Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Android tablets: It's the browser

russellbeattie.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 73 posts

Re: Android tablets: It's the browser

#41

Post by phaus »

SirPulse wrote: post #15
randomfool wrote: post #3

My comparison is iPad Mini Chrome to Nexus 7 Chrome, have to agree that Chrome on Nexus 7 is not up to par with iOS. But I do strongly prefer Chrome's UX over Safari's. Primary issues with Chrome on Nexus 7: - Scrolling performance is much slower, especially while loading larger pages. - I have a much harder time opening links on the N7 on pages like HN front page where there are clusters of links with fairly small t…

Microsoft's browser doesn't get much love here but browsing is a lot of fun on Surface. First its a full desktop class browser with flash support (albeit only on some sites) the second is the full screen dedicated to browser as opposed to space eaten up chrome around the client area. It matters when your screen is small. And finally buttery smooth scrolling as good if not better than iPad.

Maybe the Metro browser in RT is different from the one in Windows 8 pro, but I find it to be infuriatingly horrible.

Re: Android tablets: It's the browser

#43

Post by nmb »

pasting my comment on the article itself. admittedly this only addresses one of the author's points: On any Jellybean device, if you go to Settings > System > Developer options, and check "Show touches" to do just that, it goes a huge way towards reducing confusion when you're tapping things. Having that visual feedback means you never have to wonder if you tapped something, or what you tapped on. It's hard for me to use an Android device without it now.

Re: Android tablets: It's the browser

#44

Post by dublinben »

rednukleus wrote: post #2

Its strange, I've never heard anybody off the internet say that Android broswers aren't as good as iOS. On the internet, when people complain they are usually told to try Dolphin, so I'm surprised it wasn't included in the article.

I don't use Chrome for all the reasons mentioned already. I'm perfectly happy with the AOSP default browser though. It's much nicer than the Sense or Touchwiz browser that most Android users are used to.

Re: Android tablets: It's the browser

#45

Post by adev »

rednukleus wrote: post #23
ippa wrote: post #6

Bought two nexus 7 over christmas, one for me and one as a present. I've only read good things about them. Ended up returning them both due to the bad surfing experience. Laggy, bad scrolling. Sometimes it felt like it missed my swipe as a whole and just got stuck. Switched back to my ipad1 which is much better in that regard. I liked the rest... but surfing is what I do most on a pad, so that has to be perfect.

Did you try using a different browser? I've heard some people say that Chrome performed poorly on their Nexus 7 for some reason, but switching browser always seems to fix it. IRL every Nexus 7 I've seen is buttery smooth, so I don't know what is causing the problem for some people.

I have a Galaxy Tab II 7.0 (so I know it's not as fast and smooth as a Nexus), but not everyone has a Nexus.

It doesn't matter what browser I use, the experience just isn't anywhere near iOS levels of ease and enjoyment. From slowness, to click position errors, to ugly fonts, to just issues typing in URLs and constant browser crashing (I work a lot with HTML5 Video). The fact that the browsing experience is so poor on the device keeps me from using it other than when I need it for testing. I'd rather browse on my iPhone's smaller screen than deal with the poor experience on a larger 7" Android tablet. When I switch to my iPad 4, I immediately feel relieved... then disappointment when I even thinking about having to pick up the Android tablet.

Re: Android tablets: It's the browser

#46

Post by codeka »

habosa wrote: post #37
georgemcbay wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the issue here is that Android lets you map different url/domains to different apps. Because maybe you want to open most URLs in Chrome but you want to open reddit urls in some Reddit-focused native app. (Ditto Play store URLs opening with the Play Market App instead of the default browser). This should only really come into play when you've installed apps with registered handlers for those URLs though. Havin…

I understand how Android works with intents, and I actually think this is a problem with how certain apps are declaring their AndroidManifest files and how the system saves decisions. If I have bookmarks to mywebsite1.com and mywebsite2.com and I select "Always" for one of the links from Bookmarks, it will still ask which browser I want to use when the Bookmarks widget broadcasts and intent for mywebsite2.com. I thin…

At least for me (Galaxy Nexus), that is how it works. I've set Chrome to "always" and now any links I click on in whatever app open in Chrome.

Maybe is something specific about how the bookmark app I'd launching its intents, though, because I don't use that app (I use a reddit app for launching links mostly).

The exception is links to sites which have their own handlers (reddit, YouTube, etc).

Re: Android tablets: It's the browser

#47

Post by LeonidasXIV »

magic_haze wrote: post #40
jsnell wrote: post #10

Yes, Chrome on Android is a travesty, and this article doesn't even list all of the major issues it has. The fonts being screwed up is a "feature" -- Chrome tries to detect which pieces of text are important and enlarge them (and the reverse for unimportant). I don't think it'd be useful even if the decisions on what's important worked well. And boy, the decisions really don't work well.

Interesting.. I had no idea it was the browser that did that - I always thought it was something in HN's styling. My windows phone browser does something similar (e.g., http://imgur.com/ONCGHL8 ), but the decision its algorithm makes correlates with what I find useful most of the time. Does anyone here know how chrome detects the importance of the text? (I'm guessing it's based somewhat on the length of the text and…

I used Chrome for like a day untill I deactivated it (can't uninstall) and continued to use the stock browser, just because it is so mind-bogglingly ugly.

Re: Android tablets: It's the browser

#49

Post by dhruvmittal »

LeonidasXIV wrote: post #47
magic_haze wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting.. I had no idea it was the browser that did that - I always thought it was something in HN's styling. My windows phone browser does something similar (e.g., http://imgur.com/ONCGHL8 ), but the decision its algorithm makes correlates with what I find useful most of the time. Does anyone here know how chrome detects the importance of the text? (I'm guessing it's based somewhat on the length of the text and…

I used Chrome for like a day untill I deactivated it (can't uninstall) and continued to use the stock browser, just because it is so mind-bogglingly ugly.

The thing that killed chrome for me was the way it uses the same UI as desktop chrome for browser tabs. On my nexus 7 (I can't speak for larger tablets, maybe it works there?), the tabs are simply too small for me to be precise about any interaction I have with them.
Post reply on HN