When you first get your phone, it seems to work very well. Things are fast, fluid responsive. Use it for a few months, and things start getting worse. There are several things you could do to maintain the performance and make your phone faster overall. Here are ten things we believe are the most efficient methods to do so.
Uninstall useless apps
We’ve all have probably come to this point when there are just too many apps on your phone. Sure, your storage can handle them, but many of them are just useless. They run in the background, which slowly decreases your smartphone performance. If it’s harming your battery life, and you don’t even use it, there’s no point in having it on your device. Just get rid of them!
Disable unwanted stock apps
Many phone manufacturers and carriers like Samsung, AT&T, and T-Mobile sell their phones with a chunk of apps that most people don’t even care about. While to disable some of them you need to be rooted, many of them can be easily disabled from their app info. These apps keep running in the background even though you don’t use them directly, so disable them right way if you can.
Cut down on the animations
All Android phones in default come have super fluid and relatively slow transition animations. You can make your device feel snappier by reducing or turning off some of these animations. In order to do this, you’ll need to enable Developer options which you can do by going to your phone’s About section in the Settings and tapping ‘Build Number’ seven times. Then, head into the newly enabled Developer options from the previous menu. Scroll down and look for Window Animation Scale, Transition animation scale, and animation duration scale and pick either .5x or ‘off’ according to your liking for each three of these settings.
Reduce / Turn-0ff Auto-Sync
Once we start using our phones, we end up adding several accounts to it. Whether it be multiple google accounts, Twitter, Viber, there just is a long list of accounts to sync. All these syncing activities significantly impact your phone’s performance, and not to mention, battery life. You could turn it all off by going into the Account settings, or if you want to, you can also choose what to sync and what not to. For some apps like Facebook and Twitter, you can also choose the time interval for syncing so be sure to configure that too.
Wipe Cache Partition
The cache partition on your phone contains temporary files which is sperate from your phone’s actual app data so it’s a good idea to get rid of it every once in a while. Doing so will not only boost your phone’s performance but will also free up some storage. To do this, you’ll have to enter your phone’s recovery mode which can be different from one device to another os just do a quick search and find out. Once you’re there, find and select the ‘wipe cache partition’ option and just reboot.
Simplify your home screen
The more simple your home screen is, the better your phone gets in terms of performance. Remove any unused icons and try to limit the number of widgets used. Also, if you have a live wallpaper, consider changing it to a static one.
Overclock your Android
If you’re not satisfied with your phone’s speed, you can also overclock it. Many manufacturers maintain a low clock speed in order to minimize heat and extend your phone’s battery life. If you have a rooted device or are willing to root it, you can overclock it using an app like SetCPU. It’s not a straightforward process so be sure to follow proper guidelines and proceed with caution.
Install a custom ROM
The stock software that your phone ships with most often don’t allow you to tinker with your phone too much. It doesn’t enable you to make modifications that help boost your phone’s performance mostly because well, it’s focused on end users who don’t care too much about it. You can find custom ROMs that cut out the crapware entirely and offer sophisticated tweaks and modifications that help improve the functionality of the phone.
Stay up to date
I’ve seen people with pending system updates on their phones, merely because the update isn’t ‘necessary,’ because it doesn’t bring much to the table, or they’re just too lazy to reboot their phone. Latest software often contains bug fixes and general improvements, which can help your Android device to run better, so make sure that you are updated whenever possible.
Do a factory reset
Sometimes, there are just too many things to take care of on your phone that you should just do a factory reset. It’s easier than cleaning up your device and getting rid of all the junk you’ve accumulated. This means everything on your phone will be wiped out so be sure to backup everything that’s important to you.
