Disqus
Just the other day, I was in the local O2 shop, playing with the Palm Pre – having heard so much about it, but no opportunity to get hands-on, I was keen to see what the device could do.
Initially, I was really pleased to see an excellent implementation of both the capacitance screen sensitivity, but also of the UI – it really does look that nice, and in my mind at least, is a competitor for the iPhone UI for sure. A couple of swipes across the screen later, and I’d found the right way to control the UI for flipping between, and closing Apps.
Of course the next logical test was to see what the keyboard was like, and so I decided to add a new contact, called “bob”. Leaving aside what I thought of the keyboard for a minute (hint: not great), my main surprise came when I went to store the handset – there was an appreciable lag, as compared with the rest of my usage of the handset to that point.
To test what I immediately surmised could be the problem, I then opened a video, and also made a calendar entry – this confirmed my initial thinking that substantial read/writes to the memory, via the O/S, were being hit with a bit of a lag. Usage of the UI in general was super-smooth, but as soon as you called down to the OS (particularly if writing to memory), then there was definitely some slowdown.
Now I should put this in perspective: I’m used to being spoilt by the iPhone, which is incredibly fluid in it’s use, and rarely lags – only occasionally have I tripped it up. The Palm Pre was 90% good in this respect, and maybe just that 10% bad (slow) across certain invoked operations.
But that got me thinking – I have used some devices previously that were really not great in terms of the lag when you selected certain apps, or wanted to do certain things. And I bet the IntoMobile readership have had the same experience – therefore, can you remember the worst handset you ever had for lagging? And can you remember why the lag occurred (opening app, re-skinning etc)?
I’ll put forward the N96 as pretty laggy during general use…. I’m not sure it is the worst handset that I’ve ever used for lag (that title surely belongs to one of the WinMo devices I had in early y2k!), but I’m open to suggestion from our readers! So it’s:
- What was the handset – make, model, if you can remember
- What were you doing with the handset that made it lag – keep it clean!
Answers on a postcard … (or at least in the comments on this post!)
About The Author
Ben Robinson
Ben is a 10+ year veteran of the Mobile industry – starting his career when SMS was a still a relatively new concept for most people (!), he has now consulted on everything from bleeding-edge Mobile content, to the next-gen accessories you might view it on. As a result he has a broad and deep knowledge in numerous areas of Mobile – from network operators to device vendors, to infrastructure and middleware vendors (not to mention content delivery) – and has worked for companies in all of these areas! He is based in the UK, a hotbed of activity for mobile, and recently became a father for the second time – as oppose to in his younger years when he was happy spend time tweaking all manner of mobile devices to 'nth' degree, he now looks for services and hardware that provide the most efficient, compact, and reliable improvements to his already manic life! It’s his opinion that Mobile solutions should be there to help to make your life better – if a particular solution (be it service or device) isn’t doing this, he believes you need to ask the very important question of why you continue to use it... His focus at IntoMobile is mainly on Mobile content, services, and infrastructure, particularly as regards the UK market – and with the occasional look at devices. Additionally, using his extensive experience in the industry, he will provide commentary on the industry at large, with regular (and hopefully thought-provoking) articles.
-
RobtWms
-
Shimmy
-
kDog
-
Peter
-
Chris P
-
Joe
