Handsets

New benchmark shows iPhone 5 display is 2.5 times more responsive than high-end Androids

156

Galaxy S4 vs. iPhone 5 vs. HTC One

Display responsiveness is one of those “little” areas many of us forget to mention when drafting up 5,000 word reviews on mobile devices. Whether this was always due to there being no real way to measure display responsiveness, or because it might sound too nit-picky to even mention. In any case, it really is a key component to the user experience on mobile devices.

I’ve seen it mentioned numerous times in my dealings with iPhone users. One of the things they love most about their phone is how “sensitive” the display is to their touch. More than often, they don’t even know how to define it and in some cases it’s simply attributed to Apple’s “magic” sprinkled atop every iPhone and sealed with a kiss from Jony Ive. Up until now there was nobody was crazy enough to actually attempt to measure this often overlooked feature. But someone finally has.

TouchMark touchscope

The folks at Agawi — a game and app streaming firm that provides services for Android, iOS, and Windows Phone devices — has put together a benchmark they call TouchMark. This benchmark measures touchscreen latency on a variety of mobile devices and you might be surprised to see the results.

According to their tests, the iPhone 5 performed nearly 2.5 times better than some of the top Android devices on the market at registering onscreen touches, only 50 milliseconds to be exact. Even the highest rated Android device of the bunch, the Samsung Galaxy S4, took an average of 114 milliseconds to respond to touches. Compared to the much slower iPhone 4 with 85 milliseconds and we’re starting to see why iPhone users always felt the quality of the iPhone display trumped the competition.

agawi-test-results

What does this mean to you? Well, it depends on you expect from a high-end Android device. Have you ever quickly tapped your display and noticed it didn’t register your touch? Perhaps you were jamming at the virtual keys in a heated Hangout conversation and missed a few letters. It’s the little things like this that can make a big impression on the overall quality the end user feels they’re getting from their mobile device. Now that Project Butter finally brought Android’s animations up to speed with iOS, I think it’s time OEMs start focusing on responsiveness.

[Appglimpse | via Venturebeat]

Chris Chavez
I've been obsessed with consumer technology for about as long as I can remember, be it video games, photography, or mobile devices. If you can plug it in, I have to own it. Preparing for the day when Android finally becomes self-aware and I get to welcome our new robot overlords.

Don’t feel like selling your Android devices online? ‘Sold’ can do it for you!

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156 Comments

  1. while i do appreciate top notch specs, touch response latency is just not one of them. typing this on my good ol’ GS3 and so far so good. as long as it seems responsive..all good homie.

  2. I’d like to see exactly how these results were actually found. It’s a bit hard to believe the results are so drastically different…

    1. Hate to say it, but if the results were the other way around would you still say the same thing? I think most people can agree that Apple’s strong suit is the silky smooth, reliable OS.

      1. If the results were reversed I would be more confused. More than anything I just want to see how the results were found so I can be more confident that they are actually true.

    2. Maybe drastically from a percentage standpoint, but it’s not very drastic in real world usage.

  3. My Note 2 seems sensitive enough for my everyday use… I can’t imagine it needing to be faster.

    1. look at this guy just settling… smh

  4. As much as it bothers me to recognize it it’s true, that’s the one thing they still got on Android, the Os is silky smooth and the phone Is hyper responsive, now I’d never leave android for that alone, however you gotta give credit where credit is due.

  5. I can’t say I’d buy an iPhone for the screen sensitivity. Maybe it is one of those things that Android needs to polish up – I don’t know – I’m not an engineer. But the other benefits of Android far outweigh small things like this. And even then, I think Android relies on sheer horsepower to help correct little foibles like this. For example, my Gnex stumbles FAR more with screen response than my buddy’s GS4.

  6. I heard that the 5 and 5S display have a hard time registering diagonal swipes though

    1. In the browser this appears to be true – but it’s so blatant I believe it’s intentional. It helps when you’re scrolling up and down a page because you don’t get “off” on your alignment if you’re reading an article. But if you are wanting to move around, it can be a bit of a pain.

  7. touchscreen response time is only (a small) part of the equation. one of the (many) wrong things they have done on iOS7, for example, are those LONG AND UNINTERRUPTIBLE animations so the iCraps’ touchscreen response time can be some milliseconds less but the UI’s response time is OVERALL LONGER than the top Android smartphones…

    and frankly, even if the overall response time was shorter on iDevices (and today, with iOS7, it is NOT), who cares when you would to deal with the MOST LIMITED AND DUMBED DOWN mobile operating system on the market today anyway

    1. Clearly you’re unaware of Firefox OS, Bada, Symbian, etc.

      1. nope, they are less LIMITED and DUMBED DOWN than iOS…
        sure, they may have much less apps but that was not my point.

    2. Android OEM’s should care. They now have another benchmark to work on because consumers will expect them to.

      1. They have LONG been working on overall responsiveness and smoothness and there has been a clear and huge progress in Android on this front. My Note II is more or less on par with an iPhone 5 running iOS7 while doing SO MANY THINGS MORE than that useless toy.
        Android is *improving* its responsiveness and smoothness while iDevices are *getting worse* as Apple keep on adding the Android and Windows features that they have always been lacking…

        1. Yes they are working on it but we didn’t have a meaningful measure of comparison. Before, one device was said to be just ‘magical’ and ‘felt’ better.

  8. iphone: When you absolutely positively have to get nothing done in a hurry.

    1. ..Providing what you need to get done is simple, and you can actually read what’s on the screen.

  9. My HTC one can’t be that slow….can it?

    1. Sadly yes, compare it to an iPhone 5/5S, it’s true. I have both.

  10. So much negativity in this comment thread. As the article’s closing stated, it’s time for OEMs to focus more on their devices’ responsiveness, not doubting the study or downplaying Apple.

    Just as Apple has to play catch up with Android, sometimes Android has to improve to match or surpass. It’s a natural, healthy cycle that spurs innovation.

    1. don’t think this is acurate, previous study said Lumia 920 faster than SGS3 screen which is faster than iPhone 5, now iPhone 5 faster than SGS4 and lumia 928

      here is the link

      http://www.nokiapoweruser.com/2012/12/13/lumia-920s-display-2-4-and-5-4-times-faster-than-sgs-iii-and-iphone-5s-display-confirms-lagom-test/

      1. Completely different issues.

        I don’t know which is more accurate but the article you linked is for Display Refresh, not Touch responsiveness.

      2. You’re comparing apples and bowling balls; that article is talking about DISPLAY responsiveness, not TOUCH (interface) responsiveness.

  11. iPhone is great for apps that emulate instruments.

  12. Bullshit…

  13. Nice, bring it ova to android now!

    1. If only simpleas. all the butthurt going on. people get so defensive because there is a negative to the phone they choose. nobody is saying you suck at technology by stating a fact.

  14. My GS2 response time is crap. I’m regularly typing fast enough to where some of the letters don’t register. It’s a hassle to have to go back and correct a few words every text

    1. Try the swipe function from SwiftKey

  15. There are no comparisons to stock android. I’m on 4.3 on my GS3 and I really don’t think it can get any snappier.

  16. whatever, that tiny phone is good for senior citizen and kids.

    1. And celebrities

      1. And everyone else

  17. Oh my god iphones are the greatest thing ever made.NOT………………………..

    1. We’re not going to finish off Apple for good if we only look at where Android shines. We also have to insist it beats the areas where Apple shines such as 64 bit, gpu, update rollouts and these latency issues

  18. Yeah, it does really make the iPhone feel much more polished.. Apple wins hands down, those minute secs cost a lot of the user end.

  19. As much as I dislike Apple, I do become significantly better at texting if I’m using an iPhone. But its still not enough reason for me to switch.

    1. I have the opposite issue, the keys are so teeny-tiny on the iPhone screen.

      1. You are right about smaller keys, but I am still much better typing on an iPhone than android. I love Android but iPhone keyboard blows away Android.

        1. Really? The iPhone keyboard is terrible at prediction even if it is responsive… SwiftKey with flow is multiple times more efficient

          1. I would agree that prediction is better on Android. I haven’t found anything better than SwiftKey.

            What I find better on the iPhone keyboard is that I hit the wrong keys a lot less. The new keyboard called dynamic keyboard for Android kind of mimics how the iPhone keyboard works. I am hoping they can achieve the kind of accuracy I found on the iPhone keyboard.

    2. I’m the same – though I love swiftkey and being able to swype. I still type faster on an iPhone and I’m sure this is the reason.

    3. a lot of people wrongly think they have better accuracy on iphone typing, because it doesn’t input a letter until you release “untouch”. this reduces speed. user wrongly pushes E when trying to type an R, they slide finger over slightly and “apple magic” magically knew they what an R all along, its not magic.

      android def. needs a project response time for kitkat. I find most the time i have hangs its due to a background app force closing itself, i would also like a better way to find out what apps are effecting performance and monitor them. armed with that data maybe google play store could implement a standard bug reporting format. I’m sure devs are unaware of 90% of bugs, since end users are barely ever able to tell why or what is crashing.

  20. I have an iPhone 5 (work), Nexus 4 (personal), iPad 3 (work) and a 2013 Nexus 7 (personal) and I can tell you this has been one of my biggest gripes with Android. Even on fast Android phones, there is noticeable latency. I’m a big Android fan and I love the open nature and “tweak-ability” of Android. It’s a whole lot of fun. But Apple does get a lot of stuff right and interface responsiveness is definitely one of those things Apple does right. I hope that upcoming Android versions will address this, because it’s definitely perceptible.

    Observing, understanding and ultimately learning from disparate platforms makes all mobile ecosystems stronger.

    1. Agreed. Responsiveness is everything. Responsiveness is the whole point of using a smartphone as compared to a computer. When I want to check/do something on my phone, I want it to react as fast as I can slide my fingers around the screen.

  21. I currently have a Note2 and have had all of the Nexus phones, except the N4 and my current Note2 is the laggy-est phone so far. I’m talking about responsiveness, that x amount of millisecond delay when trying to launch your camera app, messenger, swipe screens, etc.

    No, I’m not switching to iphone, but with that said, the responsiveness of the iphone/ipad and the real buttery smooth response has not been matched by Android or Windows, in one man’s opinion of course, but let’s be honest, if you mess around with your friends iphone you can’t deny the responsiveness/smoothness of it. and I don’t think Project Butter has quite brought Android animations up to the same speed as the ios – maybe it’s just my N2.

    I seem to remember an article (maybe on this site) by an ex-Google employee saying that Android will never be as responsive/smooth as ios because of the way the source code is constructed. I also seem to remember reading that there are over 12 million lines of code that make up the android os – that would be a huge endeavor to rewrite in order to make the os as smooth/responsive as ios, but it is well worth it in my opinion. I would not be surprised to learn that Google is already in the process of doing this.

    So then, is this a hardware issue, or ultimately a software issue? I would guess that ultimately it is a software issue…and the phone manufacturers added software do not help matters.

    1. Maybe it’s TouchWiz and Sense that ARE still the issue? My S4 is about on par with my previous phone which was a Galaxy Nexus … and it takes the S4 hardware to make it so.

      It’s a thought.

      1. Agreed. TouchWiz is deffinitely part of the problem. For one thing, change the name…TouchWiz, really? The Note3 looks exciting, but I really wish these manufacturers would slow down (just a little) with all of the new hardware and focus a lot more on making their software high performance and fine tuning it, rather than creating new hardware and then forgetting about all of the customers with older hardware, such as an N2.

  22. Having both a iPhone 5 (work) and an LCD Android phone (personal) I can vouch that this is probably accurate. The iPhone still feels MUCH more responsive in general use, even compared to an new Android 4.3 based Nexus 7.

    If I can pinpoint three major weaknesses of Android compared to iOS (owning both devices), I’d place this at #3:

    1) Lack of updates unless a Nexus.
    2) Lack of iMessage equivalent (i mean seriously everyone I know uses iMessage which supports SMS/MMS over data, encryption, read receipts, emojii, etc.).
    3) Sub-par interface responsiveness, even with Jelly Bean.

    1. I have noticed the same. One other thing I have noticed in comparison is how the devices age. It seems an iPhone will keep its speed with age much better than Android. My previous Droid X and Droid Razr felt so slow near the end of its life where as my friends iPhone 4 feels lightning fast years after purchase.

    2. Yes that’s what I want. Imsg..waste more data

    3. 1) Root/Flash Roms
      2) Google Hangouts
      3) live with it

  23. I’ve always noticed Android stuff being slow on touches. Even scrolling through a menu you can tell it takes a moment for it to change direct with your finger. I remember trying the original MS Surface, and just thinking “Wow! This thing immediately does what your finger tells it to do”. That’s probably the only thing that I notice on Android that pisses me off. It’s a very minute thing though.

  24. This could explain why I type badly on software keyboards. I do be speed typing and missing letters. Especially on my old E4GT (GS2). LoL!!

    So that explains it. Another small thing for me to complain about. =.P

    I mean it’s always the small things that make the device, right?

    1. it’s also possible you have a bad keyboard.
      in newer versions of android i noticed some keyboards(not all) suddenly got much more missed letters when using multi-touch support.
      smart keyboard pro i think is one of those keyboards.
      AI type’s keyboards however respond incredibly well for me when fast-typing.
      and with slide-it fast-typing works quite well in abc mode, but is slow and unreliable in slide mode.

  25. Sadly this is the nature of the Android beast. The way I understand it from what I’ve read is everything is an app running on top of the Android environment. So you have to wait for the app to register the touch. I have an iPhone 5 and a Galaxy S4 (CM10.2) and the iPhone 5 blows it away sadly as far as responsiveness goes. Even when scrolling it just is better. I hate iPhone, but man I wish Android could figure out how to fix this. The only other thing that bothers me compared to Android besides apps being more polished, and this delay in screen touch, is iTunes radio. It might end up sucking, but right now it’s spot on.

    1. apple might have been more polished before a bunch of their apps continually broke compatibility and/or years ago. At this point to say anyone is more polished than eachother when comparing apple to android is a troll, at best.

      1. Not the system, the apps are more polished.

        1. that’s simply not possible, as that kind of “polish” is based on one’s own subjective experience. It’s also extremely likely that between android and ios things are very similar these days, as they both take cues from eachother.

          acting like one is superior than the other based on software is a fool’s game.

          1. I think the problem is you aren’t willing to accept it. Try out twitter or speed test on both iOS and android and tell me iOS apps aren’t more polished. You’ll only be lying to yourself.

    2. I think there is a lot of bias involved too, no one has once mentioned the nokia lumia windows phone on the test results and every tech blogger and their mother have always gone on and on about how responsive windows phone is.. I’d like to see more tests and benchmarks

  26. Why you no test Nexus 4?

    1. Yeah this seems like a glaring omission.

  27. I’ve noticed this for a couple of years now when I use any music production apps in the play store. The app registers the screen touch stupid late which leads to awful music apps.
    (Issue 3434: Add APIs for low-latency audio)
    screen latency seems like pretty much the same thing. I hate it..

  28. I’m really glad that someone figured out a quantifiable way to measure this. Now the ball is in the Android OEM’s court to improve.

  29. Is this not further proof that the GPU is one of the most important aspects of user experience? Or does the GPU have nothing to do with this?

    I’m a little surprised the X wasn’t better… it’s felt like the most responsive Android device I’ve ever used, almost on par with my 5 and now 5S.

  30. I’m sure these “numbers” prove the iStuff are some high quality products. However, my giant man hands can’t use that tiny display. Sure, I might have my typos display 100,000 nano-seconds faster…woot!
    BTW, I own a Note 2.

    1. You got the ‘man’ purse accesory too?

      1. Naah, it goes straight into my ‘man jeans pocket’

      2. I doubt he does, see not everyone wears skinny jeans like yourself (see I can speculate too).

        1. Not really speculation, more of an educated guess. I work at a phone shop and the only people who buy the Note are bigger women, normally black. Even in shorts it is way too big. Putting two and two together, and emphasizing his ‘man’ comment, I said what I said.

          1. That doesn’t really mean anything though, and considering that he emphasised that he had big hands I very much doubt he’d need some “man purse” thing for his phone, he is most likely a bigger (taller) individual. The Note isn’t as monstrously big as people make it out to be and for bigger people it’s no problem.

    2. Ya I’m with you all the responsiveness in the world doesn’t make that micro screen any more useful for someone with big hands. Note 2 users as well. The iPhone feels like a child’s toy to me now. I squint instinctively every time someone tries to show me something on one.

  31. I’m holding out on buying a new phone till Android’s OEMs catch up. IMO this is the “last edge” that Apple has over Android, and it’s time to close the gap on it.

  32. This is bull sugar

    1. AMEN!!! BULLSUGAR!!!!

  33. Specs still matter. At least we can move beyond feelings and have a spec to work on.

  34. Scientific test is not comparable to reality test. And this research is paid for by Apple

  35. This is not an android problem, this is a display quality (specifically touch matrix sensor) problem, unless the touch register processing time of android needs to be better optimized.

  36. Apparently the dipsh*ts themselves admitted the test isn’t scientific.

    The iPhone is being benchmarked as a native app whereas they have the Android app running Dalvik.

    > Another possibility is that while the Android and WP8 code are running on runtimes (Dalvik and CLR respectively), the iPhone code is written in closer-to-the-metal Objective-C, which may reduce some latency. In future TouchMarks, we’ll compare C/C++-based Android apps to Java based apps to determine if this is the case.

    1. True but android devs like java. I think we really need to move away from it because come on, you’re not going to use anything besides ARM

      1. For apps, because it’s quick and easy.

        Game devs still use native C, since you can make a common library and share it between Android and iOS and then do the last bit platform-dependent.

        It’s retarded that they did the benchmark using Java, if not downright criminal.

  37. My Uncle Gavin just got a fantastic red Mercedes
    B-Class Electric Drive Hatchback by work part-time using a laptop.
    review…….. M­A­X­52.c­o­m

    Nice Test result but now Apple has losing it’s market.. they need to introduce something remarkable or Android will capture it’s total audience…

  38. Andriod= Junk

    1. chuck30 = Junk

      1. Chuck30 has Junk so small you need binoculars. lol

        1. even smaller than the screen on an iphone!

          1. I didn’t think it was possible for a human being to have junk that small.

        2. im black so i dont think so

    2. Care to be lame?

  39. Lmao!

  40. If that’s all you have too nit pick with, I feel sorry for you.

  41. How responsive is the stylus on the note?

    1. Not bad once you are in the note taking app and writing with it. In response to your question, just pulled out my N2, pulled out the stylus and clicked an existing note to edit..took about 1 second to open the note and as I started writing, it lagged and nothing appeared on the screen for about half a second (then the text appeared), but after that, basically very little lag.

      As far as just using the stylus to move about your phone and access apps, etc., no real lag to that.

  42. Not really much to see here. Apple prioritizes UI, android does not. This is just old news, that’s now quantifiable.

    1. Thank you, I was wondering if anyone was going to mention this. Apple devices only give the appearance of being faster because Apple prioritizes UI. They process it in real time, whereas Android processes it with normal priority.

      If you go to load a webpage on an iPhone, and you put your finger on the screen to start scrolling before the webpage is rendered, it will literally stop loading the webpage because the UI is getting priority (e.g. busy being responsive and whatnot). On android, the opposite occurs and you get simultaneous results; which I feel is beneficial.

  43. this is the dumbest thing ive ever seen millionths of a second????

    the most responsive phone ive ever seen was the nexus 4

    1. Do you know what a millisecond is? It is a thousandth of a second, not a millionth of a sec. Numbers are shown to the nearest millisecond which of course is insignificant, you will not see a difference between 121 and 123 milliseconds, but I can imagine seeing a difference between 50 and 100 milliseconds (i.e. between 0.05 and 0.1 seconds).

      Of course the testing app for iPhone and the one for Android should be on the same footing – written in the typical development environment for each phone. It isn’t clear to me if this was done or not (after reading the comments).

      I have a Note II and I’ve played with an iPhone 5 and sure, the iPhone feels faster. I’m sure the 5s will be faster yet. I have my complaints about the Note II but it is fast enough usually (except when it gets confused on rotating the screen), so it’s not like I have iPhone envy on this front – still if the spec holds, I appreciate good engineering – hopefully Google does too.

  44. Surprised that the GS4 ranked highest for android. I have the Droid Maxx and the LG G2 and they both seem to be more responsive than my wife’s GS4! Of course we don’t have any machine to empirically test it, but from my perception the GS4 seems to be not as responsive as my 2 phones.

    1. I would think these are tests that show the responsiveness when testing the screen alone, with no other processes working. I bet if you test a live iPhone against a live Android, with data coming and going and other things that work the processor, i bet you anything Android wins.

  45. Wow really!?? These Apple fans are really reaching huh?! Milliseconds!!?? oooo scary!! LMAO

  46. My Nexus 7 has the touch screen issues that have plagued many other users. Sad.

  47. Lol I though this was common knowledge. My second generation ipod touch was more responsive than my nexus 4. This was particularly evident when playing tap tap revenge, as i could set global high scores on the itouch but not on my android phone(galaxy s at the time). I still like Android more, but this is definitely something that needs to be worked on.

  48. Oooh, quick! Let’s all buy iphones!
    Pfff, really getting sick of of all these iphone posts on ANDROID blogs

  49. Even though it’s milliseconds, what I really want to know is, what proprietary sensors does Apple use that makes their phones respond quicker? After all, they’re using Samsung displays, so they’ve gotta have something else driving the response time…Hmmm, maybe it’s the same stuff that caused that electrocution of the elderly lady?

    1. I think they use LG displays for the iPhone primarily, Samsung supply the bigger screens for the iPads and pick up anything LG can’t for the iPhone.

      That being the case, it’d be interesting to see the likes of the Nexus 4 or G2 thrown in there for comparison.

      1. You’re right. I was mixing up Samsung making the processor and the displays. But yeah, it is LG displays that they use. Yeah, I’d be curious to see how the Optimus G, Nexus 4, and G2 do in comparison tests.

  50. Doubtful android will ever catch up with all the junk companies put on the OS.

  51. Is it me or do all these Benchmarks always default to iPhone being better than everything else. I mean seriously, the iPhone 4 also ? Pullllleeeez. Did Apple pay for this benchmark or is this off an Apple fansite. Besides it being Apple favored, what kind of benchmark is responsiveness ?? How do you even measure that ? My ONE seems to respond instantly to my touch, it cant be any faster, even the GS4 that my wife owns seems to be as fast as my phone, but not faster. If its in micro or milli seconds does it really matter. Its like a benchmark that rates how much prettier a phone is compared to others, its a matter of perception, not science, or fact. But in the pretty department Apple would win hands down, its really the only thing it has going for it, pretty phone, pretty screen, expensive as hell, worth nothing.

    1. I swear Apple pays companies and websites (look at Gizmodo especially) to write posts about them and their products. Why do you think the Wall Street Journal always has rumors of upcoming Apple products?
      It’s all to generate hype for Apple and page hits for the websites. Hype for Apple means more people willing to buy their products and more page hits for the websites results in greater ad-revenue and popularity for the Apple-ass-kissers like Gizmodo’s Jesus Diaz.

      1. Yet they weren’t the ones caught paying college students (cough: Samsung). Don’t be paranoid, bud.

      2. How about do your own benchmark instead of making accusations?

  52. This is how new jobs are created….. to measure milliseconds (if any)

  53. I’m losing precious milliseconds!!

    This has been known since the days of the G1, and it’s never changed. It’s really not a big deal, I can’t tell the difference since I swipe and not finger smash.

  54. Now Chris Chavez , go and buy you IPhone 5C and leave your HTC ONE….

  55. I’ve owned many Android Phones and the top of the line ones also. I recently switched to and iPhone and I must say it is because of how fluid everything is from the touch screen to the camera. Sorry Android fans you lost this one. (but don’t worry still have you expandable memory and battery)

    1. I think Android deserves more recognition than a reluctant praise for expandable memory and removable battery. The overall capabilities of Android far outshine the minutia of losing milliseconds on a display.

      1. Expandable memory and removable battery is no rocket science. Removable battery existed before smartphone. If you need extra memory/battery then sure get an Android. But there is nothing to praise about.

        1. I wasn’t drawing attention to the expandable memory and battery.

    2. Your touch screen is 50ms faster than Android screens. I’m really not just saying this as a fanboy but does it matter? 50ms is 50ms. You’ll never notice that and the only reason you would is if you’re a digital artist. Why are you not using a Wacom tablet?

      At least the benefits over the iPhone are significantly more noteworthy than a 50ms delay on a touch screen.

    3. Hmm, jup, ya might be right at the moment… but just wait until you installed like 2 iOS updates and the game is changing! That´s one of the reasons i got rid off my iPhone and soon will get rid off my iPad! Apple does this on purpose i guess…

      1. U right I know many people that had iphones and when they instilled about 2 or 3 updates there phone had to many problems so they switched to android cuz of that and stayed android

  56. Do you really think 50 miliseconds makes a different? unless your x-man fingers can type and move that fast, I would say there is no difference at all

  57. We did a browsing test and my galaxy s4 was faster than the 5s. I guess I need to add 50 milliseconds to that time to..

    1. Not quite the same benchmark.

      1. I know. Apple fans are claiming lag using a 3 year old android phone is because the screen low sensitivity. So if clicking the browser my screen is 50 milliseconds slower and it is faster rendering the page. then the galaxy true potential power is 50 milliseconds faster.

  58. Oh now, the iPhone is a few mini seconds faster in responding to my touches! Am I going to die now? :O I really hope not!

    coolstarrybra.

  59. Samsung made iPhone 5s processor A7 with some new technology so the speed comes from Samsung..

    1. Designed by Apple, manufactured in Samsung foundries. The manufacturing process is the same in Apple A7 and Exynos for SGS3 (28nm process). The A7 is designed by Apple engineers.

      1. oh that’y why ts a mediocre upgrade with a ridiculous price tag. got ya… lol

      2. “For 32/28nm, Samsung and its partners were the first to introduce the Foundry HKMG strategy. At 32/28nm, a Gate-First HKMG was selected since the scheme has proven to meet market and customer needs achieving superior area scaling and preservation of layout styles without complex restricted design rules.”

        Read the last part again. Every fab machine is specific and has to follow a certain design rule. Though HKMC manufacturing technology made the processor designs slightly less complex, it’s still the manufacturer’s design that gets churned out from these machines. I know it’s a tough pill for you Applesexuals to swallow, but it’s the truth. A7 is Samsung’s design.

        Apple decided what clockspeed they wanted. That’s all.

        1. Makes no sense. You’re totally blind.
          1> A7 is dual core
          2> A7 is clocked at 1.3 GHz.
          Exynos has more cores and is clocked higher and is manufactured using the same 28nm process. And the A7 still beats S4 in every benchmark. If A7 really was designed by Samsung, wouldnt they rather use it in their S4 rather than manufacture it for Apple?

        2. Pretty much everything you said is wrong. Apple clearly custom designed the A7 based on both the ARMv8 CPU and PowerVR GPU architectures and built on Samsung’s 28nm process. The result blows away anything else right now, especially considering how well it’s doing with a ~1500mAh battery.

    2. That’s like saying the Sydney opera house’s architecture was the work of the bricklayers!

  60. I noticed this back when the G1 released but on the newer android devices I haven’t noticed it at all.

  61. um kinda bias is it not? LG makes the display for the iPhone 5 but yet no LG androids were tested???

    1. It would still be slower in practice because of the way android has been developed. Google has been moving to a more efficient software layer but, as it stands, there is some extra processing lag that sits between the hardware registering the touch and the OS getting it to the application.

      Being said, its one of those “blink of the eye” delays.

    2. Display is a completely different component. You can connect a fancy monitor to a Windows/OS X/Linux/whatever, and each will have a different experience.

  62. Where’s Nexus?

  63. Time to heart attack in my Xperia U.

  64. I have a GnEx for personal phone and an iPhone5 for my work phone. With iOS6, it was horrible getting things to tap. IOS 7 may looks childish but it addressed the problem.

  65. Nothing could bother me less.

  66. Too me this a huge issue, it really annoying for first time android users. Cough Cough my parents and grandparents.

  67. That means the difference is 0.05 of a second, to be more clear. Do you think your eye or brain can notice that difference? Basically every 20 touches, you may loose one second….. to loose 1 minute, you have to do 1200 touches.

    1. I agree; now we’re talking about specs/features that the human body can’t notice. Same thing with these new displays and their crazy pixel densities….you really think your eyes can tell the difference between 320 PPI and 360 PPI…NOPE! Only your wallet will see the difference..LOL

    2. I can tell the difference between 50ms and 100ms for sure.

  68. To have a point of comparison, the average human eye blink lasts 300 – 400 milliseconds. If you’re claiming to be annoyed by the widest difference – the one between the iPhone 5S and the Moto X – of 68 milliseconds, please report back to the factory where you were built so you can get a software update.

    1. Nonsense, simply use the two devices and you’ll see the difference. Twice the latency with Android is huge and completely unacceptable that Google hasn’t addressed this yet.

    2. You don’t use your senses do you? If you play first person shooting video games you will know even 20ms matter.

  69. Isn’t it related to the display size? Of course, updating half the screen would be twice faster.
    iPhone 5S: 640 x 1136 pixels VS. Andoid phones (S4, One, etc.): 1180 x 1920 pixels

  70. This is the difference between iOS being glued to your fingertip, and Android following your fingertip. Despite everyone saying these delay times don’t matter, they are one of the biggest noticeable differences between the platforms. Simply put, Android needs to step up.

  71. you can bring $15000 of income every month… All you need is a computer and a internet connection and you are

    ready to start..b­o­w­6­.­c­o­m­

  72. This is one of the reasons I was reluctant to come back to Android. I hated the iPhone, but I have to admit when I did have one it was super responsive. Used Windows Phone for about a year and it seemed to be the most responsive touch smartphone I’ve ever used. Tried the One X after that. Horrid. But now that I have a Nexus 4 running 4.3 I have zero complaints. Actually the thing hasn’t hung up on me once and I’ve had that problem with every other high-end android that I’ve had. Think I’ll be sticking with the Nexus for a while.

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