Why are Motorola Phones slow?

[rigualj]

I work for an IT company where we each have our share of smart-phones. One thing about the Droid 1 that I didn't like was its lag and delayed response. I've rooted my Droid 1 and OC'd to 800Mhz. Little better, but still noticeable.

Two of my co-workers decide to upgrade Droid devices, to Droid 2 and one Droid X. Playing with the phones they are faster, but still some noticeable hiccups when loading intensive applications, or fast screen switching. These are stock roms.

The fellow with Droid 2 switches to the Samsung Fascinate with the Hummingbird Processor. This phone feels like an Iphone 4 on crack. It's amazing fast, and super quick to the touch. Apps load faster than any of the Motorola devices and the screen has no hiccups - even with streaming music in the background and loading apps. We are all very impressed and this is how a smart-phone should act and feel.

What makes the Motorola different/slower? I don't think it's just the processor/ram alone. Funny thing is that Motorola benchmarks are higher than Samsungs. Which points out that benchmarks aren't everything.

 

[icculusX]

Yea, I would say it would have a lot to do with the processor type. I myself don't know much about the techy stuff, but I have to say I am happy with my 1000 OC Droid1. Its super fast and snappy, but I am sure some phones of the future will blow it out of the water even right out of the box. Can't wait for dual core?!

PS: I hope your'e not still running Ultimate Droid 4.0 like your signature says. Soon enough UD9 is expected out! Haha.

 

[rigualj]

Ha, thanks. No I just changed my Sig.

 

[FoFa]

I was pleased with the speed of my Droid 1, maybe our expectations are too high?
I mean lag? What, 1/4 of a second, what?
My Droid X seems faster, have not seen any lag, but i wonder if the motoblur thingy could cause it? My Droid 1 didn't have that.

 

[rigualj]

Ya, you're right with it probably being a quarter of a second, but when your waiting for something it seems longer.

Has anyone used Solid state drives on a Windows 7 computer? The Fascinate was kinda like that. You clicked on something, and it was there.

 

[Dave12308]

Ya, you're right with it probably being a quarter of a second, but when your waiting for something it seems longer.

Has anyone used Solid state drives on a Windows 7 computer? The Fascinate was kinda like that. You clicked on something, and it was there.

For things like application load times, the processor/chipset probably has little to do with the lack of lag.

My guess would be that Samsung uses faster flash memory in the Fascinate than Moto does in their devices.

Like PC SSDs, some mobile flash memory is faster than others. So your comparison to an SSD on Win7 is probably closer than you think.

 

[takeshi]

Why are Motorola Phones slow?

That's a really vague question but, IIRC, Galaxy S phones have hardware acceleration.

 

[jefbystereo]

I know what you mean. Maybe you wait max like 1 second for a redraw, but it feels like forever when you need to open something right away. Im at 1ghz on my D1, and even then there are times when I get impatient.

 

[vmspionage]

I think a lot of it has to do with the minimum clock speed. My Droid 1 is OCd to 1.2ghz but I have the minimum set to 400mhz which gives a much snappier experience when moving between apps and screens. Most kernels run as low as 250 or even 125mhz in the low state.

I recommend purchasing SetCPU from the app store and also changing the scaling mode to interactive. Your battery life may suffer a little bit but you'll be much happier overall.

 

[rigualj]

That's a really vague question but, IIRC, Galaxy S phones have hardware acceleration.

I know it's vague, but I figured it would attract attention. I can't speak for HTC. I don't know anyone with the HTC Droid Incredible or Nexus One.

The speed in flash memory makes perfect sense. So does the hardware acceleration. I would like to post a video soon with side by side differences.

 

[Darkseider]

It has to do with flash memory as well as available RAM. The DInc has twice the RAM as the Droid so when switching between apps there is less of/no need to kill off old process/apps in order to load or switch to another application. Granted this entire process may take all of a second or two but is perceived as an eternity especially when comparing two units side by side.

 

[Dave12308]

Why are Motorola Phones slow?

That's a really vague question but, IIRC, Galaxy S phones have hardware acceleration.

So do all of the Motorola Droid series. They have a PowerVR SGX series GPU. The Samsung's GPU is simply faster.

 

[dbol]

This is interesting, because you can probably get higher Quadrant scores with an OC'ed Droid, and yet in real world scenarios it lags behind the Galaxy S...