Android was
developed for many devices that do not share a standard hardware
specification. It’s like the Windows of smartphones.
There are some Android phones that run on few hundred megahertz with a
handful of internal memory while there are beasts like HTC One X
that run on a multi-core processor with 1 GB of RAM. Due to these
reasons, performance of Android phones differ and thus some appear slow
when compared to others.
Even though the performance issue is mainly related to the device hardware configuration,
there are few things you can do on the software front which can reduce
the pressure on the device hardware making it considerably faster. So
let’s have a look at these tips.
Note: The following tips are for
non-rooted Android phones. If you don’t understand what “non-rooted”
means, this post is for you. This post is also for those who don’t want
to root their phones just to make it run faster, and are looking for
easier workarounds. If you have a rooted phone, then still it is very useful.
1. Disable Screen Animation and Live Wallpaper
You need to be sure what you want with your device – performance or
appearance. Both never walk hand in hand, not if your phone isn’t high
end i.e. a highly configured device. If you are looking for a superior
performance, you should disable
all the Live wallpapers (if at all you are using them) and the screen
animation that gives fading effect to your menus and unlock animation.
Selecting common image wallpapers over a live wallpaper is easy. To
disable the screen animation, IceCreamSandwich users should navigate to Developer
options in the settings while other users should disable it from Display—>Animations.
2. Install Apps on Need to Use Basis
Even though Android Play Store is a home to millions of free
applications, it is recommended that you only download and install the
apps that you need. Apps on Android are installed in a special memory
called the ROM, which is usually limited in storage space.
Thus if you populate it with unnecessary apps, it will only reduce
the consistency of the memory and make it slow. One of the best
practices you can follow is that you should install only basic apps on your ROM
and create backup files of once-in-a-while apps as APK on the SD card using an app for backup of these APK files.
Later, when you require a particular app out of the blue, you can install the app using the APK file and perform the operation.
3. Switch-on different features and disable them after use
Enabling too many features make a device comparatively slow and drain
its juice. You should enable only those features which are required at a
time and don't make several features running unnecessarily.
4. Use Apps to Free Up the RAM
Once you launch an app on Android it remains in the memory until it’s
killed(means closed). Although some people say that killing(means closing) applications on Android
is not a healthy habit, I believe that killing only the ones that are
bloating up the memory is a good thing to do.
There are many app available that acts as a task killer for your Android and
increases the device’s free memory. And I don’t need to tell you the
fact that performance is directly proportional to the amount of free RAM
on a device.
5. Keep your Home Screen Clean
Last but not the least, always try to keep your home screen clean. Widgets
are not a fancy item. They are there to solve a specific purpose. Thus
use only what you require and reduce the number of home screen panels
that contain icons and widgets.
