[Huawei P20 Questions & Answers] andreuwz:
I've been using Huawei P20 (non-lite, non-pro, EML-L29) for about a year now. With Oreo 8.1 I was very happy with the overall smartphone experience. When I updated on 9.0, however, it began to have laggy animations - mainly in Instagram, Youtube, Huawei Weather app and also Opera browser (it is my main browser). Recently, i discovered that while browsing, if i decide to long press on a word in order to open the mini menu for copy/share/select all, everything becomes so choppy, low-fps-y and laggy, even with performance mode on. Like OMG is this a replica chinise phone for 100$? Like what is going on, actually??? I was very optimistic about update 9.1 to deal with these problems. However things didnt change or got worse (even worse animations in Youtube APP).

It is important to mention that these problems disappear when i turn on performance mode. But I don't think such tasks should make phone of this caliber struggle with (after all it has the p20pro hardware).

I am not a power user - i dont have any games, disabled 90% of Google preinstalled bloatware, i have no more than 15 3rd party apps ONLY from Play store. I've tried numerous things - the smartphone is constantly on lower resolution, the RAM memory usage is no more than 50%, tested the device with AnTuTu (perform. mode - on) and scored 207k points, which is awesome. I reguraly use optimiser (which also cleans the cache), virus protection is always on, Bluetooth, Auto-rotate, Location, Syncrhonisation and any kind of application automatic update are set to be done manually. I've tested games like Angry Birds and Subway Surfers and there i dont have any lag - but with some elementary applications and their animations - they have lag or drop of FPS.

To sum up in one sentence - to maximize my battery life i disabled many things i do not need and do not use.

Recently I tried a total hard reset of the device and the first thing i tried after the reset, was to check if i had lag and yes there were again laggy apps. I've also used the lag & crash test within the HiCare app and it said everything is normal. Also i've tried under Developer options to activate "Force GPU to draw.." and it didnt help at all.

The only thing that helps is - performance mode - ON. Thats it. Nothing else.

The funniest thing is that a friend of mine has some budget Huawei phone and it is smoother than mine. Also, recently i went to the store from which i bought the phone (of course it is a genuine one) and tried the exhibited Huawei phones and i couldnt believe my eyes - they were all laggy - I tried P20 Pro, P20, P30 Lite - they had the exact same laggy animation in the Huawei Weather app. Jesus Christ...

If anyone can help with my problem, please share the solution. My last attempt will be with the warranty. And if it turns out this lag to be a normal thing for such phone im gonna switch to another brand next year. Cuz thats a shame. Because at this price point and all the implemented technologies, benchmarks and advertisements.... and to be this laggy - its making fun of all Huawei customers... (I hope its not like this on Samsung phones, cuz it would be my next brand).