I'm NOT crazy afterall!

[freakintoddles]

I posted before asking your input and got little response from anyone who wasn't a complete Droid fanboi, so I finally made my way to a Verizon store tonight and confirmed my suspicions... something is f'd up with the moto Droid's framerate and it is generally just laggy when it should NOT be.

I REALLY hoped I just got a dud, but I tried out 4 of their floor models all with the same result, never getting the *smoothness* that I expected the droid to have from day 1.

THEN I went over and did a side by side with the HTC Eris, now THEY got it f'ing right, at least in terms of responsiveness and smoothness... easily flick between homescreens (btw sense UI is absolutely gorgeous, too bad the screen isnt as nice as Droid) with NO lag and SMOOOOOOTH scrolling in all apps, webpages, and menus.

The following was my test comparison basis:

:reddroid: Download Robo Defense from Market and play level one
:reddroid: Flick between home screens without giving the phone a break to think
:reddroid: Load amazon.com, click "load full site" at bottom, once loaded scroll around.
:reddroid:Scroll through contacts list quickly

Results?

:reddroid:RoboDefense:
Eris:
Robo defense actually has smooth gameplay on the HTC Eris, the creeps move smoothly and in general looks good.
Droid:
Slight but very obvious lack of smoothness while playing, creeps movements are jerkyier, towers movement and shooting look noticeably worse. Touch scrolling around is slightly choppy, not as smooth.

:reddroid:Homescreen flicking:
Eris:
Well first off there are 5 homescreens.... but scrolling wise I can flick from screen to screen and the transition is silky smooth, no jerky or choppy movements. Extremely responsive to the touch, you swipe and it goes immediately no waiting.
Droid:
1 out of 10 swipes from left to right look OK, the rest of the time it is slightly jerky, but never ever smooth when transitioning from screen to screen. Doesn't always even move right away, especially if going back and forth.

:reddroid:Amazon.com full site:
Eris:
Once loaded, looks good, able to scroll around and ZOOM in or out easily. Very smooth.
Droid:
Loaded faster than Eris consistently, however scrolling around there is significant chop, especially when zooming in or out it really hiccups.

:reddroid:Contacts
Eris:
Like the rest of the tests, performed as expected, smooth, high refresh rate, able to read contacts as they scroll by quickly.
Droid:
Scrolls well until it starts loading the images for people from facebook or whatever, then it will lag significantly for a second while it loads the pics. This is noticable also when scrolling through lists of downloaded programs as it tries to load the thumbnails for the program.

So, I'm glad I have confirmed that my phone is not an anomaly. But I am really disappointed at the same time. There is absolutely no reason that the Motorola Droid should be any slower, choppier, or less fluid and responsive than other android phones... but it absolutely is.

Now the two big questions I want to know are WHAT is causing this problem, and WHEN it is going to be fixed.

My Theory?
There is something deep in the root of the software, capping the framerate on anything you do with the phone at something in the neighborhood of 24fps. which isn't immediately obvious, until you compare it to a device that doesn't have that issue and then it becomes extremely clear. I can't imagine it being a problem with the hardware on the phone, it is one of the most (if not THE most) powerful Android phones on the market in terms of hardware, yet there is a slight lag, a slight jerkiness that is ever present.

It especially shocked me to see the difference between the two phones running Robo Defense, the droid was painful to play on compared to the smooth motion of the gameplay on the Eris. And now after looking at videos of people playing RoboDefense on their G1's, it is smooth there too.

Something in the software of the Moto Droid is limiting it from being the phone it should be.

I really hope they fix it in the Dec 11th software update or this thing is going back to big red fast.



Note:
If you have never owned another touch device that IS smooth or played with one for reference to know how responsive and fluid a device of this power *should* be, then please do not bother commenting saying anything along the lines of "mine is smooth and works well".

Also, one of the droids in store that I ran this test on I restored to factory settings, removing all software, apps, etc for a "baseline" test and it ran exactly the same as the others.


This phone has great potential but in it's current state it is severely crippled.

 

[ashkev843]

Seriously....I have no problems with mine. Best phone I have owned so far.

 

[thelion]

I have owned and played with many smooth touch screens and my Droid works as it should.

 

[homemadehitshow]

This post is supposed to prove you are not crazy? Buy an Eris is my answer.

 

[medicTHREE]

I notice this too on mine and a few other droids. Never seen one that doesn't. I assume it is a bug in the 2.0 software and hope that there is an update that will improve this in the future. I can tell you with 100% certainty that closing apps using a task manager helps by a ton.

 

[medicTHREE]

This post is supposed to prove you are not crazy? Buy an Eris is my answer.

Why is it every time someone posts something that isn't 100% fanboi-esque they get some snide comment back in this forum? I can't believe this is the example the mods leave behind while deleting some posts that make no sense.

 

[bots]

I agree with the OP. I'm a gamer and a pda aficionado, so the framerate issue was immediately obvious to me. The droid definitely has the hardware to support tear-less transitions, yet the most basic functions of the phone seem to be taxing the processor to its limits. I have a feeling something is being capped due to battery life. The processor is underclocked from 600 to 550 Mhz, but I got a feeling that there is something dwindling in the code which is limiting the devices potential also. I can't wait to get root access so I can overclock and see the results. That would give me an idea if it is the processor speed or something else. anyhow, good post. Hopefully it's not long before we find a solution.

 

[Twoo]

He's right- the Eris has a more polished UI- it's crisper, faster in response and more attractive- but is severely limited in comparison to the capabilities of the Droid.

Android 2.0 will get there, no worries. Just will take a few months.

 

[continentalg5]

I noticed the same jerkiness, but i then downloaded GDE and it improved quite a bit, maybe you could give that a try?

My droid does quirky things sometimes, but I hope that'll most of the bugs will be fixed by the Dec update.

 

[Vanilla Tarantino]

No, you're not crazy. As much as I love this device, I'm very disappointed with scrolling, both across home screens and in web pages. I'm also hoping that the update fixes it, but I'm not holding my breath. At the latest, once the Droid is rooted, devs should be able to make some smoother roms, or at the very least, a port of a SenseUI ROM should do the trick. But seriously, if people think scrolling is as smooth as on the Eris or, dare I say it, the iPhone, they're kidding themselves.

 

[makieru]

You most certainly are not crazy my friend. I've noticed this problem too! It is very annoying after owning an iPod Touch (I immediately noticed the difference in fluidity even though I haven't used a Touch since July) I just assumed it was a problem with all android devices because i've never used another android device before.

If there is a fix in the December 11th update it would make this phone better than the iPhone hands down IMHO.

Anyone know a place where we can post problems we think need fixing that'll actually be considered?

 

[Droids]

Isn't the Droid pushing around a lot more pixels than the Eris or the iPhone? A lower resolution screen is going to be more responsive given similar processors. That said, the Android 2.0 is pretty new, I don't have much doubt that software tweeks by Google will only improve this in the coming months.

I've never played with the Eris and kinda glad I haven't. Considering I used to use the Verizon OS (now that was crap!) on a dumb phone, I'm greatly pleased in the responsiveness of the Droid. It's only going to get better and better. This device has huge potential.

 

[freakintoddles]

well i'm glad i'm not the only one who noticed this. To Droids above, the increased screen resolution should not be causing the problems I posted about.

I really hope software patches fix this soon...

 

[homemadehitshow]

This post is supposed to prove you are not crazy? Buy an Eris is my answer.

Why is it every time someone posts something that isn't 100% fanboi-esque they get some snide comment back in this forum? I can't believe this is the example the mods leave behind while deleting some posts that make no sense.

Holy bobby McFerrin dude why the frak don't you lighten up. Ever heard of a joke ? You might wanna check my posts before saying I'm a fanboy.

I notice this too on mine and a few other droids. Never seen one that doesn't. I assume it is a bug in the 2.0 software and hope that there is an update that will improve this in the future. I can tell you with 100% certainty that closing apps using a task manager helps by a ton.

I have absolutely the opposite experience. I had many problems and removing the task killer seems to have taken them all away. 10 days with was nothing but trouble, 10 days since and it's been fine.

 

[Droids]

To Droids above, the increased screen resolution should not be causing the problems I posted about.

Really? Your post keeps referencing frame rates which has nothing to do with the operating system display. Do you think the desktops are movie screens? Every time you swipe and the screen moves just a fraction of an inch the entire screen has to repaint. I hear the Droid has a GPU, if that's the case a lot of that repainting is passed to the GPU rather than the CPU but it's still has to repaint a whole lot more pixels than lower resolutions screens.