Netflix For Android, slightly disappointed with 3G performance
September 13, 2011 by: Anthony Damasco
I’ve been a netflix user for about two years now. I mostly use there “watch instantly” service as I never really keep up with the DVD cue. Anyway – Netflix just made an app available on Andriod 2.2 and 2.3 devices in which you can stream movies on. I was extremely happy about this – I have a 2.5 hour commute to work everyday where I am stuck on a bus / on a train / in a cab / or on the subway waiting for slow moving NYC traffic. When I heard about the app I immediately planned on using it to help my commute go by faster.
After downloading the app (27mb) to my phone I tried loading it up. The app is extremely heavy and took some time to boot. I was faced with a login screen (username / password) logged in and was brought to my instant que. The que is pretty slow on 3G even with full signal. I chose a movie and hit play. 45 seconds on a netflix load screen and the video was ready to play. The Video and Audio quality was as decent as to be expected, however after a few seconds the audio and video would lose sync. The video was streaming slower then the audio could keep up.
I tried pausing the video hoping to let it reset itself, still didn’t fix the issue. I closed the software a few times to try and see if that fixed the problem, and it didn’t. Finally I tried playing shorter videos (15 mins or so) and they seemed to keep sync longer. However that is when I ran into another problem. At full signal 3g I, would get an error “you have lost your connection to netflix, please try again later”. That is followed by the video closing. Upon trying to reload the video it loops on the loading screen for a minute and kicks back the same error. To fix this you have to goto “manage applications” and force quit, then relaunch the netflix app.
Overall I have to say that I am unhappy with the app. It may be that the app is ahead of it’s time and might be best used with 4g or wifi until they can optimize things a little better. The phone I am using is the Optimus by LG. Specs below:
Specs
|
|
| Modes | CDMA 850 / 1900 |
| Weight | 4.6 oz (130 g) |
| Dimensions | 4.47″ x 2.32″ x 0.52″ (114 x 59 x 13.2 mm) |
| Form Factor | Bar Internal Antenna |
| Battery | Talk: 5 hours max. (300 minutes) Standby: ? 1500 mAh LiIon |
| Display | Type: LCD (Color TFT/TFD) Resolution: 320 x 480 pixels 3.2″ diagonal Colors: 16.7 million (24-bit) |
| Platform / OS | Android version 2.2 |
| Processor | 600 MHz Qualcomm S1 MSM7627 |
| Memory | 140 MB (internal memory available to user for storage) |
| Phone Book Capacity | 1000 |
I’m going to hold off on using the app on 3g until I see an update released.
-AD
I agree
Same thing happeningredients to me with the Samsung transfix