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I've bought a brand new Galaxy S just several weeks ago and so far my expectations are not met. I've never used a PDA before, so I expected it to be a full power computing machine in a hand. :) But here's what I've found out (and corresponding questions):

  • sometimes (haven't figured or experimented to find out the proper steps to reproduce yet) it simply reboots without any message, notice or any event alarm
  • some apps may suspend the device, which can be solved by forced reboot (there even were several times the only working solution was to take out the battery :S)
  • the latest lag I've found was Aldico eBook suspend > reboot > sd card is not visible from the app and several other apps, though seen by certain apps (it also removed phone, messaging from bottom pane when showing home screen)
  • processor requires a good cooler as reboot/suspend is average after allowed t < actual t

Questions:

  • is it normal/average for PDAs (android devices) to reboot or suspend sometimes (let's say after certain uptime threshold)?
  • any one else experiencing reboot/suspend issues?
  • any idea why sd card might be non-visible to certain apps but seen by others?

P.S.: my favourite is having default music player not reading .flac format while alarm app does it perfectly. :)

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  • rebooting with no reason is not normal; if you experience it regularly, you probably had a faulty device; ask the carrier/shop for replacement?
    – Lie Ryan
    May 7, 2011 at 3:39
  • I'm thinking about doing a factory reset and treating it real nice and watch carefully what apps are installed. As now my experience showed certain apps which work flawlessly and those which are rubbish. That will give me a thorough understanding about what's going on, as reboot is likely to be triggered by some third party apps. At least that's a usual scenario.
    – Denys S.
    May 10, 2011 at 11:01
  • I've heard on a review site, I think it was AT&T, that some people's phones reboot regularly for no reason. I have a Galaxy S phone that does not have a problem, but that's not to say that there's some manufacturing issue that affects a certain percentage of phones (similar to iPhone's wall wart issue). That being said, you can follow @Lie's advice of getting a replacement in case a factory reset doesn't work, or even skipping the reset step.
    – Chance
    May 24, 2011 at 23:15

3 Answers 3

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Regarding your first 2 questions (reboot / suspend) :

No this is not normal, however, as a lot of software from a lot of different vendors are running on your phone, it's inevitable that under certain conditions certain apps can cause your phone to "crash". In an ideal world, no piece of software should be able to crash the underlying OS and the phone, however, most likely, difficult to reproduce bugs with the underlying Android OS can lead to phone reboots.

Regarding the lag. There is a known issue with the Samsung Galaxy S and the "lagging". Checkout the links below for more info on the actual issue, and some fixes (all require rooting your phone unfortunately).

Updating the android version to > 2.1 doesn't seem to resolve the issue. Samsung is aware of this issue, but doesn't seem to have any plans in fixing it (probably focusing on their new flagship phone). It's an outrage that users need to resort to all kinds of hacks on their 500$ phone to get it running properly.

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/how-to-speed-up-your-samsung-galaxy-s-with-the-voodoo-lag-fix-50002228/

http://www.groovypost.com/howto/mobile/most-common-lag-fixes-for-samsung-galaxy-s-captivate-vibrant-fascinate-epic-4g/

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  • Supposedly, the SGS is supposed to update to Gingerbread this year. Does this address the lagging?
    – Chance
    May 25, 2011 at 13:25
  • I doubt this very much. The key issue causing the lag is the filesystem that Samsung is using, and as such is not related to a specific Android version. I don't think the Gingerbread update will be combined with a filesystem fix for the lag.
    – ddewaele
    May 25, 2011 at 13:44
  • Makes sense. That must be why some custom ROMs, like the one I'm using, uses a different filesystem.
    – Chance
    May 25, 2011 at 15:22
  • Yes, some custom ROMs do include the lag-fix.
    – ddewaele
    May 25, 2011 at 15:49
  • @Chance you don't even need Gingerbread, Samsung's official 2.2.1 update (not the original 2.2.0 Froyo release) massively improves the lag issues to the point where you won't notice any slowdowns in normal use.
    – GAThrawn
    May 27, 2011 at 16:36
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About the lagging: please update your software to the latest supported by Samsung.

After updating my Samsung Galaxy S to version 2.2.1, my phone was much, much and I do mean much smoother than before.

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  • Unfortunately, this update doesn't fix the lag issue. You will run into the lag again (black screens for a couple of seconds when launching apps, or when performing certain actions). It's a shame Samsung gets away with this, and is not addressing this issue at all.
    – ddewaele
    May 25, 2011 at 5:39
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    @Addewaele: Make sure you have enough free system memory. Android does a good job in managing it's internal memory, but if you have few bytes free as system memory, it has to swap applications out of the memory. This could explain the lag (which I don't see much to be honest). It is a shame that Samsung does not address the problem where you cannot move applications to SD card (which would free up system memory even more). And BTW I am talking about 2.2.1 , the 2.2 did not fix the problem.
    – Edelcom
    May 25, 2011 at 8:01
  • The lag issue is there, and you're bound to encounter it at some point. Not much point in trying to free up system memory in order to fix the lag. If you ever worked with a phone of similar specs (ex: htc desire) you'll notice the difference. I sometimes stare at a blank screen for over 5 seconds when opening the phone app, that's not normal by any standard.
    – ddewaele
    May 25, 2011 at 16:46
  • @addewaele I'm going to have to agree with @Edelcom here, the 2.2.1 update made a huge difference to the lag issue as well as overall performance, it's a long time since I last had to look at that black screen opening apps, or felt responsiveness problems inside apps.
    – GAThrawn
    May 26, 2011 at 15:32
  • This update isn't available from Kies for me. What alternatives do I have?
    – Matt Joiner
    Jun 8, 2011 at 1:07
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The lag issues are caused by Samsung's modifications to the offical Android release, nothing to do with Android itself or the capabilities of the phone. For reference, i have owned an SGS for 9 months now and have got it to the point of being basically perfect. The hardware capabilities of this phone are amazing.

However, the default SGS software is without a doubt terrible. The above answer is very good at addressing your specific concerns, but my advice is to do away with the standard Samsung ROM and replace it with Darky's ROM which has all of the above answers already implemented, as well as a host of other speed and usability improvements, including integrating a large part of the Gingerbread UI which is very nice. Version 9.5 would be my recommendation, which is based on the official Froyo release and is proven to be very stable. I recommend you erase all caches and apps off your phone and start afresh - it helps avoid some minor niggles you can have with apps that were installed on a previous version. Full and clear instructions are available in the Forum section of the linked page.

With this ROM, i have no FCs and no lag at all, but some of the problems you mention (eg - Flac compatibility may fit into this category) are app specific and can only be fixed with updated applications. Bear in mind that the official Gingerbread update should be released by Samsung in the coming weeks, but based on their previous efforts im still likely to stick with the derived Darky's ROM 10.x when it comes out of Beta.

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