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Need an Honest-to-God opinion

H

hakuna-matata

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 25, 2011
260
2
Guyz, who have used both iphone & Galaxy s2/nexus on ICS..Do you rate the ICS on s2/nexus as buttery smooth and pleasant with transitions as iOS on iphone 4s?? i'm not talking about crashes and errors on android. just comparing transitions and visual effects.
What would you rate it on a scale of 1 to 10 with iOS as a 10 pointer..:apple:
 
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I have all three right in front of me. If you were to rate the iPhone 4S an arbitrary number in terms of smoothness of transitions and video effects while moving around in the OS, say, a 10...

I'd put the Galaxy SII with Gingerbread and TouchWiz at an 8 and I'd put the Nexus with ICS at a 9.5.
 
hakuna-matata said:
Guyz, who have used both iphone & Galaxy s2/nexus on ICS..Do you rate the ICS on s2/nexus as buttery smooth and pleasant with transitions as iOS on iphone 4s?? i'm not talking about crashes and errors on android. just comparing transitions and visual effects.
What would you rate it on a scale with iOS as a 10 pointer..:apple:
Click to expand...


First of all, iOS isn't 10. Hardly. If you've never used an iPhone, be aware, it is not as stable and perfect as everyone claims to be. No OS is 100% perfect. It lags, it hangs, it misses pressed/swipes (try typing quickly on the keyboard), and it has its own glitches here and there. Having said that, these hiccups are rare. I'd give it a 9.

To answer your question, stock ICS has come a very long way and is incredibly stable and intuitive to use. I still see some lag here and there, and ICS has its own share of minor problems, but in terms of smoothness and transitions, it's quite amazing. I'd give it an 8.

Best thing to do, however, is to try it out for yourself.
 
This is how I look at it after owning every iphone at its largest size or capacity and now a Galaxy Nexus.

1 to 10
Stock
Iphone 4S = 8
GNex = 6

if you are not a computer or phone nerd like me and you wont be wanting to do anything special with your phone, then you will prefer the iphone.

Jailbroken and Rooted
iphone =9
Gnex = 9.5

If you are someone who likes to tinker, then you load a custom ROm, and Kernal and Radios and apps and tweeks. Your Nexus will be much more specific to your needs than an iphone and is a better phone for you personally because you made it such.
 
I found the GNex wonderful stock. I have used it much less than the 4S, but I wouldn't call the 4S buttery smooth either in all circumstances. I would honestly say they are equal. What I couldn't get over is the sheer size of the phone. I was ok when I had the HTC evo. This thing seems to have hit a tipping point for me in terms of size. SGSII I have used even less, but was a better fit for me, in terms of size. I think they hit the sweet spot, personally.
 
i have only used iphone until present moment, but i have experienced only very rare cases of glitches or missed presses myself.That's why i rated 10.Though with jailbreaking my iphone, i felt it was a bit less smooth as compared to stock iOS. Android, i was not too excites with earlier versions of OS(compared to iOS) but i am yet to put my hands on ICS. Some claim it to be a huge improvement in visual effects and pleasant to eyes, so i am curious to explore more
 
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It's pretty much a 9 to 9.5 for iOS on a 4S as far as I can recall.

It's a solid 9 to 9.5 as well for gnex.

One of the most noticeable slow area for ICS is the task changer. It has to load a small image of each app's last screen so understandably it's a bit slow when you have lots of apps open. Works fine when there's less apps. I also notice that occasionally it gets confused what I am doing with the unlock keypad. But that's actually no different from iOS.

Also remember while the OS and many Apps now support GPU draw you will still find some idiotic apps that are slow and uses CPU draw. That's no different from certain apps that are badly written. I find that most apps are smooth.

Remember that in android apps can do as they please in the background. So sometimes you can get slow downs by having something heavy working in the background. Watch out for that.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows Phone OS 7.5; Trident/5.0; IEMobile/9.0; HTC; TITAN X310e))

iOS = 9/10
ICS = 7.5/10

ICS is such a leap from Gingerbread it's fantastic but it lags behind iOS still from my experience. Stock Android is on the right path with recent developments. I still feel WP7 is the smoothest out of the lot (10/10).
 
I would rate iOS at an 9/10.
Super fluid, but the small screen size keeps me away from the iPhone.

ICS 8.5/10.
Not too bad, but that GNex plastic body..:(

WP7 9.5/10.
WP7 is super smooth even with relatively slow hardware.
 
Jb07 said:
I would rate iOS at an 9/10.
Super fluid, but the small screen size keeps me away from the iPhone.

ICS 8.5/10.
Not too bad, but that GNex plastic body..:(

WP7 9.5/10.
WP7 is super smooth even with relatively slow hardware.
Click to expand...

The plastic backs are tougher than you think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3Zz3p5rQcM

Don't let the feeling fool you. It's a better choice than the non gorilla glass on the backs of 4 and 4S.
 
cotak said:
The plastic backs are tougher than you think.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3Zz3p5rQcM

Don't let the feeling fool you. It's a better choice than the non gorilla glass on the backs of 4 and 4S.
Click to expand...

Plastic backs are very durable. I’ve dropped my phone several times, and it never leaves a scratch. I think non-gorilla glass on the iPhone was a mistake, I would have preferred aluminum.
Anyway, I just don’t like the cheap feeling of plastic.
 
Jb07 said:
Plastic backs are very durable. I’ve dropped my phone several times, and it never leaves a scratch. I think non-gorilla glass on the iPhone was a mistake, I would have preferred aluminum.
Anyway, I just don’t like the cheap feeling of plastic.
Click to expand...

It's just a feeling in your mind. For me being an engineer I really don't have that automatic reaction of plastic = cheap. I actually spent a long time looking at the plastic back on my galaxy nexus when I put the battery in. It's very well designed to fit tightly.
 
Since you're mostly just talking transitions and visual effects, I'd throw in iOS 5 banner notifications. While much improved over the old 'alert' style, they are still intrusive. For instance, if I'm on twitter, or checking email or on facebook or any number of other apps that have the "back" and "share" or other menu buttons at the top of the app, and a notification pops up...I have to sit and wait several seconds for it to disappear as it covers half or more of some of those functions and I've accidentally hit the notification and it kicked me to whatever the notice was.

Androids is much much better. First of all, it doesn't have a 'banner' that flips around covering up other touch functions. And the status bar at the top actually shows notifications where iOS MAKES you pull down the notification center to see what's going on.

As others have said about other scrolling and transitions, I've had better experience with the iPhone 4S than on the only Android I owned (Atrix 4g). But it's not a 10, whoever said that is loopy. I'd say probably 7.5-8/10. Definitely choppy at times. A 9-9.5 is way to generous. It's not that close to perfect
 
aztooh said:
Since you're mostly just talking transitions and visual effects, I'd throw in iOS 5 banner notifications. While much improved over the old 'alert' style, they are still intrusive. For instance, if I'm on twitter, or checking email or on facebook or any number of other apps that have the "back" and "share" or other menu buttons at the top of the app, and a notification pops up...I have to sit and wait several seconds for it to disappear as it covers half or more of some of those functions and I've accidentally hit the notification and it kicked me to whatever the notice was.
Click to expand...

swipe down on the notification, and it will go away.
 
aztooh said:
Since you're mostly just talking transitions and visual effects, I'd throw in iOS 5 banner notifications. While much improved over the old 'alert' style, they are still intrusive. For instance, if I'm on twitter, or checking email or on facebook or any number of other apps that have the "back" and "share" or other menu buttons at the top of the app, and a notification pops up...I have to sit and wait several seconds for it to disappear as it covers half or more of some of those functions and I've accidentally hit the notification and it kicked me to whatever the notice was.

Androids is much much better. First of all, it doesn't have a 'banner' that flips around covering up other touch functions. And the status bar at the top actually shows notifications where iOS MAKES you pull down the notification center to see what's going on.

As others have said about other scrolling and transitions, I've had better experience with the iPhone 4S than on the only Android I owned (Atrix 4g). But it's not a 10, whoever said that is loopy. I'd say probably 7.5-8/10. Definitely choppy at times. A 9-9.5 is way to generous. It's not that close to perfect
Click to expand...

PhoneI said:
swipe down on the notification, and it will go away.
Click to expand...

I actually swipe left and it goes away. But I do agree that they are still intrusive and can be very annoying at times.
 
I've used them all and have yet to use an android device that had an as smooth ui as iOS. On the same note it's not bad enough that it would effect my buying decision.
 
I have both and enjoy them equally, each for their strengths, and differences.

iPhone 4S is refined ... no surprise.

Android is the most fun to customize, I really enjoy the larger display of my Samsung Galaxy S II and it never gets boring :)

It's the perfect combination for a smart phone enthusiast like me.
 
onthecouchagain said:
First of all, iOS isn't 10. Hardly. If you've never used an iPhone, be aware, it is not as stable and perfect as everyone claims to be. No OS is 100% perfect. It lags, it hangs, it misses pressed/swipes (try typing quickly on the keyboard), and it has its own glitches here and there. Having said that, these hiccups are rare. I'd give it a 9.

To answer your question, stock ICS has come a very long way and is incredibly stable and intuitive to use. I still see some lag here and there, and ICS has its own share of minor problems, but in terms of smoothness and transitions, it's quite amazing. I'd give it an 8.

Best thing to do, however, is to try it out for yourself.
Click to expand...

iOS 5 and iPhone 4S are 100% perfect. OMGZ! :apple:
 
PhoneI said:
swipe down on the notification, and it will go away.
Click to expand...

3bs said:
I actually swipe left and it goes away. But I do agree that they are still intrusive and can be very annoying at times.
Click to expand...

Didn't know about the swiping to make it go away, thanks. Just like alerts though, it requires an action to make the notification go away...or just sit and wait for it to disappear. It's an improvement though, in that a banner notice doesn't pause/interrupt whatever app your in...it's just intrusive. Android really nailed the notifications. Just one of the things they'll have to improve to keep me with the next upgrade cycle.
 
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