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As a former android tab owner & current android mobile user owner I think you're slightly mistaken on how 'well' android manages memory & program utilisation. As a previous developer for Android tab roms one core point is that Android is not that great at memory management, particularly in allowing effective multitasking. Also Android has the extremely annoying mechanism which permits applications to automatically operate at runtime - despite user requests not to.
This is why there are so many memory management applications on Android, why there are tools (such as Autostarts) to remove unwanted startup apps - which makes either your phone or tablet laggy from first boot; and furthermore why so many android users feel the need to apply link2sd or ram management via ext4 / swap in order to overcome this. Whilst there are a number of articles which says you do not need a task manager in Android- and that it does more bad than good - there is the converse fact that without effective memory management in the hardware/rom combination you do need these else suffer the consequences of having unresponsive units or software; lockups; random reboots; or general frustration - on either stock or custom roms. If you look at the dev on Freaktab or XDA you'll see some of the memory issues that occur. On my Galaxy ace I not only run link2sd with a 16gb card, but also use ram extension through a 1.5gb swap & have disabled unwanted autorun programs. I still have rogue applications which try to autostart & eat up to 20mb of ram per go 'trying' to work, noting the use of ZDbox to kill these whenever lagging occurs.
I do not dispute the positive features of android tabs, nor the styles of quality builds such as the N7; however having worked with gingerbread, honeycomb, ICS and seen little improvement in JB I must say that as an OS in terms of handling memory & duality of applications on the go the PB does knock android out of the park. The memory management of the 'lesser spec' unit - ie the PB - does outperform Atabs such as the N7. Less than a month ago I was an Atab user, I would now never return because of the above & what I have found with the PB from a user-centric position.
Again & as always, only my opinion
Over & out...09-20-12 07:11 AM - I like hearing other perspectives.As a former android tab owner & current android mobile user owner I think you're slightly mistaken on how 'well' android manages memory & program utilisation. As a previous developer for Android tab roms one core point is that Android is not that great at memory management, particularly in allowing effective multitasking. Also Android has the extremely annoying mechanism which permits applications to automatically operate at runtime - despite user requests not to.
This is why there are so many memory management applications on Android, why there are tools (such as Autostarts) to remove unwanted startup apps - which makes either your phone or tablet laggy from first boot; and furthermore why so many android users feel the need to apply link2sd or ram management via ext4 / swap in order to overcome this. Whilst there are a number of articles which says you do not need a task manager in Android- and that it does more bad than good - there is the converse fact that without effective memory management in the hardware/rom combination you do need these else suffer the consequences of having unresponsive units or software; lockups; random reboots; or general frustration - on either stock or custom roms. If you look at the dev on Freaktab or XDA you'll see some of the memory issues that occur. On my Galaxy ace I not only run link2sd with a 16gb card, but also use ram extension through a 1.5gb swap & have disabled unwanted autorun programs. I still have rogue applications which try to autostart & eat up to 20mb of ram per go 'trying' to work, noting the use of ZDbox to kill these whenever lagging occurs.
I do not dispute the positive features of android tabs, nor the styles of quality builds such as the N7; however having worked with gingerbread, honeycomb, ICS and seen little improvement in JB I must say that as an OS in terms of handling memory & duality of applications on the go the PB does knock android out of the park. The memory management of the 'lesser spec' unit - ie the PB - does outperform Atabs such as the N7. Less than a month ago I was an Atab user, I would now never return because of the above & what I have found with the PB from a user-centric position.
Again & as always, only my opinion
Over & out...
Why don't you just freeze the unwanted programs?
With my EVO LTE, I have the opposite problem: the system is TOO aggressive. It shuts down things so quickly.09-20-12 09:02 AM - Have to say, as an android tab user, I agree with what you've written, there, about android dealing with / managing applications and multi-tasking.As a former android tab owner & current android mobile user owner I think you're slightly mistaken on how 'well' android manages memory & program utilisation. As a previous developer for Android tab roms one core point is that Android is not that great at memory management, particularly in allowing effective multitasking. Also Android has the extremely annoying mechanism which permits applications to automatically operate at runtime - despite user requests not to.
This is why there are so many memory management applications on Android, why there are tools (such as Autostarts) to remove unwanted startup apps - which makes either your phone or tablet laggy from first boot; and furthermore why so many android users feel the need to apply link2sd or ram management via ext4 / swap in order to overcome this. Whilst there are a number of articles which says you do not need a task manager in Android- and that it does more bad than good - there is the converse fact that without effective memory management in the hardware/rom combination you do need these else suffer the consequences of having unresponsive units or software; lockups; random reboots; or general frustration - on either stock or custom roms. If you look at the dev on Freaktab or XDA you'll see some of the memory issues that occur. On my Galaxy ace I not only run link2sd with a 16gb card, but also use ram extension through a 1.5gb swap & have disabled unwanted autorun programs. I still have rogue applications which try to autostart & eat up to 20mb of ram per go 'trying' to work, noting the use of ZDbox to kill these whenever lagging occurs.
I do not dispute the positive features of android tabs, nor the styles of quality builds such as the N7; however having worked with gingerbread, honeycomb, ICS and seen little improvement in JB I must say that as an OS in terms of handling memory & duality of applications on the go the PB does knock android out of the park. The memory management of the 'lesser spec' unit - ie the PB - does outperform Atabs such as the N7. Less than a month ago I was an Atab user, I would now never return because of the above & what I have found with the PB from a user-centric position.
Again & as always, only my opinion
Over & out...
My experience is predominantly based on running 2.2 - although I have briefly run several other custom ROMs on my android tab (2.3, 3.something and a couple of ICS roms). I run and have run 2.2 (largely stock with a few tweaks) on my tab for about a year, and although I'm happy with the performance, I'm often using ES Task Manager to group kill lots of things that seem to start, periodically, either when waking the tab / and / or the WiFi reconnects, or just randomly.
I've read the articles on how this is supposedly not required, and that android as an OS can do a better job than me - but I remain unconvinced. When I do it, I find my tab more responsive, and the flip-side of this, is that I can tell, if I've been using my tab for a while, when a load of apps / processes have spontaneously started, from tells in performance.
Whereas, on the PlayBook, that side of things is much more simple, and in my opinion, better and easier for the user to manage.
If android did truly do all that as well as is touted, I'd perhaps concede, maybe some users concern themselves over things they don't really need to, but I know from my own tab's behaviour, that leaving it to itself, affects it's performance and response.09-20-12 09:10 AM - I like this thread, because I now find myself with a 70 y/o godmother (in another state) who just went out and bought a $250 Nexus 7---and not too surprisingly, as a first tablet, finds it very overwhelming. I had told her about the awesome $118 32GB PB sale last week, thinking how easily she could use it to surf the web or check her email or play sudoku from the convenience of her couch. The PB has a certain simplicity that lends itself to doing limited tasks quite well and intuitively.
But the salesman pointed out Skype could be installed on the N7, which made the PB seem like "just a toy" in her eyes. I just love how salespeople outrank godsons
She'll be heading to Arizona for the winter, so it looks like I'll be getting some hands-on experience of my own over the next few months.09-20-12 09:30 PM - I'm not saying you can't freeze either using TI or Link2sd. I've done it on certain bloatware before. I guess my point is that an ordinary user shouldn't have to look for these solutions if Android was so good at memory management. I guess my point is that if memory management & all that was proclaimed in the other posts were true you would'nt need the kernel / memory tweaks off XDA (such as slaidyboost, etc.), most of which required rooting first; plus there would not be thousands of memory / task killers / ram manager / tweak apps available in the Playstore. I can only use my family as main examples - but none are as 'geeky' as me in wanted to know about these tweaks - yet all have complained about things getting laggy but to unwanted starts & memory eating. If you want to use a custom launcher - one which does tab switching (for example) you see the lag difference - even with increase vm heap & post dalvik clearance.I like hearing other perspectives.
Why don't you just freeze the unwanted programs?
With my EVO LTE, I have the opposite problem: the system is TOO aggressive. It shuts down things so quickly.
For those who know or find out its quite fun...my point is that with the PB you don't have to do so, which is why it is...from a general user perspective...a better OS build.09-20-12 11:50 PM
