to use the Google keyboard but said he wasn't that keen on it. I can't quite remember why but I'll ask him tomorrow. He usually uses Swype which he says is fine, but he has one major problem with it: The keyboard can take up to 10 seconds to appear when he wants to send a reply to a text, WhatsApp etc. He also said he finds Swiftkey rubbish despite its popularity.

He does like swipable keyboards though and prefers them to traditional ones. Obviously not even an option on iOS.

Re the capitalised letters on the iOS keyboard, this wasn't really an issue for me with the old keyboard, because the shift key was quite prominent. But now, it's not as easy to tell whether caps lock is on or not.

jonner101 · 25-11-2013, 00:42

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This is interesting. Only the other day, my friend was complaining about keyboards for his Nexus 4. He had just started to use the Google keyboard but said he wasn't that keen on it. I can't quite remember why but I'll ask him tomorrow. He usually uses Swype which he says is fine, but he has one major problem with it: The keyboard can take up to 10 seconds to appear when he wants to send a reply to a text, WhatsApp etc. He also said he finds Swiftkey rubbish despite its popularity.

He does like swipable keyboards though and prefers them to traditional ones. Obviously not even an option on iOS.

Re the capitalised letters on the iOS keyboard, this wasn't really an issue for me with the old keyboard, because the shift key was quite prominent. But now, it's not as easy to tell whether caps lock is on or not.

I always thought that the rational for the capitalised keyboard was the skeuomorphic principal of making something look like the physical representation in this case a real physical keyboard shows capitalised letters.

But wasn't this supposed to be changed for iOS7 ?

swordman · 25-11-2013, 01:02

How does capitalisation make any difference to that principle?

tdenson · 25-11-2013, 01:10

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Originally Posted by enapace

You on sense 5.5 and android 4.3 ? I just checked that myself and honestly I can't see any lag at all the letters are appearing instantly. I can't honestly remember seeing something like you are describing. I will keep on the look out for it though.

Think we can all say now though Android is pretty well optimised compared to what it used to be.

I used to struggle get through my day on my HTC one if I was using it heavy but since I upgraded to 4.3 the battery life seems to have taken a noticeable increase.

Still on Android 4.2.2 - I wasn't aware that Three have pushed out 4.3 yet

tdenson · 25-11-2013, 01:12

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Its not that that the battery on the Nexus 5 or HTC one is bad, in fact some Android phones the battery is excellent and would probably beat the iPhone 5s if you were doing a sort of non real world empirical test.

The issue is that sometimes apps can misbehave like the recent google services issue. Sometimes you can get apps running down the battery in the background.

Yes this is the point I was making. I have to be careful about which apps I let continue to run in the background.

tdenson · 25-11-2013, 01:14

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Does this occur with any keyboard or just the stock one?

Haven't tried other keyboards. I like to use out of the box software as I change my phones so frequently.

tdenson · 25-11-2013, 01:16

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But the beauty of Android is both those things are entirely under your control. Apps like Greenify can prevent other apps "misbehaving" by stopping or hibernating resource hogs automatically.

But the beauty of IOS is you don't need those other apps

tdenson · 25-11-2013, 01:17

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Originally Posted by swordman

I hate the fact that the letters are always capitalised in iOS.

I agree

tdenson · 25-11-2013, 01:18

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How does capitalisation make any difference to that principle?

I think he was saying that not changing the case of the letters is a better real world map to a typewriter - however it's a potty principle applied like that.

enapace · 25-11-2013, 01:20

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Still on Android 4.2.2 - I wasn't aware that Three have pushed out 4.3 yet

Update on Three was pushed out about two days after sim free version was.

qasdfdsaq · 25-11-2013, 01:42

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Haven't tried other keyboards. I like to use out of the box software as I change my phones so frequently.

Meh, my Android phones always automatically re-download my custom keyboard apps whenever I setup a new device anyway. Swiftkey now cloud syncs your settings and "learnt" spellchecker customizations too. Frankly I prefer that setup because it means I have the same keyboard with the same behaviours nomatter what my device, rather than having to deal with different keyboards on each one just to stay "stock".

I'd have thought as someone who changes phones a lot having automatic setup of the same keyboard on every device would be an advantage, and having to get used to lots of different setups and layouts to be a drawback.

qasdfdsaq · 25-11-2013, 01:43

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