Comment Re:why google keeps microsoft away (Score 1) 280
I've got a Samsung S3 and it feels like most actions take from around a second and up to complete. Answering an incoming call takes a long time, pressing the home button to activate the screen take 1-2s. It is just annoying waiting everywhere.
Agreed. To be fair, though, the Galaxy S3 that you had (I'll assume from a carrier with 4G LTE, an S3 i747 or i535) a slightly faster dual-core processor and a weak GPU instead of what the international S3 (i9300) had: a slower quad core processor with a strong GPU, but only 1GB of RAM and 3G cellular data. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the international version appears snappier, despite having a slower overall processor and 1/2 the RAM.
I suspect that the TouchWiz layer is heavily GPU dependant, and doesn't perform well on the Adreno 225 GPU of the Carrier version Galaxy S3.
Oh, I just noticed that the i9305 version of the S3 also has 2GB of RAM, and 4G LTE, sounds like the best of both worlds. If anyone is curious about all this, here's the link.
FWIW, I put CyanogenMod 11 on my phone, and I felt like I bought a brand new device. It doesn't feel laggy anymore. I may not say the same when CM12 comes out, but for now it's working great. The privacy feature is also very nice. Not that CM is bug free - the camera crashes, had trouble focusing in earlier versions, and the GPS is kinda hosed. To be fair, the GPS was hosed by Samsung when they took the stock ROM to KitKat, so it's no wonder the CM developers are having trouble.