yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Nexus 7 General] farmerbb:
Agreed. The Nexus 7 and the Nexus 4 are both running virtually the same software, and both have similar CPU specs (1.3 ghz quad core vs. 1.5 ghz quad core) and similar display resolutions (1280x800 vs. 1280x768). The Nexus 4 does have an extra gig of ram, yes, but if you monitor it you'll see that Android hardly even uses that extra gig.

But yet, somehow, apps such as Google Now on the Nexus 7 take several seconds to load, and is hit-or-miss on responsiveness, when on the Nexus 4 Google Now loads instantaneously and is ultra-responsive. That's just one example. The overall system on the Nexus 7 just plain seems sluggish in comparison. It really is a night-and-day difference. I've barely even seen a hint of lag while using the Nexus 4. It's the first mobile device I've owned that seems to perform almost as well as my gaming PC does with computing tasks.

The more I read from reviewers about the Nexus 7 being a supposedly lag-free unit makes me wonder if I just ended up with a faulty device, or if there's really more to the story. Oh well, for only $200 I shouldn't really be complaining, right? :p

(By the way, 100% stock/rooted 4.1.2 is the firmware that I've had the least lag on. I like being on 4.2 because of all the new features it provides, but for the absolute best performance, 4.1.2 is the way to go)
[Nexus 7 General] flux capacitor:
I had to flash back to 4.1.2 because the lag was to much to bear with 4.2.x. just ridiculous and frankly I don't miss any of the features 4.2 introduced. Actually prefer the old notification drop down in the middle.
[Nexus 7 General] Jay Aristide:
There's a HUGE difference between a Tegra 3 and a Snapdragon Quad-Core. Not to mention MALI GPUs smoke the nVidia ones. There's also the fact that a 4.7" 720p screen renders faster and more efficiently than a 7" 720p screen. While the specs are similar on paper, real-world experience will surely tell a different story.
[Nexus 7 General] redmonke255:
The screen size is bs, but yes of course a newer generation quad core will be better. The problem is that people are noticing the tablet is now slower after the update. This has nothing to do with hardware, it's the software.

People are so prideful of their devices, they can't have problems and if they do there's a reason! Just say that yea it's a cool device but it's still rough around the edges. Android isn't perfect.
[Nexus 7 General] dcoaster:
The device hardware is fantastic... it's the SOFTWARE that needs to step up. Google got a good start with Project Butter for speed improvements on the front end, but Android's memory management and storage scheme is STILL awful on the back end.
[Nexus 7 General] zc1:
Lag became a huge issue for me after the update. My N7 was basically unusable. Factory reset, as painful as it was to do it (not rooted so had to set up everything from scratch afterwards), fixed the lag issue. This tab just flies now, and I am very impressed.
[Nexus 7 General] lanwarrior:
I don't know if you guys see this, but download the latest "Contract Killer 2 Zombies" and this game lags and stutter like hell on my N7 with 4.2.1. Those who have 4.1.2, let me know if you DON'T see the same problem, as I may want to downgrade.

---------- Post added at 11:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:37 PM ----------

If you're rooted and do factory reset, how would you restore everything again (i.e. NOT having to setup everything from scratch) WITHOUT restoring the same system files that caused the lagginess in the first place? Or are you talking about Titanium Backup?
[Nexus 7 General] XxSHaDoWxSLaYeRxX:
He had to start over with his user data
[Nexus 7 General] nemrih:
I'm experiencing lots of lag too after the update. Even the simplest of tasks can make it lag. Also, after having an app open for a while and then hitting the home button, it makes some widgets reload (as in its gone for a sec and reappears). This happens to Google Calender widget, AIX weather and HD Widgets.

Theres also the occasional reboot. Tends to happen while playing games.
[Nexus 7 General] Cor-master:
Not to mention the snapdragon quad has 2gb of ram vs 1gb for tegra
[Nexus 7 General] sark666:
I still suffer from lag sometimes. Let's go back a bit. On 4.1.1 some users were getting major lag after they filled up too much of their device, but not all users. Once this happened, even if you cleared up space, the lag remained. It was because some of us had different storage memory. Someone pointed out the different ones, I think the laggy one was the samsung memory. 4.1.2 introduced a trim function or something of the sort that cleared up old files that weren't getting cleared, this patch was supposed to fix the lag, and it did for most it seems. But to trigger this, a lot of users had to fill up the device competely full and then remove those files. There's that app in the market that will do that.

I did that and cleared a bunch of files and had about 5 gigs free and it was smooth again. however, as I have filled space back up, the lag seems to slowly return. Not as bad as 4.1.1 but I have viewed androbench giving me slower, and slower scores as I have filled up the device.

Apps, also make a difference, not just google currents, but if I have flipbook or pulse running at all in the background I get lag (apps take a couple seconds to launch, keyboard freeze-ups, icons taking ages to load in google play. Just not a smooth experience. Again, it's not as horrible as 4.1.1 but it's not good.

For example, my friend was excited about getting a nexus having never tried one before and without saying any of the above I just handed it to him to try. He played with it for about 10 minutes and said, 'uhh, this is kind of slow...' I just said yeah there are some issues with the OS or the device itself, to be honest I'm not sure anymore.

What I would like to try is to not have all these apps launch in the background. But from what I've read even with root, there's no way to stop all these apps from launching. There are apps that kill them after launching, but no way to prevent them from launching in the first place. For ex, I installed appsales to see sales, but I'll launch it when I want to, I don't want it to ever notify me of new sales. I'm not saying this app is the culprit, but it annoys me I can't control what apps launch on startup. Like colornote launches on startup, wtf?

What I'd also like to know is does the 32 gig nexus 7 have this memory? Also, if someone still bought a 16 gig, to newer models have this memory as well? If so, is there a way to tell on the box by the serial # or something? probably not...

I'm assuming the memory is still a cause of some issue and the trim kind of patched the issue but didn't eliminate it entirely. Or maybe it's some apps. I've looked at various cpu monitor apps but they have been of little help. Right now I'm about a gig free and it's annoying to have to go back to 3 gigs free to get good performance again.
[Nexus 7 General] :
No, but I found a lag when sometimes exitting the camers app it freezes for about 10 seconds and then conyinues like nothing happened:silly:
[Nexus 7 General] Mungulz:
Cya idiot no ones going to miss you.
[Nexus 7 General] Jay Aristide:
I've been able to duplicate this, though the lag for me is less than 2 seconds, probably due to the multitasking-specific optimizations I've made to my tablet.

Question: Are you using this camera launcher? If not, try it, it might help:good:

Edit: Love the username, man :) Best path to developing is jump in with both feet and no fear. You'll be well on your way in no time :)
[Nexus 7 General] myepicyear:
Jay,

I completely understand your frustration. I see posts on here everyday that make my jaw drop. Its just a fact that many great communities are being overrun by people who could care less about learning, and even less about giving back. The sense of entitlement, the constant blaming of others for dysfunctional devices, the complete lack of insight into what goes into development, the complete lack of respect for others time, etc....

I could obviously go on for a long time until I'm all worked up. I try my best to steer clear of all this stuff, and I always try to reduce the clutter/negativity by never responding unless I'm helping, or unless I feel extremely compelled to speak up. I don't usually add to these kind of discussions, due to their tendency to spiral endlessly. We can oly do so much I guess. It's just not to the point where I would want to dissociate myself with xda developers. I wouldn't go that easy. Those of us that want to be a part of a give and take community have to figure out a balance between being passive/uncaring and being outspoken when others are actively ruining xda for everyone.

Oh, and about the original post....

Ill say this. I've come to believe that many times, when someone claims they have "lag", it is all about their perception/expectations at one certain time. If you don't know this by now, here you go: Go through the user interface, navigate around a bit, and you'll notice something--much more than iOS, Google loves to fill Android with transitions/animations. They certainly could tweak the UI to scroll much faster on the homescreen and app-drawer. It's been done by many launcher apps. But they don't because Android's UI is their vision, and they like to do the whole eye candy thing. iOS scrolls seems faster at times, but the interaction with the interface is not nearly as in depth(app drawer, widgets, etc..)

Google likes moderate speed transitions/fades instead of an abrupt "zoom" from one screen to another. So remember, Google's interface works-and it always has--the way they wanted it to work. Project butter was about learning the average user's way of interacting with touch screens, and then adjusting things to flow in that manner. Android touch interaction might not be for you, because this hardware/software is plenty capable. Try being more gentle with the touch screen. You only have to swipe softly to move screens side to side.

But who knows.........
[Nexus 7 General] Jay Aristide:
I truly dreaded posting that, and doing so in that manner/tone, but I digress.. I suppose I'm only human. I think some valid complaints/observations have come of this thread, and some good advice towards clearing them up has been offered, as well. Hopefully, things will get back on track, now, and people will keep in mind that being part of a community means giving to it, as well as taking from it.
[Nexus 7 General] kieso:
The lag on my tablet has become unbearable. I guess I'll have to do a factory reset and lose all that progress on my games. A few games have become corrupted and won't start up. I've had soft reboots to the X animation screen (due to kernel panic I believe). Its not just this tablet I've seen it happen this way on all my android devices.
[Nexus 7 General] Jay Aristide:
Are you rooted? If so, you can use titanium backup to save your game progress, as well as pull a last_dmesg (which might help us figure out what-s going on w/your tab)
[Nexus 7 General] heyodee:
First off I/O on the N7 is an issue

Turn off all unnecessary sync, especially Google current

Keep free space above ~2.5-3GB, preferably above 3GB

Whenever there is heavy disk activity, you will find lag.....

have too much media contents, put it in the cloud ☁ (picassa, drop box...)

Is chrome running slow, use xscope

GTalk load slow for me.... don't have a solution for that yet

Launcher sluggish, get an alternative (apex/nova...) and lock it in memory

With just about every Android device, when installing you feel the lag/pause...

If rooted, give zram a shot
[Nexus 7 General] kieso:
I wasn't rooted. In the past titanium never saved game progress on Gameloft games. I already reset it and it and should have gotten a last_dmesg before I did it. I think the kernel needs some tweeks for IO performance. I know its flash and not a raid drive so it can only get so good. I do love this tablet and I'll stick to keeping 3 or 4 gig free to keep it running smooth. I didn't want to try any custom kernels yet as I think its to early in development (in my opinion).
[Nexus 7 General] Jay Aristide:
_motley's linaro-optimized kernel is rock solid, the tweaked deadline scheduler is godly, the enabled zram helps multitasking a LOT, the fsync and /data tweaks speed up I/o about sevenfold, and undervolting by 75mV or more will show a significant increase in battery life. I've been running it since 1.0.5, and it's been at the same release (1.1.1) for some time, now. I don't OC anything, not even the GPU, and I lay pretty much all of the credit for my n7's performance between it and project butter :)

---------- Post added at 11:42 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:54 AM ----------

Personally, folks, I'd like to see this thread with a higher rating, as - like I said earlier - some very valid complaints and observations, as well as some solid solutions and ideas have come of it.

If you've been participating in this thread and agree with me, please take a moment to give it 3 - 5 stars. I just gave it 4. There's one post, in particular, here that got me wondering and wanting to do some broad-scale testing. There was a guy who posted side-by-side bench results with two identical n7's, and they displayed DRASTICALLY different results for I/O throughput, and this really concerns me.

I plan to start a thread, here and on AF, encouraging people to bench and show results for their I/O throughput, as well as list any changes they've made to their system that might affect it. I'll post the links here when I've done so.

^^ That's scary ^^

---------- Post added at 12:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:42 AM ----------

Here's mine
[Nexus 7 General] androidkid311:
Huh? So both of those n7's are the same storage size and have two different results...?? Also i don't know my self but coming from the s2 bench Marks didn't mean much. I'm guessing on the n7 they are more reliable??
[Nexus 7 General] bso44:
Here's my Androbench:

Unlocked, rooted, stock ROM, stock kernel and no tweaks.
[Nexus 7 General] Jay Aristide:
Most benchmarks perform a multitude of tests, the majority of which don't apply to real-world situations. AndroBench focuses primarily on system I/O, so it's a little more meaningful (in our case) than a general benchmark. Another good benchmark to use is Vellamo, as it aims to reflect the general user experience, rather than try to push the envelope of what the device is capable of.

Linpack is a good measure of raw processing power.

Anyways, I'll get to work on getting those threads started, and maybe we can determine from serial/batch numbers if there's some kind of manufacturing trend present we should be aware of that impacts the quality of our NAND storage.

---------- Post added at 01:43 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:42 PM ----------

What kernel/optimizations - if any - are you running?
[Nexus 7 General] bso44:
Nada. Unlocked, rooted, stock ROM, stock kernel and no tweaks.
[Nexus 7 General] Jay Aristide:
So, your bench basically coincides with the fast n7 from the side-by-side posted above. This leads me to believe that the slow n7 above has some sort of defective NAND storage, or maybe a short in the storage circuitry that's causing it to misfire/misbehave. Way too early/far too few benches to compare and make a reliable conclusion, though.

I'm working up a template for people to go by when submitting benches (for my threads), that should help us determine if there's a manufacturing trend or just the occasional defective unit (indicating a QA problem at ASUS).

Edit: look for it tomorrow. I wanna make sure to collect the right information, so I need to research a little :)
[Nexus 7 General] fzammetti:
For what it's worth, I'm seeing A LOT of lag as well. I'm stock, not rooted, running 4.1.1, have right around 3.5Gb free... only tweaks I've done is setting the three animation settings to .5x and disabling a handful of built-in apps. Running stock launcher with NO widgets on any screens... I am currently running a live wallpaper (Dark Galaxy) but that's only within the last day or two, the month or so before was static wallpaper. Background sync is very minimal (just contacts and calendar for two Gmail accounts and Firefox). I'm also pretty anal about closing apps when I'm done with them so I tend to not have a whole lot running in the background.

With all that said, I FREQUENTLY see issues where when scrolling (in a multitude of apps) it'll seem to loose track of my finger and stop scrolling. Sometimes if I keep moving my finger up (which you tend to do when you think you're scrolling) it'll register a touch when I lift my finger up so I wind up activating something I didn't intend to. Typing is horrible, frequently missing keypresses (tried a couple of different keyboard, doesn't matter which). Launching some apps take a couple of seconds before I see anything but a blank screen (this couple be app-specific, but I see it in more than a few so I'm not so sure). And I do sometimes get a "wait or continue" notification, more than on my GSIII for sure (which is to say I virtually never see it there).

I don't think the screen itself is defective because the problems come and go. Certainly could be bad flash or something, but hard to tell. The point is I definitely concur that at least some people are seeing lag, and sometimes pretty bad (I've had to hard reboot my N7 more than a few times when it became totally unresponsive- happened a minute before I typed this actually)... whether it's hardware or not is the question (and that seems likely given that some people have no issues at all).

All I know is that it's VERY frustrating when it misbehaves, which is way too frequent for what is otherwise a fantastic device.
[Nexus 7 General] Jay Aristide:
Care to grab AndroBench and run a full bench, then post the results as we have, above? I know I'm making threads for it, but I'd really like to see your results.

Thanks for going into so much detail :)
[Nexus 7 General] fzammetti:
Sure thing, and you know, based on the results I'm seeing in this thread compared to my own I think I've found the culprit on my device:

I mean, yikes, look at those read/write speed numbers. Ouch! Not to mention the SQLite numbers, but they're probably a result of the read/write numbers. I'm not sure how to interpret the macro numbers though.

But yeah, sure looks to me like I've got a problem with I/O. Anyone have a thought on what could be up? Defective hardware of course is a possibility, but being as this isn't consistent I tend to doubt it.

Although, interestingly, before I posted to this thread the first time, like I mentioned, I had to do a hard reboot. Ever since then this thing has been WAY slow, like MUCH worse than usual. It took something like 15-20 minutes for Androbench to even finish, the SQLIte test in particular was painful to watch as the number ticked up probably once a second at best. That in my mind points to file system corruption. What do others think?

Thanks,

Frank
[Nexus 7 General] Jay Aristide:
Wow, that's really awful :( I'm really sorry that's happening to you. I've got a few steps you can take to try and troubleshoot, if you don't mind...

If you do mind, I don't blame you. I'm asking you to wipe your device, here..

1) perform a factory reset through the system menu and erase the contents of /storage/sdcard0

2) turn on USB debugging under settings>development

3) download the nexus 7 root toolkit, unzip it, open a command prompt, and CD to the tools folder

4) from the tools folder command prompt, type:

adb reboot-bootloader

Your device will reboot into fast boot mode.

5) hit volume down until it says boot into recovery, then hit power to select it

6) the stock recovery only has a couple of options. You want to perform a factory reset and clear your cache

7) reboot the n7, re-setup your Google account, re-download androbench, and run the bench again

8) post your results, here

If it runs at normal speeds, run it a few more times to make sure, then reinstall your apps one at a time, running the bench a few times in between each... If you find an app that causes the issue, remove it and see if it goes away

It's a lot of work, but if it helps identify a potential app issue, then at least you'll know it's not a hardware problem, but honestly, I'm leaning towards faulty hardware.. The numbers you posted are very alarming
[Nexus 7 General] farmerbb:
I'd absolutely like to know this as well! I have a 16GB, C70 Nexus 7 and would definitely like to know if the flash memory in the 32GB models or the newer 16GB models has these performance issues as well. I experience unbearable lag just about any time there's i/o activity.

I don't really need the extra space but if the 32GB model has better i/o performance then I'd definitely upgrade.
[Nexus 7 General] Flanimal:
My Nexus 7 and Galaxy Nexus devices have 4.2.1 and suffer from monster lag in Google now. I have Swiftkey and HD Widgets installed. Anyone seeing a pattern here? If I change keyboard to stock, the lag goes away. I havent tried uninstalling HD widgets, and dont really want to have to uninstall anything. After all, apart from Google Now, things are mostly buttery. Currently I open Chrome and search there rather than tapping the Google search.
[Nexus 7 General] Bobbyballbags:
I have found that the latest Google search update has gotten rid of the Google now lag for me. Still slow for me in general since 4.2 though. Starting to get me down. Currents trick made it slightly better but I have tried all the other fixes and no dice.
[Nexus 7 General] lanwarrior:
How about games...any lag with games?
[Nexus 7 General] jamesc760:
I've had my N7 for 10 days now. Out-of-the-box, it was running 4.1.2 and it felt fast and smooth. Over the next day or two, it received updates and soon it was lagging horribly running 4.2.1 and I had to root, unlock and put stock 4.1.2 rom on it and all was well.

Tjen I got curious and flashed a clean factory 4.2.1 image. No lag. So, it leads me to believe when you update ota something gets borked on your N7.
[Nexus 7 General] marsexpress:
Same here, my 8gb c60 is just so slow at times it's unbearable. Especially Google Now, sometimes it becomes so unresponsive it's literally unusable. Will try uninstalling swift key and HD widgets and see if that helps.

Most disappointing Google!
[Nexus 7 General] rootusr:
I have noticed this particularly when playing need for speed, it was OK in Android 4.1 but now it lags so much that you cannot enjoy the game, I noticed that if I turn off data while playing it works much better, something with I/O was screw up in 4.2
[Nexus 7 General] androidkid311:
Yeah I think 4.2 is a real mess. A lot of bugs and issues. 4.1.2 is the best release to date to be fair. (Y)
[Nexus 7 General] dotvoid:
same for me. the most annoying thing is, when the touch screen doesnt react at all. I closed all running applications earlier due to heavy lag, then read some pulse news (which is generally laggy as well).

I put the N7 down and picked up my Note 2 (with an alpha version of CM10 that I haven't updated in weeks!) and its sooo much faster, its unbelievable. Everything feels smooth and reacts very quickly. I can browse pulse easily, run youtube and I don't even have to restart the whole thing every day or close running apps regularly.
[Nexus 7 General] ncvikingx97:
Honestly, I am about to just flash back to 4.1.2 on my galaxy nexus, might do that with nexus 7.
[Nexus 7 General] honghsien5:
i also experience significant lag pn my nexus 7 16 gb model as well

its lagging to the point that i just dont want to use it anymore

especially when my phone is nexus 4 that is unbelievably smooth
[Nexus 7 General] Jay Aristide:
Tremendous difference in hardware between those two devices.
[Nexus 7 General] sark666:
I haven't really read on the nexus 4, are the specs that much better? I wouldn't have thought a phone would have gotten much better specs that the tablet. I'm also curious if the nexus 10 has the 'bad' memory that causes slowdowns as some of the nexus 7's do. Supposedly asus uses that in a lot of their devices but the nexus 10 isn't made by them.