I have been asked by my friends and family how to make their Android devices/mobile phones run faster than it currently is. I argue that for people technically capable, the best method is to root your android. However that’s the lamest suggestion you can give to hundreds of people who just want to make their phone run faster.

Don’t tell them to “root” their phone, they are happy not to tinker with the internal working of their phone. Just tell them the easiest, most “doable” way they can make their Droid run a little quicker. And that is what this post is about.

Android

First Off, if you dont need the auto-sync function of your android, then turn it off. It hogs memory and power, and if you can only activate it when needed, then you can save around 10% of your battery life and make your task switching a little faster. How to do that? See the Video I prepared below:

2nd, if you are on Android 2.1 Eclair  and below then this does not apply to you. ßut if you have updated your android device to at least Android 2.2 Froyo, this tip should be applied.

Task Killers were useful back then, but by Android 2.2, google has installed a built-in task killer that automatically maximizes memory for you. Although if you need to turn off tasks or switch them, then a Task Switcher and Killer combo will prove useful.

ßut all in all if you have the Android 2.2 and above, remove and uninstall your Task Killers. It is known that Task Killers only slow down your system or cause some sort of issue with Android.

Android since version 2.1 has improved it’s running applications management. It automatically shuts applications down that hog too much resource. And to boot, if you dont know yet, by default android has a built in Task Switcher which stores the last Eight (8) Applications running.

See video below to learn how to Switch Tasks. ÿou will also learn how to shutdown applications that run in the background and applications you need to stop. ßut all in all, Android is smart enough to allocate memory correctly to you apps. The more your memory is nearly full, the quicker android is, the slowdown is most probably caused by your processor. To read more about Task Killing and what it does, scroll at the end of this post and see my links to other information resources.

Third, uninstall Apps that you dont use often. ÿes we get a little trigger happy downloading everything we can on the App Store. However, some of the apps we install we even forget we had. Just delete and uninstall the apps you dont need on your phone. ÿou can always install them again when you need to since the App Store will still be there and have the application you need when you get back to them.

Fourth, Save most of your applications on your SD Card, some applications use your internal drive space or storage memory to save some quick data and resource that are used while running the App. If the device storage memory is full, you’ll experience some slowdown. If you save your apps on SD, it will manage where to save it’s resources when running.

Fifth, Use wallpapers that are less taxing to your phone. Live Wallpapers are pretty, but they slow processing down. However, if this is not an end all be all solution, its just a quick way to make your Droid run a little quicker. ÿou can save a black wallpaper and use that one to make your device a little quicker.

Sixth, If you can remove your battery, then try removing and reattaching them, this will definitely speed up your system. Just make sure you dont have running updates on the background. Also it is best to just reboot the system by turning it off and shutting it down.

Task Killers and What they Do in Android

My Response to the comments:

If you are smart enough and my suggestions above dont work for you, or you have a different android phone, UI and or features, please read the first line and just altogether “root” your phone to make it run faster, thats what I did with mine and I own a few of these devices. I chose to use my Tab for the larger screen so its easily viewable for this simple tutorial, it doesnt have to be the same UI as the one you have but understanding the similar feature set and settings which you could apply to yours which is almost similar on android devices anyway. Also read the article and youll see the basic tips that should be applied by most new Android users who are not as tech-savvy as others. Now you say kids dont own these devices, I get a bunch of emails coming from 9 to 15 year olds and they know more suggestions most of them for android, but still thank me for the post to get them started with their device which they later learn can be rooted and whatnot. If you need me to post the best way to make your Android Users who are advanced and knows how to hard code linux calls to make everything else run faster, then let me know.

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