first android phone: bad video streaming quality

[kofman13]

Hey all just got my first android phone and it's a huawei honor 5x. I have an iphone 6 but got this phone cheap to try out android for a month and return it.   So far love android  and I may get a flagship soon.   but when using the Netflix, HBO go, and even youtube app,  the quality keeps changing from unwatchable below 320p to grainy "standard definition". Sometimes it gets sharper but never full HD. 
Anyone else have this problem? Playback is perfect with Netflix on my iPhone 6 and iPad and also my ps4.
 I am trying to figure out of this is a poorly optimized android app thing, or is it just this crap $200 budget phone that doesnt have the CPU and GPU needed for fast and smooth video streaming? I think it could also maybe be that this phone can only connect to my 2.4ghz band WiFi because this phone doesn't have 5ghz. And speed test showing im only getting 2-3mbps on WiFi sometimes.  video streaming seems to be better on LTE but still not HD most of the time, especially netflix.

Want to figure out if this is an android thing, before i splurge on a S7 edge or something

[paddy-stone]

I'd say it's more likely due to your wifi connection on the phone... although I haven't got that phone so don't know the quality of the wifi adaptor. There are some really decent phones around for the $200 budget to be honest, but looks like you might have picked the wrong one. Elephone M3 or P9000 are supposed to be pretty good, as is Xiaomi note etc, but they have so many models couldn't be more specific right now.

 

I have a Lenovo K3 note, and it is excellent, never had a problem with it that couldn't be fixed by either software or a ROM change, full HD screen/8 core etc. only downside is the 2.4Ghz wifi only, but TBH it works great, I stream high bitrate stuff from my server or through the internet fine... only cost me approx $150, but is getting older now and better phones around.

[kofman13]

9 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

I'd say it's more likely due to your wifi connection on the phone... although I haven't got that phone so don't know the quality of the wifi adaptor. There are some really decent phones around for the $200 budget to be honest, but looks like you might have picked the wrong one. Elephone M3 or P9000 are supposed to be pretty good, as is Xiaomi note etc, but they have so many models couldn't be more specific right now.

 

I have a Lenovo K3 note, and it is excellent, never had a problem with it that couldn't be fixed by either software or a ROM change, full HD screen/8 core etc. only downside is the 2.4Ghz wifi only, but TBH it works great, I stream high bitrate stuff from my server or through the internet fine... only cost me approx $150, but is getting older now and better phones around.

elephone and p9000 dont have proper LTE bands for my carrier. but it might be the wifi, because i just did some tinkering with my router and now the download speed is 30mbps and the quality is much better, not perfect but not better, could also seem grainy because  i went from 4.7 inch 1080p  on my iphone to 5,5 inch 1080p, so maybe im used to it being sharper, but i guess it will be better on a flagship like S7 ede with quad hd 5.5

[kuzimins]

1 hour ago, kofman13 said:

elephone and p9000 dont have proper LTE bands for my carrier. but it might be the wifi, because i just did some tinkering with my router and now the download speed is 30mbps and the quality is much better, not perfect but not better, could also seem grainy because  i went from 4.7 inch 1080p  on my iphone to 5,5 inch 1080p, so maybe im used to it being sharper, but i guess it will be better on a flagship like S7 ede with quad hd 5.5

Set video quality to 1080p while watching a video, it should stay at that res for the rest of the video. I think Youtube on Android works like that - if you don't do anything it chooses the resolution according to the connection speed, but if you set it yourself it stays at that.

[Mew]

Here's a sad fact: most Android phones aren't able to stream hd in Netflix. 

 

https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23939?ba=GSButtonClick&q=

[paddy-stone]

That's a shame about the LTE bands not being fully compatible for you on the p9000... for me it's one of the reasons I gave my brother a recomendation for the Elephone <M3 phone as it has all the LTE bands that our providers use and it's important for him. For me it's no bother, we can still only get 2G where I live at the moment, so not really high on my list of priorities for phones. For me it's good screen size and resolution, great performance,software updates or easy to root and flash ROMs, good battery life and RAM size, and cheaper cost... not in that order as such but has to have all of those things.