5 Tips on How to Increase Perfomance on your Android Phone

by Antonio Wells Sep 13, 2009 12:01 PM – 8 Comments

Recently I factory reset my personal T-Mobile G1 because the performance on it really sucked! Why not Root it you may ask… well, due to the AndroidTapp.com website, I try to keep my phone and review phone just like the typical consumers’ phone as to get the same experience when downloading and evaluating Android Apps.

Often I would have to restart the phone and make constant use of apps like TasKiller or Advanced Task Killer… you wouldn’t believe the amount of apps running in the background until you run one of these tools. Though they helped, it still seemed not to make the OS snappy. I use a lot of apps, thus I have to remove a lot due to the internal memory constraints. Even removing apps didn’t do the trick. My theory is that like a clogged PC, an Android phone can experience slowness within continued use.

Here are a few tips I would recommend to increase performance on your Android phone:

1. Turn Off Effects

Turn off unneeded effects like Auto Rotate and Transitions. Though they make the phone look cool like the iPhone, the current hardware can’t match that of Apple’s jewel.

2. Reduce Home Screen Widgets

When you look at the tricked out home screens of those participants of AndroidandMe’s Show Me your Home Screen contest on Flickr, you’ll notice some cool desktops and widgets. Having one that is vital to your productivity is cool, but every widget in the Market is not needed on your home screen. Also, try to use widgets that allow you to adjust the update intervals. Whereas some don’t come with this option and update too often, killing the known to be weak battery on Android phones.

3. Reduce Home Screen Icons on Home Screen

Yeah we flock to apps like aHome, Open Home, FreshFace, etc. because they give us more screens to flick through and fill up with icons. I suggest only using one to two screens with your absolute most frequently used apps for convenience. An alternative is to use “Live Folders” with shortcuts to frequently used apps and more.

4. Factory Reboot

Recommended as a last resort, but no need to worry as you can backup your current phones’ state and restore it quickly and easily with a free app called Recovery Flasher. If you would like to continue to receive T-Mobile over the air updates, or don’t want to be bothered with the techno jingo of Rooting, you can factory reboot your phone to get a fresh start. Your contacts and gmail will be fully restored upon next update with the Gmail cloud.

Of course you will loose all your apps and most settings. Simply re-download the useful ones from the Market or re-install them from your SD card using an app called AppManager (assuming you backed up your apps to SD Card prior to factory reboot).

5. Root It

Root for some of the same reasons as above, plus more. Here’s a easier guide the Rooting your Android phone; a hack which allows you to install apps meant for Rooted phones, and if you’re a developer… offers access to every portion of the phone. (Rather show you the vid).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8BZYEBsSws

6. Turn Off GPS

Update: Quoted from Anton Spaans, creator of The Gube – 3D Rubik’s Cube, in the comments below… and dramatically improves performance. Thanks Anton!

There is an issue with Android’s Localization Services. These services notify apps of where you are (GPS/Wireless networks), but these notifications are not properly ‘cleaned up’ when they are no longer necessary. This causes an extraordinary amount of notifications that the system needs to handle, slowing down your phone.

If you find that your UI is getting sluggish, disable your Location services (Settings –> Security & Location). Uncheck both checkboxes in the ‘My Location sources’. Then wait a few secs. By this time the flood of these location service notification should have stopped and your phone should feel much zippier .

If you want, you can turn your location services on again by checking these check-boxes. (However, over time, the same problem may appear again.)

Got tips to improve Android performance? Share in the Comments Below:

Tags: Android App, Android Phone, Android Rooting, Android Tips, Increase Perfomance, Speed Up Phone

Categorised in: Android Advice, Apps Blog

8 Comments

By Gunderstorm on September 13, 2009 at 1:18 pm:

Thanks for this. My G1 has been slowing horribly lately. I always reboot after my apps update and use Task Killer all the time.

Hopefully reduce my screens and turning off some animation will help, but I do wish this list were longer.

Reply
By Anton Spaans on September 14, 2009 at 9:36 am:

Another tip:

There is an issue with Android’s Localization Services. These services notify apps of where you are (GPS/Wireless networks), but these notifications are not properly ‘cleaned up’ when they are no longer necessary. This causes an extraordinary amount of notifications that the system needs to handle, slowing down your phone.

If you find that your UI is getting sluggish, disable your Location services (Settings –> Security & Location). Uncheck both checkboxes in the ‘My Location sources’. Then wait a few secs. By this time the flood of these location service notification should have stopped and your phone should feel much zippier .

If you want, you can turn your location services on again by checking these check-boxes. (However, over time, the same problem may appear again.)

Reply
- By Mikkel on September 15, 2009 at 7:43 pm:
  
  WOW!! The disabling/enabling of the location services really work. Thanks for the tip!
  
  Reply
By Jeremy Logan on September 14, 2009 at 2:51 pm:

What Anton said… I came here to say the same thing. After doing this it feels like a new phone. If you want to double check that this problem is what’s causing your slow downs then you can:
1) connect your phone to your pc via USB
2) run `adb -d shell`
3) once in the shell run `top` (after you get a listing of displays you can ctrl-c to stop it continually updating)
4) look for “system_service”, if it’s using much CPU (some people are seeing upwards of 70%, but mine was around 50%) then this is your problem and disabling the service will help

Reply
By Talisman on September 15, 2009 at 9:43 am:

WOW!!! My Android System process went from ~50% to ~5%!! Thank you soo much, that should also double the battery time! What a bunch of lamers that released it without noticing this enormous bug!

You can see the CPU usage in the Astro Menu > Tools > Processs..

Reply
By jeux foot on September 24, 2009 at 12:17 am:

I think If you find that your UI is getting sluggish, disable your Location services
(Settings –> Security & Location). Uncheck both checkboxes in the ‘My Location sources’. Then wait a few secs. By this time the flood of these location service notification should have stopped and your phone should feel much zippier.

Reply
By Mark Lasby on September 24, 2009 at 8:57 pm:

I cannot find a system_service in the top listing. There is a system_server with 3% CPU. Is this the correct one?

I have already disabled both location services.

Reply