I'm NOT crazy afterall!

[jkayner]

Here too, do not like the jerkiness of Most if not all of the transitions (Home screen switching, notification tray, app tray, and browser scrolling). I have my digital camera here with me and will try to get a video up to see what I am talking about. I do notice that if you do the same task a few times in a row that it gets better. Maybe it's some kind of caching that isn't being done on the droid that is done on other devices. Perhaps it is also why the browser has to reload every page when you go back. That is my real gripe about the droid.

 

[jltung]

Droid flaws

I read somewhere else that there is major DROID update due Dec 11 that I hope will take care of some of your complaints.

 

[freakintoddles]

I really hope so, because my 30 days to return it is up on the 12th...

 

[jkayner]

I got a quick vid of the browser choppiness, sorry about the focus, didn't realize until after i uploaded...

[video=youtube;hYZdMwLmk2E]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYZdMwLmk2E[/video]

 

[freakintoddles]

Thanks for the posting that video, and that is exactly what I am referring to.

 

[fishepa]

I have noticed the jerkiness as well after switching from my iphone. I'm just hoping it gets fixed in the upcoming updates. Given the power this phone has I'm not sure why it is so jerky.

 

[640k]

fanboi aside, it's pretty difficult to take a 320x240 device running on an older OS (1.5) and compare it against something that has nothing in common, other than Google. that's like when PC enthusiasts used to compare a Pentium III running at a bajillion Mhz and Windows 98SE against a Pentium IV with Hyper Threading and Windows XP.

of course it's going to run better, the OS has been out, been patched and been proven. the phone has less to support and less to work with.

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.

most games that are already out were developed for the smaller screen. the fact that the DROID can handle twice the resolution with limited APIs is a feat. games are pretty much relying solely on CPU power instead of VPU power.

: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.

in fairness, the eris has a modified theme. something that was developed for earlier android versions and HTC probably had their hands in changing the OS enough to make it feel faster than it probably is.

: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.

just to reiterate my earlier points, these symptoms aren't frame drops. they're the processor trying to play catch up.

: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.

I think you kind of pointed out the obvious here. eliminate facebook integration and problem solved.

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.

seriously though. when you're using a computer, you don't benchmark its performance on framerate. framerate is just how moving images are displayed and have nothing to do with how the OS performs.

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.

it doesn't me. the game wasn't designed for twice the resolution and the new APIs that were previously unavailable.

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

i don't see how you think this phone is "severely crippled." is this your first smartphone? you don't know what "severely crippled" is until you've owned a phone that has the hardware, but no development to use said hardware.

vzw's DROID offerings are the best thing to have happened to Android/Google. development will go far. i think you've "severely" overreacted with your statements and need to take a 30,000ft view of what you're saying.

 

[Martin030908]

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

i don't see how you think this phone is "severely crippled." is this your first smartphone? you don't know what "severely crippled" is until you've owned a phone that has the hardware, but no development to use said hardware.

vzw's DROID offerings are the best thing to have happened to Android/Google. development will go far. i think you've "severely" overreacted with your statements and need to take a 30,000ft view of what you're saying.

It's called a BB Storm. And it goes something like this.... "Open GL support announced by RIM.... but your device will NEVER have it!" That's a crippled smartphone. LOL

 

[640k]

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

i don't see how you think this phone is "severely crippled." is this your first smartphone? you don't know what "severely crippled" is until you've owned a phone that has the hardware, but no development to use said hardware.

vzw's DROID offerings are the best thing to have happened to Android/Google. development will go far. i think you've "severely" overreacted with your statements and need to take a 30,000ft view of what you're saying.

It's called a BB Storm. And it goes something like this.... "Open GL support announced by RIM.... but your device will NEVER have it!" That's a crippled smartphone. LOL

that's nothing. HTC's Vogue/Touch (xv6900, etc., etc.) actually had a dedicated ATi VPU chip ON BOARD but HTC never committed to developing drivers to use the hardware. Petitions were signed, media was alerted, HTC claimed to fix the problem.. the problem of slowness, not of video suck-ness.

My 2001 iPaq 3635 was able to play games/video BETTER and FASTER than my HTC Touch EVER did and they both ran the SAME applications/games!!

 

[Martin030908]

Hmmm... gonna give you the edge there. LOL.

Although the Storm had the processing power to boot but they 'crippled' it with a mere 128mb memory and a joke of an OS..... 5.0.... hahahahahahahaha.

 

[cereal killer]

Wanted to chime in here and say that everybody has to remember that 2.0 was just released a little under a month ago.

It will take some time to get it's legs through updates and such BUT seeing that it is still in it's infancy stages the device runs excellent. Perfect? No..but it runs VERY well.

To expect perfection right out of the gates only leads to disappointment (which we are seeing here). The video showed some jerkiness. Did it impede on the usability? No it did not. It didn't scroll perfectly smooth is all. Personally I would rather have the browser work excellent, render pages beautifully and fast and not have any pixelation while it's trying to play catch up. If the laggyness was unbearable and hindered the experience I would not be a happy camper but this is not the case.

I'm not downplaying the issue I'm just saying that if thats all I have to put up with right now, I'm good : )

I think 640k said it best in that we should all step back and take a look at the bigger picture. VZW's Droid is a huge success for Android/Google and we will reap the benefit's because the real development has not even begun.

If you are really unhappy I understand. Take the device back and wait for these things to be ironed out and perfected.

For me I find the device rock solid for being less than a month old. I was an avid BB user and the Android experience has been near "perfect"

No complaints.

 

[JoeeDB]

LOL at people comparing the Droid to the iPhone. Their software is extremely uncomparable. The Droid has been out for LESS THAN A MONTH and you people are trying to compare it to a phone that has been out for years? Well no **** the software is going to be more stable/reliable/better. Of course the Droid is going to have problems, do you guys not realize everything this phone can do? The more options and features you have, the more problems that can occur, is that not obvious to everyone on this board? Give the Droid time and it will **** all over that silly iPhone...

 

[Martin030908]

2.0 is amazing..... Here it is less than a month from it's release.... there hasn't even been a patch applied yet.... and this phone can do SOOOO much.

Can you imagine what it'll be like when it's had to time to develop like the iPhone has?

"No, my pants just got shorter because I hated the idea!"

 

[jkayner]

I would like to disagree with everyone saying that 2.0 has only been out a month and to expect it to run like this. 2.0 is an evolution from 1.5, 1.6, etc. 2.0 should be able to perform just as well as any previous versions and then some. Now if you all were saying 1.0, sure that makes sense, but 2.0 should not have these issues IMO. You know that the programmers and testers saw this jerkiness issue, but they either chose to ignore it, or release it as is and hope to correct it in the future. Sure in the overall picture the jerkiness is relatively minor, but it is still annoying. If you look at a screen jerking around for a few seconds it's not bad, but if you watch it for any length of time it gets VERY annoying! Imagine trying to watch a movie that chops every few seconds, or a CD that is scratched and keeps skipping.

 

[640k]

I would like to disagree with everyone saying that 2.0 has only been out a month and to expect it to run like this. 2.0 is an evolution from 1.5, 1.6, etc. 2.0 should be able to perform just as well as any previous versions and then some. Now if you all were saying 1.0, sure that makes sense, but 2.0 should not have these issues IMO. You know that the programmers and testers saw this jerkiness issue, but they either chose to ignore it, or release it as is and hope to correct it in the future. Sure in the overall picture the jerkiness is relatively minor, but it is still annoying. If you look at a screen jerking around for a few seconds it's not bad, but if you watch it for any length of time it gets VERY annoying! Imagine trying to watch a movie that chops every few seconds, or a CD that is scratched and keeps skipping.

that's not how software releases work. you can't compare two completely different OSs on two different supporting platforms in the way that OP did.

2.0 is a major overhaul of 1.0, which means that it's a completely different code release than 1.0 was. if 1.0 and 2.0 were similar enough to make that comparison, it would be called 1.7 or 1.65.

2.0 is new code for new hardware, of course there's going to be hiccups. if 2.0 was released on the same phones already running 1.5 and 1.6, you'd have a basis for an argument.