Any Android phone as smooth as iPhone?

[obidamnkenobi]

You might say I'm struggling with a crisis of faith. I like android for the common reasons and have never owned any other smartphone. Only two so far though; a galaxy nexus and now a moto G (2013).

Now I realize that comparing a $200 phone to a $600+ phone is hardly fair; but my wife's iphone 5S (which is ~ 2 years old) is just so much smoother and faster than either of my android phones ever were, even when new. But I'd like to know if this just from me being to cheap to splurge on fancy hardware, or are android phones just slower? Is the galaxy S full of samsung skin crap actually smooth and fast?

Tapping an app, waiting...waiting for it to open. Firefox taking forever to render a page. The delay between hitting home button and actually being there. Taking 2-3 sec to show the lock screen after waking the phone. The 2 sec delay for the keyboard to come up (swiftkey). These things have been the case with both phones almost since day one, maybe except the 1st month or so. Never thought I'd say this but it's almost so bad I've considered a non-android phone But iphone and win-phone are so limited, ugh. I will do a factory reset soon and hope that will help, at least for a while.

I know both phones are/where low on RAM. Do I need a higher memory phone to get a faster experience?

I've run Nova launcher all this time. Is the stock launcher faster? (I kinda hate how limited it is though)

Or do I just need to spend $600 on my next phone? (not gonna happen). Would the $300 nexus 5 or moto X be as bad? I don't want to upgrade and see no benefit.

Would a custom rom help? I did cyanogen on the Gnex a while and remember it being pretty nice.

Also: on both phones the lock screen would refuse to show up when I try to unlock it. Hitting the power button does nothing and I just see a black screen. Long press it comes up after a while. Hardly comforting if I ever need an emergency call..

 

[gdansk]

It varies. A phone running 5.1 "should be" smooth. But my old N4 runs worse on 5.0 than it did on 4.4 (with ART enabled). The iPhone 5S does have a much better processor and less pixels to push than either of the Moto G or GNex, though.

What version of Android are you running?

 

[s44]

There's the Galaxy S6, but that's not any cheaper.

 

[jhu]

$200 vs. $600. Take your pick. My HTC One M8 is lagless. BTW, ever try the latest iOS on a 4 or 4S? Talk about lag.

 

[vi edit]

My Droid Turbo is smooth like butter. Only time it seems to lag is on wakeup and entering my pin quickly. It might take a second to recognize my first number or two. I think that's an Android thing though. All of my Android devices have done that. Once in the phone it's one of the smoothest, most responsive devices I've used. My wife's 5s is infuriating to use in comparison. Especially in texting and and web browsing.

 

[sweenish]

You're right, it's not a fair comparison.

Neither is comparing a flagship (even an older one) to a bargain phone.

With that said, I've crashed a friend's iPhone 5 just trying to get Youtube running, and my wife's iPod Touch has visible jank that you will see a couple times during use.

I don't have a lot of experience with the 6 or 6+, but I'm sure it's not changed. When it comes to smoothness, you'll get near equal experiences from either platform, with Apple still holding a noticeable edge.

If you want flagship performance, get a flagship.

 

[poofyhairguy]

My M8 with KitKat was amazingly fast, it felt faster than my iPad Air 2 at first (far faster than the wife's old iPhone 5). Multi-tasking in particular was really quick.

With 5.0 it turned into a lagfest. Towards the end I could count four Mississippis after hitting the home button before my Launcher could load all the icons (using stock Google launcher). Apps lagged more, the keyboard lagged more (like I would type and it would catch up annoying lad), it was terrible. My wife's new Note 4 handles 5.0 much better.

I have had 5.1 for a week, and so far it seems better. Not Kit Kat smooth, but better than 5.1 so far.

So my answer OP is that high end Androids can feel very smooth with the right software setup. Something like a G2 with a CM ROM would fly.

 

[thilanliyan]

My HTC M7 with Lollipop is really smooth. It is faster now than on Kitkat.

 

[openwheel]

Key with Android is to stick with proven apps and be simple and efficient. Life is better that way anyway.

There are truly only a hand full of good apps on Android. #^$^ing Apple gets all the development.

 

[paperwastage]

if you are in nyc, come test out my nexus 5 with a custom rom (slimkat)...

or just play with the s6 (flagship android that just came out, you should be able to find demo units)... touchwiz/s6 is still a little laggy sometimes, but it's a good comparison between flagships (s6 vs 6/6+)


also, other factors may be hindering your phone. 5S has LTE (lower latency), but gnex/moto G 1st gen doesn't...

 

[mikeymikec]

N5, Android 4.4.4, butter smooth in my experience.

 

[lopri]

I largely concur with other posts. Set the sight at S800 + 2GB RAM or better. That combo is more pleasant than A7 + 1GB RAM (iPhone 5S, iPad Air) in my experience, and should perform better on a phone unless the ROM is messed up. S800/S801-based phones can be had for ~$300, brand-new, these days.

 

[touchstone]

S6

 

[Artdeco]

One thing to keep in mind is that a lot of apps are "animated". You can do things like jailbreak and install No slow animations, or the same in the Android OS, makes a big difference.

 

[shabby]

N5, Android 4.4.4, butter smooth in my experience.

No its not, try 5.1

 

[sweenish]

5.1 is pretty great, but so was KitKat. The N5 was the launch hardware for KitKat, after all.

With that said, I wouldn't recommend sticking it out on KitKat. Lollipop brings too much to the table.

 

[aShufflinZombie]

Pick any good Android phone, root it, unlock the boatloader and install a well-supported, lightweight custom ROM. You will be golden.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Key with Android is to stick with proven apps and be simple and efficient. Life is better that way anyway.

There are truly only a hand full of good apps on Android. #^$^ing Apple gets all the development.

So you're right that as long as you stick to the well coded apps, Android seems to be just as smooth. Gmail, Twitter, Reddit Sync, to name a few are smooth as butter on Lollipop.

Now meanwhile, let's look at Hangouts and how long it takes to open, or the damn Tapatalk app. Even Chrome can't really keep up with Safari or FF on Android. There's some pretty bad apps out there.

I get it that things have been improving, but TBH I wish it was happening faster.

Lollipop vs. Kit Kat is a night and day difference though. I'd argue Kit Kat can be as smooth as the iPhone 6 easily.

 

[soccerballtux]

You might say I'm struggling with a crisis of faith. I like android for the common reasons and have never owned any other smartphone. Only two so far though; a galaxy nexus and now a moto G (2013).

Now I realize that comparing a $200 phone to a $600+ phone is hardly fair; but my wife's iphone 5S (which is ~ 2 years old) is just so much smoother and faster than either of my android phones ever were, even when new. But I'd like to know if this just from me being to cheap to splurge on fancy hardware, or are android phones just slower? Is the galaxy S full of samsung skin crap actually smooth and fast?

Tapping an app, waiting...waiting for it to open. Firefox taking forever to render a page. The delay between hitting home button and actually being there. Taking 2-3 sec to show the lock screen after waking the phone. The 2 sec delay for the keyboard to come up (swiftkey). These things have been the case with both phones almost since day one, maybe except the 1st month or so. Never thought I'd say this but it's almost so bad I've considered a non-android phone But iphone and win-phone are so limited, ugh. I will do a factory reset soon and hope that will help, at least for a while.

I know both phones are/where low on RAM. Do I need a higher memory phone to get a faster experience?

I've run Nova launcher all this time. Is the stock launcher faster? (I kinda hate how limited it is though)

Or do I just need to spend $600 on my next phone? (not gonna happen). Would the $300 nexus 5 or moto X be as bad? I don't want to upgrade and see no benefit.

Would a custom rom help? I did cyanogen on the Gnex a while and remember it being pretty nice.

Also: on both phones the lock screen would refuse to show up when I try to unlock it. Hitting the power button does nothing and I just see a black screen. Long press it comes up after a while. Hardly comforting if I ever need an emergency call..

LG G2 best performance for money. 1080p screen (NOT 2k thankfully) and fantastic battery. $190

 

[QueBert]

imho my 6+ has some painful lagging at points. But it still blows my M7 out of the water. I tried every rom and it just stutters for me all over the place. There isn't an even close to perfectly smooth phone right now, but the closest is probably the 6+. That's not saying much though.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

^ what about M7 on Lollipop? Maybe its just the M7. I think the M8/M9 should have enough horsepower.

 

[mikeymikec]

No its not, try 5.1

I tried Android 5.0 when it came out and various UI elements had been screwed up IMO. Furthermore, I noticed delays with the phone app, switching between the 'recently phoned' list and the 'ringing someone' UI.

IMO N5+4.4.4 is perfectly smooth. I enabled ART on it, apps appear pretty much instantly and scrolling the vast majority of the time is smooth. I would only try 5x again if I had to, or if I found out that they had fixed the UI annoyances I had encountered.

 

[obidamnkenobi]

So you're right that as long as you stick to the well coded apps, Android seems to be just as smooth. Gmail, Twitter, Reddit Sync, to name a few are smooth as butter on Lollipop.

Now meanwhile, let's look at Hangouts and how long it takes to open, or the damn Tapatalk app. Even Chrome can't really keep up with Safari or FF on Android. There's some pretty bad apps out there.

I get it that things have been improving, but TBH I wish it was happening faster.

Lollipop vs. Kit Kat is a night and day difference though. I'd argue Kit Kat can be as smooth as the iPhone 6 easily.

Yeah, Hangouts has been absolutely horrible on both my gnex and the moto G. I've tried it several times but have to go back to the old SMS app every time. It's pathetic that google can't make this simple app usable even on these phones! I also found firefox to be pretty bad though.

LG G2 best performance for money. 1080p screen (NOT 2k thankfully) and fantastic battery. $190

Interesting. Have refused to consider the most heavily skinned and bloated OEMs, i.e. samsung, LG, HTC, sony, but maybe I have to give up and go there.

I largely concur with other posts. Set the sight at S800 + 2GB RAM or better. That combo is more pleasant than A7 + 1GB RAM (iPhone 5S, iPad Air) in my experience, and should perform better on a phone unless the ROM is messed up. S800/S801-based phones can be had for ~$300, brand-new, these days.

Thanks, this is useful info. And thanks for the input from everyone else. A bit bummed as I liked my moto G for a while (especially the $150 price..), but then it turned into a laggy mess. I really should do that factory reset. Was hoping thats since I mainly do just browsing and email a "simple" phone should be ok, but apparently not.

And yes I do know apple stuff will take a dive once it's beyond the "you should buy a new one now" stage. My ipod touch was fine, until suddenly it wasn't.

 

[obidamnkenobi]

Pick any good Android phone, root it, unlock the boatloader and install a well-supported, lightweight custom ROM. You will be golden.

Putting cyanogen on my gnex gave it a new life and let me squeeze several more months of life out of it. And that's not even a light weight rom. I'm thinking that's what I should do with my G as well.

I really don't want to upgrade now since my phone is < 1 year old, but if I do would a nexus 5 or the moto x 2013 be unusably old at this point and a waste of money? I don't like any of the other options. The new motos and the N6 are too large. And HTC, samsung et.al. are just to much bloatware. sigh:\

 

[sm625]

Now I realize that comparing a $200 phone to a $600+ phone is hardly fair; but my wife's iphone 5S (which is ~ 2 years old) is just so much smoother and faster than either of my android phones ever were, even when new.

The 5s is still a $300-$350 phone on swappa. So it is definitely not fair to compare that to a moto G which is only worth $100. You can however very fairly compare the 5s to a Galaxy S5 which goes for about the same price as a 5s. If you did that you should find the experience to be very satisfactory.