Request to fix Input Lag on Note II
Hi everyone
I just made a video so everyone sees what input lag is, and to have an accurate estimation of how much this is on the Note 2.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MyfkypkNWk&feature=youtu.be
Update 2013/09/23 : Please also have a look at it (pro measurements of input lag comparing samsung to apple devices) : http://appglimpse.com/blog/touchmarks-i-smart-phone-touch-screen-latencies/
Update 2013/10/08 : A test of 21 smartphones' input lag, very interesting
http://www.digitalversus.com/mobile...st-results-21-smartphones-tablets-n29229.html
HUGE NEWS
This is not input lag, it's mainly display lag ! I'll edit the entire post when i got some time.
How do i know that ?
Because if you activate the touch vibration (for the keyboard) and haptic feedback, you feel like the vibration is in sync with your touches (so less than 50ms for sure, maybe less than 20 or 10ms, i will be able to measure it very precisely with a microphone when i got some time); on the other hand, the display is still 90 to 130ms late... So 2 solutions : laggy video software, or laggy screen/digital analog conversion. Maybe something to do with Pentile ? As SGS 1 and 2 were not Pentile, and way way faster than SGS 2 and 3. I don't know if it's fixable, as android seems to be already unbufferized and as fast as it can. By the way, just spam Samsung about it so they fix it at least for their new phones (unlike SGS4 and Note 3)
Introduction for input lag newbies
If you don't know what display lag is, please read this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_lag
It's about the same as input lag, except it counts your human interface device's response delay
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input_lag
Just to let you know, Input lag concerns every phone, every input device, because nothing in the electronic world is instantaneous.
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Some of you may have noticed that all the recent phones released have a non negligeable amount of input lag, even more than the previous generations that were already bad. If you didn't, no problem, you will be able to see it thanks to this topic, and i hope, understand why this is very very important to get rid of the maximum amount of input lag.
The Note 2 and Galaxy S 3 have about 100-170ms input lag wich makes many of you feel the response to your fingers' moves feeling late, slow, smoothed, and unnatural. It's painful to say that, but iphones does better, and for example, when a very good player of Ruzzle i know tried to play on my phone after playing every day on her iphone, that was a huge issue for her, and she decided to stop playing on my phone just because it was too slow for her, she was 2 times faster than the phone's reponsiveness. Yes, when you move fast, 100ms is a lot. Even while typing, unconciously, you're not typing as fast if lettering appears lately, almost if you activated "vibrating on touch" that is late too. I've noticed that i'm a bit faster typing with vibration off because of that.
Just to say it can bother anyone, almost if you have used a more responsive device even once only.
My hope is that we can find a fix to improve responsiveness, in case if it's not only a hardware issue, but also a big part of software. We are pretty sure that the capacitive touchscreen detection (+ refresh rate of the screen which is inevitable) is responsible for at least 80-100ms of this input lag.
The main target of this topic is to call amazing devs here to help trying to make the Note 2 experience even better. All input lag haters here would be really really grateful if anything was done to get rid of at least some of it, and other people would be amazed to see their phones being fast as light.
Never heard about input lag ?
That's normal, there's a pretty bad communication about it, even if it gets better (see links in beginning of the topic). Gamers are mostly concerned about it with computers, but this is happening on any electronic device.
It's the delay between the input and the output of a device.
It's not about being "laggy" or "choppy", as input lag newbies confuse very often : it's about being late !
It's just a hardware and software treatment, due to several things, as any component introduces input lag (even if it's very small). CPU latency (a few nanoseconds) is negligible. A CPU can't cause latency itself. Refresh rate of the screen (the time to display a new frame), screen input lag (time to analyse images and to send it to the screen) touchscreen analysis (the capacitive detection of your fingers), can result in a delayed experience.The consequence is that when you make a move, the action will follow your move with a little delay. That's what you'll see when looking for it.
But if it's not annoying for everyone, anybody could feel the improvement in responsiveness between a big input lag and a low input lag. It just feels better, even if people can't explain it. It's the same difference for most people between SD and HD, or between a bad MP3 and a good FLAC, or a bad headphone and a good headphone : It's better, but most people doesn't have the ability to explain why.
As electronic and the clocking technique involves input lag, the target is just to make it the lowest possible using good hardware, and avoiding any kind of buffering or averaging that causes delay.
Microsoft made a video about that. They estimate that today, most devices has a around 100ms input lag, and that we would need 1ms input lag to make it feel real, to give you the feeling that you're actualy drawing on your screen, or movig an real object. In practice, as most screens are running at 60fps, 1/60 = 16ms, we could get under 20ms if touchscreen input lag was less than 2ms, with no frame buffering, no averaging on the finger's position while touching the screen, and no screen latency. Of course, it would get to 8ms with 120hz mobile phone screens, but i guess it's a bit too much for now.
Everyone having any doubt about how input lag matters, or wanting to see it in action should watch this video from Microsoft
http://youtu.be/vOvQCPLkPt4 or just simply watch mine (link at the beginning of the topic).
We mostly use to care about input lag :
- On TV or PC Monitors (but it's often heavier on TVs) because of digital/analog conversions, and non real time picture quality improvements. The standard of a TV is between 20 to 300ms (depending on the settings and hardware), some gets lower. Unlike people could think, it doesn't depend of the size of the screen, as electrons are fast enough so you can't notice their latency. The standard of a PC monitor is between 0 to 50ms for the worst ones.
- On keyboard and mices : Most recent mices offers a 1000Hz (1ms) refresh rate, but the normal value is 125Hz (8ms), some keyboards are running at 1000hz too.
- Software delays : Vsync for example, has been created to remove the tearing effect, but it adds delay to sync frames rendering, and screen refresh rate. We can also see "frame buffering" that consist in generating a few frames before displaying it so the overall framerate smoother (less fluctuation), but it adds delay too (we call that input lag too). Frame buffering is usually used to compensate a badly coded game/application.
- For example, in the audio and video recording and broadcasting, converters, buffers, clocks, must be as fast as possible.
The fact is that most people are used to input lag, and think this is the normal response of a device. You just have to watch reviews of recent phones to see that almost nobody talks about it. I'll tell you something : a 1/10s input lag is not a response time you should expect. You should expect a 1/1000s input lag according to Microsoft in the video i just posted, or at least for now, 1/30 to 1/60s. The lower the input lag is, even if you can't quantize it conciously, the most natural it will feel, the most accurate you will be, the fastest you will be, and finally, the more enjoyable will your experience be.
A little comparison, as i'm a sound engineer : As you may know, what you see dominates what you hear. Well, in the music production's world, when you hear the return of your instrument or voice in your headphones while recording it, it HAS to be under a 10ms delay, and you prefer it under 4ms, or if possible, in some systems, you can get it even closer to 0 (about 0,1ms). => The target is always to make it the lowest possible so the feeling or the feedback becomes more natural. So OK, you could record a guitar or drum part while hearing yourself 20ms late, you would just be 20ms less accurate, which is a lot and slightly audible.
The actual input lag on the Note II and SIII
First of all, how can you see this input lag yourself ?
=> See video in introduction !
You can also
Go to System Settings, Developer Options, and tick "Show touches" (show visual feedback for touches).
=> It will show a dot representing the position of your finger, as the phone senses it.
Now if you make a slow move, the dot will stay under your finger, but if you move faster (for example try to make circles), you will notice that the dot follows actualy follows your finger.
Also see video here http://gigaom.com/2012/01/19/video-android-touch-lag-and-a-possible-solution/
This is what i've tested myself :
- Galaxy S1
- Galaxy S2
- Galaxy S3
- Galaxy Note 2
- Iphone 5
What i can say is the S1 and S2 have about the same input lag, and the S3 and Note 2 have the same at least twice bigger input lag.
Yeah, that's right : the new gen, supposed to be an upgrade, is for sure more powerful, is more expensive but has a lot more input lag. Quite frustrating isn't it ?
In the same time, the iphone 5 is way faster, more like the SGS1 and 2, something around 50ms.
We estimate that the input lag between 100 and 170ms, depending on the situation, and including all sources of input lag (vsync, frames buffering, screen refresh rate, and capacitive detection)
This is 1/10s to 1/6s ! It's just unsuitable for gaming, and comfort.
What To fix & Possible ways to do so
Biggest input lag source : The Capacitive Detection
In the Input Lag thread, Chrissssssss made a test : He plugged a mouse to his phone, and made a reaction test. His result was about 80 to 100ms less while using the mouse than while using the touchscreen
=> We can conclude that the capacitive detection of the touchscreen touchscreen takes already at least 80ms.
KurianOfBorg just said :
I believe on the SGS2 and Note the OS actually uploads the touchscreen firmware to the Amtel controller. These blobs could be hacked in someway to reduced the number of samples (usually 4) per report.
Even Samsung cannot do it. In some other thread the Samsung engineers told someone that even they simply receive just the firmware blobs for the touchscreen from Amtel. The only thing that has been achieved so far on the touchscreen device is changing the Vitalij value via sysfs on the SGS2. You can look through /sys/bus/i2c/devices/3-004a/ or /sys/devices/platform/s3c2440-i2c.3/i2c-3/3-004a/ if they exist on your device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe a way to tweak ?
We use to see this tweak in ROMs : Disable Scrolling cache. It seems to improve a bit the response time already, but not enough for a real time feeling.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2003062
Here is some work made on the I9003
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1587553
About myself / why would you trust me ?
I'm a drummer, gamer, and sound engineer student. As a gamer, i always tried to have low input lag input and display devices. I got a BenQ XL2420T and Steelseries Sensei Mice : Theorical input lag measured by several tests between 1 to 17ms (excluding refresh rate that is 8ms @120hz and with vsync OFF). So i'm used to input lag close to 0, and i know how a responsive device must feel. I've also measured several input lag delays of screen and mices, so i'm now able to estimate input lag between 1 ans 100ms quite accurately (never had to measure more so it's hard to guess how more it is, you just know if it's over 100ms or not).
As a drummer, and a sound engineer, i'm very sensitive to precision and i can notice any little thing that is not synced.
Finally, I don't know if it's fully fixable, or how much it can be improved, i hope it can get under 50ms by combining display tweak (disable vsync, frame buffering) and input tweak (tweaking the tacile driver so it is direct input, very low buffer, and high refresh rate).
I'll say thank you in advance to anyone trying to improve reponse time.
Please let me know if there's anything to correct in my main post.
See also
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2120867
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1730089 (nice example of input lag denial from newbies)
Reserved space
Useess
Re: [Dev request] Fix touchscreen input lag
nabilsweet007 said:
Useess
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Yeah posting other's work under your name and not giving them proper credits is useful.
Sent from my GT-N7100
nabilsweet007 said:
Useess
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
TROLL SPOTTED
And giving a stupid personal judgement without any explaination is very usefull ?
I don't see the point : How could any improvement be useless ? Especially if some of us find this issue very unpleasant, and if it's directly about what you feel (consciously or not) when you're using your smartphone...
The fact is as you can't even write correctly, i guess you can't even use your fingers and eyes properly to enjoy a latency free device.
I do notice this input lag more often on a stock based roms then aosp/cm10.1. Ive tried the "show touches" options on both the roms and noticed that the input lag on the aosp rom is significantly less than that present on the stock. As for, whether this is a feature or intended to improve visual quality, i dont know but i do hope its not. This is an issue that does bother me alot and the only reason why i keep going back to custom stock roms is due to the poor batterylife present on the cm10.1 roms, other than that i was quite happy with aosp/cm10.1.
Hopefully, more people will get aware of this issue, enough for Sammy/XDA Developers to try and tackle it. Good Thread:good:
Re: [Dev request] Fix touchscreen input lag
I like your investigation but I think it is hardware issue. As MS engineer says "in the next decade".
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda premium
bushako said:
Hopefully, more people will get aware of this issue, enough for Sammy/XDA Developers to try and tackle it. Good Thread:good:
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Thanks, nice to show how this is bothering you too :highfive:
And yes, even if we don't find a solution, at least poeple will be more aware of this global issue and the lack of efforts from Samsung about it. I'm sad to say that, but Apple is the only one that seems to take care of that, with a really lower input lag. I tried one more iphone 5 this morning, it must be around 50ms input lag, still not perfect, but much better already.
mariosraptor said:
I like your investigation but I think it is hardware issue. As MS engineer says "in the next decade".
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda premium
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Thank you too.
As the SGS2 and even the SGS1 has lower input lag, this just makes no sense, it's supposed to get down and it's getting up ?
There is almost always a hardware part and a software part in input lag. I know the touchscreen implies at least 80ms, but in those, how much are software due to buffers, or error corrections, or whatever it is ? I hope we can at least get rid of a big part of the software one, and i hope it's the biggest one... :angel: If the hardware is 80% of it, then i'll just wait for any other nice android phone without this bad spec, and change the Note 2, but at least, poeple will know about it, and stop thinking that this latency is a smoothing and is normal... This is latency, and it really sucks !
Smoothing would be a bad thing with touchscreens anyway (and i think it's a bad thing on any input device as well) as you should feel what you're doing, not something different, or your senses are just going mad, and it's the same for a delay. But yeah, just in case if anyone has a doubt : this is not a gentle smoothing, this is just a nasty input lag.
Edited the main topic with a comparison to music production's world.
Re: [Dev request] Fix touchscreen input lag
http://www.overclock.net/t/1351079/guru3d-galaxy-s-iv-confirms-exynos-5-octa-cpu/140
http://gamesfromwithin.com/lag-the-bane-of-touch-screens
Found this seems good.
This is only one page.
But as I said hardwre issue more than software. Yes optimizing software to 110% seems reasonable but because not to many seems bothered by this, then no jardware manufacturer will try to make hardware to have lower input latency.
If we press them and this becomes a common issue among android (and other touch devices users) then some light might show up at the end of the tunnel.
Anyway, good luck and I hope that some more knowledgeable then me responses.
Cheers
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda premium
Yes, we do understand that all touchscreens have huge input lag... the thing is, the note ii's input lag is way higher than older gen devices.
For example Subway surfers is way more responsive on my Optimus 3D than on the Note II. If you have an older phone to compare, you can easylly see the difference. I dont care much about input lag, smoothing or whatever in UI, browsers and stuff like that. but in games, its very noticible and very annoying. It almost makes me want to throw my phone against a wall.
I prefer tearing, thats why i have vsync off and minimal frame prerendering.... on my PC almost all the time.
mariosraptor said:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1351079/guru3d-galaxy-s-iv-confirms-exynos-5-octa-cpu/140
http://gamesfromwithin.com/lag-the-bane-of-touch-screens
Found this seems good.
This is only one page.
But as I said hardwre issue more than software. Yes optimizing software to 110% seems reasonable but because not to many seems bothered by this, then no jardware manufacturer will try to make hardware to have lower input latency.
If we press them and this becomes a common issue among android (and other touch devices users) then some light might show up at the end of the tunnel.
Anyway, good luck and I hope that some more knowledgeable then me responses.
Cheers
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda premium
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Click to collapse
Looks nice, thanks, i'll read it entierely when i got more time, for now i really need to sleep and have a big day waiting for me tomorrow.
From what i've already read, i just can say that my hope is a tweak in the touchscreen driver... There must have a way to override stupid values.
Kiwito22 said:
Yes, we do understand that all touchscreens have huge input lag... the thing is, the note ii's input lag is way higher than older gen devices.
For example Subway surfers is way more responsive on my Optimus 3D than on the Note II. If you have an older phone to compare, you can easylly see the difference. I dont care much about input lag, smoothing or whatever in UI, browsers and stuff like that. but in games, its very noticible and very annoying. It almost makes me want to throw my phone against a wall.
I prefer tearing, thats why i have vsync off and minimal frame prerendering.... on my PC almost all the time.
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OMG, i thought it was a quote from me, i've written the exact same idea somewhere on the web ! Totally agree, about everything.
Good Thread:good:
I like your investigation and i dont think the hardware is the issue here at all look at the older sgs2 and iphone both of them have lower input lag
Great thread!!
This is the thing I hate the most about my Android phones (I had all the flagships - GS1, GS2, GN1, GS3 and now GN2).
My iPhone 4s and iPad 3 have significantly lower input lag (and much better/smoother scrolling, but that's another issue), but they also do have completely different hardware than the Galaxy line.
The thing is, that on CM Roms I also get lower input lags, so this must be fixable or at least significantly improved via software...
Re: [Dev request] Fix touchscreen input lag
Since these Gnote II uses a Wacom touchscreen, could there be a possibility that the screen is trying to detect the spen momentarily?
AFAIK Wacom is completely off if you have pen power save enabled and pen is stored inside Note2.
A goooooood notice .....
Re: [Dev request] Fix touchscreen input lag
xartic12 said:
Since these Gnote II uses a Wacom touchscreen, could there be a possibility that the screen is trying to detect the spen momentarily?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But the way the s-pen is detected for touches etc is completely different to the way you touching the screen with your finger is. That's why air view works, and you can hold your s-pen above the screen, use something to push the nib in, and the phone will register q touch without even touching the screen, so I highly doubt that's the cause of any input lag.
Sent from my GT-N7100 using xda premium
Did anybody try and compare whether there is any difference regarding the input lag on the touch screen with your finger and the wacom digitizer with the stylus?
The only solution I could think of is reverse engineering of the touchscreen driver and that is such an ungrateful huge work for such a small interested userbase that I'd say it is not going to happen. Unless there is a developer with immense skill and way too much(!) time around
I've just watched the S4 presentation > in the intro video > Exact same input lag. Then i wateched "hands on SGS4" videos > same input lag.
What a waste, I hate them.
mariosraptor said:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1351079/guru3d-galaxy-s-iv-confirms-exynos-5-octa-cpu/140
http://gamesfromwithin.com/lag-the-bane-of-touch-screens
Found this seems good.
This is only one page.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
=> I read it, it's interesting but gaming lag of a console isn't the same.
Anyway, that's not normal that input lag increased... Maybe touchscreens got more expensive, but physical digital controllers got cheaper.
I think software is where the problem lies. I tried an iphone 4 or 4s, couldn't tell which, and it was way more responsive, and the technology is the same as in Android phones. It can't be that big a hardware issue because it would be too easy to solve, just replacing a component, and in a race to sell millions of phones surely Apple couldn't be the only company that afforts an extra dollar or so per unit to purchase a more expensive, but better component. Plus we've all seen articles and teardowns showing that Apple uses plenty of regular components that are found in other phones as well, so there's definitely no magic there. Also, the trackpads in laptops seem to be based on capacitive technology as well, yet the input lag is a lot smaller than it is on the Note 2.
My guess is that there is noise filtering, to eliminate false touches, as well as smoothing and approximation, and the programmers are also generous with the input lag to ensure a smooth approximation. The smoothing, more specifically, is what must be the most lag-inducing feature. It's most obvious when we draw something quickly on the Note 2 with a finger (and even with the pen): small detail gets lost, but all the curves are smooth, and that's because the sampling rate for the finger position is low, and it interpolates points between the sampled positions to ensure a smooth animation. Since it can't approximate all the points between two sampled positions until you actually reach the second position, and it must also run the animation through all these approximated points at the same speed that you moved your finger, that means that a list doesn't start scrolling until the screen has captured at least 2 samples of finger movement, so the animation will always be at least 1 sample behind your finger's actual movement. How many samples is unknown, but the sampling rate can be found out, and together with an accurate measurement of the lag it would be possible to find out how many touch samples it needs before it starts actually performing an animation.
So the obvious solution would be to increase the touch sampling rate, so that animations start faster, and tone down the smoothing because it would be less useful and to compensate for the computing power used by the increased sampling rate (it's not enough to prevent the power usage from rising, that's my guess, and maybe that's why iphones don't last as much as droids with comparable specs in the battery department).
For what it's worth, I'm an amateur sound engineer, bass player with an ear and a passion for drums, so I really know how you feel about input lag OP!
Related
Hey guys,
Although I am not among you, I think it would be extremely helpful/eye-opening to conduct a poll of all current HTC Touch Pro owners who have had their device for enough time to make an initial assessment of the device's quality. That means probably at least a week--but use your own discretion. Just a few suggested guidelines:
Don't let the initial euphoria blur your judgment
Think for a few moments before submitting a vote
Compare, if possible, the quality of the device to, say, that of an iPhone, if you've ever owned one or used it extensively, to provide a point of reference.
I look forward to hearing everyone's input!
-Steve
I think it would be helpful if you clarified what you mean by "device quality". Hardware, software, reception, screen, input, battery, performance, etc. Maybe you're asking for "all of the above", but at least it would help people approach it catagorically -- that way people can speak to specific things that have made an impression on them.
It's the best i've used, and the best there is on the market at this moment. I've shut off TF3D though and replaced it with Mobile Shell. Now using it with great pleasure.
With the exception of the "sleeve" and somewhat slow GPS, I am very pleased with my TP.
Great device, and i bet there is more to come with some updates in the near future. That's the reason I voted Above Avarage.
As far as functionality goes, it has all I want: telephone, mail, internet and navigation. Next to that there is a lot of software out there.
A few quircks here and there ofcourse. Like almost instant fixes with Google Maps...and 15 to 20 minutes GPS fixing time with Tom Tom 7.
Battery life could be better as well
I would have liked to add some today plugins into TF3D, or be able to add new tabs
fhsieh said:
I think it would be helpful if you clarified what you mean by "device quality". Hardware, software, reception, screen, input, battery, performance, etc. Maybe you're asking for "all of the above", but at least it would help people approach it catagorically -- that way people can speak to specific things that have made an impression on them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah; I was thinking about doing a categorical breakdown, but in the end, that would have taken a lot of polls.
I hope this is sufficient.
two big problems:
1. battery consumption
2. signal reception
othersteve said:
Yeah; I was thinking about doing a categorical breakdown, but in the end, that would have taken a lot of polls.
I hope this is sufficient.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, maybe not with the poll, but at least for any comments. I mean everyone has different needs and expectations for the device so it'll be hard to judge the poll accurately without seeing some objective testimony.
But what am I babbling about, here's some of my thoughts:
- Not the most solid handheled device I've had (my old iPaq hx4700 was a tank), but it comes very close and is definitely not a cheap build. Better than the Blackjack and some Blackberries, but I haven't spent very much time with those and I certainly don't know how well the TPro's build will last over time.
- WM6.1 isn't perfect, but then XDA is very active. Plus there are apps for just about anything you need. I spent some time with a Nokia N800, and while it's nice that Maemo is (almost) completely open-source -- which makes for an equally active community -- you're plain out of luck if no one is developing something you need. Namely, the software probably exists on standard Linux distros, but very little of it has been ported to Maemo. This is the same reason I decided not to jump on the Android bandwagon right away.
- Finally, I now have one device that does everything I needed my old devices to do. US phone (Nokia 6300), Japan phone (SE W43S), electronic dictionary (hx4700), internet device (hx4700/N800), mp3 player.
- Same observations as others: GPS is laggy, though not really an issue since I only use it as a pedestrian; battery life isn't impressive. I will probably buy a USB battery pack later.
So far v.happy, just need to solve the backlight issue when in call, and the Sim contacts list.
I've had my TP for almost 3 weeks now - it was one of the first on the market. I have used HTC qwerty based devices for several years now and this is by far the best device. I dearly loved my Tytn II but the hardware in this device is much better.
I own a 3G iPhone also and while this device is definitely a joy to use it is far from ever replacing my TP as my preference business device.
I decided to continue to run the 3D flow against other utilities but it's far from perfect - however developed with the correct user feedback it will be a great tool.
While 6.1 runs quite smoothly on the device the interface obviously lets the device down. I also have had a few lockups but no more than other devices.
The battery is pretty shocking to be honest. I use a scheduler to shut down BT and even the radio stack at night to preserve battery but to be honest if I were going away for anymore that 24 hours I would have to take a charger.
GPS has has been quick to locate a signal but I've encountered issues with TT6 \ and or Googlemaps. I currently run IGO8 and it runs very well.
Finally this device has a half-decent web browser on it - Opera mobile is great. IE mobile is a shambles.
Micro SD is essential - currently running an 8GB card with all my music, apps and vids. No idea why they left it off the Diamond - crazy in my opinion.
If anyone has any quick questions I'd be happy to answer them.
I was hoping by going with a non-American device (which has three times the processor of its American counterparts), I would have a more stable device. Overall, best phone I've ever had. A little disappointed that I need to soft reset every couple of days.
Don't regret it...leaps and bounds over my previous device.
Wow guys, thanks a ton for the feedback so far. This is extremely informative stuff to all of us prospective buyers. Personally, I'll be getting the phone through our Sprint corporate account, but as with everything that's a significant investment I have been trying to read up as much as possible on it beforehand to accurately set my expectations and prepare myself for problems that will need to be solved.
I use SPB Mobile Shell on my Mogul right now, and while I like it, I love the flair of TouchFlo3D... I just hope it is equally useful and quick (so far to that end it seems to be not quite as useful). I think I will try replacing the default contact manager on my Pro with Finger-Friendly Friends provided that will work all right. I also hope that the US release a month or so from now will see additional improvements in terms of software stability and speed (though probably not battery life).
Apart from that, I'm quite excited about everything I have read about the device. And I've always been a sucker for statistics, so having a poll on such an educated and active forum is of remarkable interest.
-Steve
The best device that I ever owned.
Like others I´m having some troubles with the GPS (reception time) and other issues like the screen going of of on a call.
So far I kinda like it.
Nevertheless I'll vote in the pole and give a complete feedback as soon as HTC repairs it (I have a sound problem...)
Hows the sound quality of the internal speaker?
Greetings
LordK
The only problem of the internal speaker is that the volume is a little bit low (compared to my colleagues' blackberrys)
Rated it Above Average!
I am using the TP for 2 weeks now. I've experienced the 'broken glass' screen and the grey-screen once.
The device is pretty quick and TF3D works nice although there are some moment when it does something completely different than what i wanted it to do.
Issues i like to see solved:
- Album cover view in TF3D music tab
- Fix for lag with TomTom
- Battery usage
Things I love:
- Memory
- Speed
- Screen
- Keyboard
I've had mine 3 weeks so far, upgrading from my beloved HTC Universal. It's a great machine but I'm not blind to it's faults, I Like Touch Flo a lot but it's just a thin layer over old ugly windows mobile.
As powerful as it is it just isn't as responsive as an iPhone, way too sluggish, expect the usual windows mobile pauses and spinning wait cursor.
The screen is too small, I liked my big screened Universal but the screen is such high quality it goes some way to making up for being small (it really is crisp).
The keyboard is ok but it's a thumbboard, I won't be knocking out the emails I used to on it. The slide action is distinctly wobbly to me, not bad, but not the decisive slide movement I expected. The onscreen keyboard is surprisingly usable much more so than the bigger IPhone one.
Memory is fantastic, loads of it, I never bother shutting things down which I was always doing on the universal.
Lockups, yup a disappointing number but a definate improvement on the universal.
GPS, not really a problem, it seems fast, but as far as I can see tomtom5 doesn't initialise the built in gps reciever so I start googlemaps, get a fast lock then switch to tomtom I notice tomtom6 has an option for built in GPS.
Lack of headphone socket is a crazy omission, it's driving me crazy and was almost a factor in not buying it, it's only 10 quid for an adaptor but just something else to carry.
The opera browser is pretty good and responsive but the icons it uses are way too chunky considering the screen is so small, talking of chunky, the menus are all pretty huge, I found how to make the start menu smaller but most menus now eg messaging, need arrows at the top and bottom to scroll the duplo vision menus into place. Also needed a hack to get googlemail working and is so small that almost every site needs a zoom to read it whereas I found I could read a lot of sites on the iPhone without zooming.
I also hate the mini sd card being hidden inside the case, it makes changing cards a pain, I'd also rather have an sd card, for the sake of a little bit bigger unit.
I never considered the IPhone because it has no physical keyboard and it was unable to run GotoMyPC but the difference between the IPhone and the Touch Pro is responsiveness, given it's a more powerful machine it's a damning indictment of windows mobile that it's so sluggish.
I just hope that there's an Android rom released for the Raphael. I'll be getting the ATT Touch Pro (or is it still considered the 'Fuze'?) when it's available as I've been drooling over the TP for a long time now. I'll deal with WM6.1 as long as I have to, but I really like Android, and would switch to it in a heartbeat.
veljko.m said:
two big problems:
1. battery consumption
2. signal reception
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Vote 1 from me
Touch flow is nothing to write home about either.
using people favorites and Active Sync hates the photos you asign to them so that becomes a waste of time.
I won't call this so much of a "dream phone" post, as it is a serious suggestion to any hardware devs that may scour smartphone forums, such as these. Anyway, I recommend that the following be implemented as a minimum/standard in future flagship devices (in no particular order)...
Code:
[B]Compass[/B], hardware
[B]3D[/B] acceleration [I](Working, that is. ::ahem:: HTC!! ::hem::)[/I]
[B]TV-out, 720P[/B] [I]([B]1080P[/B], preferably)[/I]
[B]Capacitive[/B] screen [B][I]WITH[/I][/B] [B]stylus[/B] solution [I](Which we all know to be in the works, at least by HTC)[/I] with [B]magnetic sensor[/B] [I](a la Touch Pro)[/I]
*MP camera with [B]autofocus[/B], [B]flash[/B], [B][I]AND at least[/I] VGA video recording[/B]
[B]Stereo[/B] device speaker(phone)
[B]TRACKBALL (!!!)[/B] [I](If you're gonna take D-pads away, THROW IN A TRACKBALL. I mean, look how little space it takes up)[/I]
[B]G-Sensor[/B] [I](And, more responsive. I don't know if hardware or software's to blame here)[/I]
[B]Light/Proximity Sensor[/B]
[B]802.11 a/b/g/n[/B] [I](I want [B]COMPLETE[/B] Wi-Fi connectivity)[/I]
[B]USB Host[/B] capabilities
[B]QWERTY[/B] keyboard [B][I]WITH[/I][/B] [B]offset keys, "Ctrl", "Tab"[/B] and [B]Fn-key NumPad layout[/B] [I](a la at&t's iteration's of HTC flagship devices)[/I]
[B]3.5mm audio output[/B]
[B]IR[/B] (Give me back the capability of using my device as a remote control...[B]DAMMIT![/B] And, with decent [B]range[/B])
[B]Tilting screen[/B]
And, let's not forget...[B]Thin[/B]ner is [I]always[/I] [B]BETTER[/B]
The cool thing about this list is it isn't OS-specific (aside from hardware key requirements), so I feel these should, no MUST be implemented in future WM6.1/6.5/7 and Android devices. Bluetooth's a given, and I'm sure it'd be 2.0 or higher. CPU and RAM I've left out because these can, should, and will vary, however I'd say the numbers oughta be appropriate for a flagship business/multimedia/gaming, overall high-end device. But, I'd imagine 1GHz and 512MB is a nice sweet spot. microSDHC is another given, as is aGPS. I'd really only wanted to emphasize the main varying factors.
Anyway, anyone, myself included, would be willing to pay top-dollar for such devices, I'm sure... No, I'm lying. I'd still try to find the very best bargain I could to spend THE very least possible, but that's besides the point. Feel free to chime in everyone.
It wouldn't hurt if it were a CDMA worldphone, either
Yes, because you can have a qwerty keyboard in a really thin device! What's the point of HD TV-out if you can only record at VGA?
YES!
Except:
- no TV-out
- mono speaker
- mini-USB for power
- a screen that is actually readable in sunlight not like the ****ING CRAP HTC STICK US WITH
- a CPU that can actually handle the software/OS on the device
- how about some decent memory. The iPhone has 16GB+
- a decent price ($200 max with contract)
- decent battery (1 day HEAVY, HEAVY usage - 2+ days light usage)
And there should be 3 form factors for this device:
- iphone
- iphone with a slide out qwerty (which should not add more than 0.2mm)
- blackberry
coolVariable said:
- iphone with a slide out qwerty (which should not add more than 0.2mm)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, because you ought to be able to fit a sliding mechanism, keys, and mounting hardware in 200 microns!
Seriously, you can put whatever you like in a list like this, but you can't change the laws of physics (and what you're requesting would require that...)
I've been considering purchasing the TF201 for a while now, but now that the TF300 has been released, I find it even more attractive at only $399. One of the things preventing me from going with a Transformer is whether or not the Dock's keyboard really enhances the overall 'experience'.
I would like to know what to expect from current users of the Transformer + Dock, of any model as I would expect similar performance. Is there a noticeable lag when typing from the dock? Do you notice more noticeable lag in the stock browser vs Dolphin, Opera, or Firefox ? How does it fare in word processing / note taking applications?
When a large number of things are going on at once it can take a bit to select an area to type into, but once typing there is very little if any lag at all (not noticeable to me) Do take into account that I'm overclocked with a custom kernel, that may have helped. Even before doing that I remember it was relatively lag free. Stock browser is meh, you should probably find an alternative. (not for typing but for functionality reasons, gestures etc..) Dedicated word processing is great, but do keep in mind that full writing suite apps usually cost in the $15-25 range.
Just my *¢2.
Hi
I guess for me it depends a little bit on the application but purpose as well.
I am writing parts of my doctor thesis on it, whenever I am mobile and have some time
With notepad or jotterpad there is no lag in my opinion. I am actually rather positively surprised by the quality it offers. I saw lots of threads here about people complaining that the keyboard quality and the buttons would be poor. But then for me writing works pretty well, combined with the auto correction almost flawless.
And hey there might be better Bluetooth keyboards, but which one offers extra hours of battery?
I very rarely see it lag. I sometimes see it lag if it's been on for sometime and theirs lot of things going on in the background.
Could someone please see how much the HD display hinders performance of the tablet vs the Prime?
For example... are the transitions and scrolling just as good, do games run just as fast, are apps overall just as snappy?
Because this is probably my biggest concern with the Infinity, that the HD display will cause its overall performance to suffer.
Also does anyone know if capacitive stylus's work any better with the Infinity?
EDIT: Found some nice videos of this running real time!
I've had a brief play-through with the Prime, and I can't really say the Infinity is less snappy. I do believe I see more 'hiccups' when storage is accessed, like when you install something from the Play Store and try to do something else concurrently. It can take anything from a brief hiccup to some several seconds long. ; ) And I've had Aldiko crash my Infinity twice in a row by opening a pdf file; possibly, I/O or something else, as I must admit I don't know how the Prime would have handled that one, but it is an observation.
Scrolling is fine, nothing noticeably slower or less snappy. I haven't played heavier games for ages, so I can't really comment on that. Neither do I use styli, so I can't help you out on that one either, sorry.
I've only had a few hours yesterday toying around with mine. However, here are my initial thoughts:
Screen is great, and although a bit morror-ish when displaying larger dark areas such as night scenes in movies, I find it less reflective than I feared from reviews.
No flex, give or bleed when pushing the screen, although I'm not pushing excessively as some people in this forum seem to do.
A bit sluggish when multitasking (ie installing apps or syncing Spotify while surfing at the same time) and I seem to get the "XXX stopped responding, would you like to close or wait?" message a lot. I'm guessing this is related to the IO issue as discussed in the Infinity thread.
I'm using Nova for the launch screen, and all is running very smooth. No jagged home screen transitions of any kind.
The tablet turns quite hot while gaming at at max performance with IPS+ turned on, resulting in sweaty palms.
As mentioned by most others the speaker grill placement is puzzling at best. Placing both right/left speakers on one side totally ruins the audio balance, reducing the device to mono audio output. Headset is an absolute must imo.
There's really only one thing that bugs me, and that is sporadic lack of screen precision. It doesn't always register my taps, and it seems to confuse slides/scrolls with taps. Ie, when scrolling a list of apps it may suddenly interpret the release (lifting my finger) as a tap and open the app that I happened to point at when releasing. My Galaxy Note is also running ICS 4.0.3, and the tap-scroll-release issue is not a problem there, so I don't think it's my fingers being too "non-conductive" or the OS version. Still, it doesn't happen too often, and with a bit of determination when scrolling it's all good. No where near a deal breaker.
As I said, I have only had a short time with this tablet, but so far the Infinity seem to be everything I had hoped for in a tablet!
Its just as snappy but, when I play dead trigger the controls lag on highest setting, and If I put it on high the controls are still laggy, the framerate is decent but when I play on my nexus the control are much snappier, but the frame rate is about the the same , I don't know how the prime runs it, but I know that dead trigger is optimized for 1920x1200, .... shadow gun thd does run better than on the prime
Sent from my Jelly Beaned GNexus
terjeofnorway said:
I've only had a few hours yesterday toying around with mine. However, here are my initial thoughts:
Screen is great, and although a bit morror-ish when displaying larger dark areas such as night scenes in movies, I find it less reflective than I feared from reviews.
No flex, give or bleed when pushing the screen, although I'm not pushing excessively as some people in this forum seem to do.
A bit sluggish when multitasking (ie installing apps or syncing Spotify while surfing at the same time) and I seem to get the "XXX stopped responding, would you like to close or wait?" message a lot. I'm guessing this is related to the IO issue as discussed in the Infinity thread.
I'm using Nova for the launch screen, and all is running very smooth. No jagged home screen transitions of any kind.
The tablet turns quite hot while gaming at at max performance with IPS+ turned on, resulting in sweaty palms.
As mentioned by most others the speaker grill placement is puzzling at best. Placing both right/left speakers on one side totally ruins the audio balance, reducing the device to mono audio output. Headset is an absolute must imo.
There's really only one thing that bugs me, and that is sporadic lack of screen precision. It doesn't always register my taps, and it seems to confuse slides/scrolls with taps. Ie, when scrolling a list of apps it may suddenly interpret the release (lifting my finger) as a tap and open the app that I happened to point at when releasing. My Galaxy Note is also running ICS 4.0.3, and the tap-scroll-release issue is not a problem there, so I don't think it's my fingers being too "non-conductive" or the OS version. Still, it doesn't happen too often, and with a bit of determination when scrolling it's all good. No where near a deal breaker.
As I said, I have only had a short time with this tablet, but so far the Infinity seem to be everything I had hoped for in a tablet!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Indeed, the one major issue I encounter is the sometimes abysmal I/O throughput, resulting in lag (and, when transferring large files to (Micro)SD, the device hangs completely for a few seconds every 70 MB or so). I am a PC gamer, and do not currently use the Infinity to game on, but I have actually bought Dead Trigger and ShadowGun just ti try them out. When I have a bit more time, I'll give them a whirl. The TF does not run hot for me with high screen brightness when watching movies or documentaries and the likes, so it would be an issue with the Tegra3 running hot when actively rendering.
The scrolling here is fine, but it does miss a tap every now and then -- I'm under the impression that it has to do with the I/O issue mentioned above, however, and that it does not have anything to do with the screen itself (The Gorilla Glass version used here (v2) is thinner than the previous iteration, so the sensitivity should be better than with, say, the Prime, if anything.) But, obviously, that is just my feeling.
ray3andrei said:
Its just as snappy but, when I play dead trigger the controls lag on highest setting, and If I put it on high the controls are still laggy, the framerate is decent but when I play on my nexus the control are much snappier, but the frame rate is about the the same , I don't know how the prime runs it, but I know that dead trigger is optimized for 1920x1200, .... shadow gun thd does run better than on the prime
Sent from my Jelly Beaned GNexus
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh good, the sets my worries of the high density screen negatively impacting the performance of the tablet to rest.
Its kinda sad to hear that the sensitivity has not improved much though... perhaps asus "or ROM chiefs" will be able to improve it in updates.
EDIT!
Added some performance related videos to the first post.
What I'm getting is that most of these issues seem software related. So a quick bug fix when everyone is reporting these issues to Asus and we'll be on our merry way. But otherwise, this sounds like a great device....I don't plan on doing a lot of gaming on it, but I'll try out some Shadowgun or something...I'll probably just end up plugging in an Xbox controller if I want to play anything...I still don't enjoy playing games with a touchscreen. And playing some old N64 games will be awesome on this beast. Anyone tried playing emulators with an IME for Xbox, PS3, or Wii controllers yet? That's a good way to see performance...see if it can run Super Smash Bros well lol.
hi guys
I also noticed the lags when you install apps or copy files to the infinity. not even my old galaxy tab had those issues. and that was a single core!
the overall performance is not good and I don't feel the 4 cores at any point.
I also noticed, that asus uses a 2.xxx kernel with ICS instead of a current 3.xxx kernel.
I sent a mail to asus customer service and I encourage you to do the same so that this issue gets fixed asap.
KilerG said:
What I'm getting is that most of these issues seem software related. So a quick bug fix when everyone is reporting these issues to Asus and we'll be on our merry way. But otherwise, this sounds like a great device....I don't plan on doing a lot of gaming on it, but I'll try out some Shadowgun or something...I'll probably just end up plugging in an Xbox controller if I want to play anything...I still don't enjoy playing games with a touchscreen. And playing some old N64 games will be awesome on this beast. Anyone tried playing emulators with an IME for Xbox, PS3, or Wii controllers yet? That's a good way to see performance...see if it can run Super Smash Bros well lol.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats exactly what I probably will be doing to. XD
I mean all I used to do with my ipad was web surfing, check email, slight doodling, and light gaming. But I despise using a touch screen to game, especially if the game requires the use of a virtual analog stick.
From what I can tell the controller support is pretty good, just about any usb xbox or ps3 controller will work with most apps. Plus with android I get emulators out of the box.
Hi,
I'm wondering if there is an OS-based method for improving the precision of a capacitive touchscreen. With writing tiny indexes on complex equations in mind.
Don't flame me here android people, but from what I've seen iphones have the best touschreen precision and that's partly because apple uses higher voltage on those than others. That is detrimental to the battery, but makes a silky experience you can actually feel - the feeling of touching an iphone screen varies vastly from my android phone and you can really feel the little tingling current going through your finger.
I'm not a dev, so I don't really know if it's due to the OS and can be changed at boot time, or it's due to the touchscren controller and requires some more serious modding than just a simple script overriding stock system settings.
I'm not talking about just callibration. Callibration alone is not enough for precise writing. I'm thinking, just maybe, if the touchscreen controller can be modden to be even more power-hungry than what apple is doing, so the accuracy is increased beyond even that, then perhaps one could get a really decent writing experience on a capacitive touchscreen with a good capacitive stylus, say on a 10 inch tablet - with the cost of decreased battery life, yes, but all in all - this would mean jailbreaking inking experience from wacom. And that would be great.
Thing is, I'm tired of wacom and their active digitizer licensing. Anything that would work as a practical active digitizer remedy for a standard capacitive touchscreen would be a blessing for everyone wanting to go paperless.
Wrong Section please post in the correct forum, Thread Closed.