One of the quickest ways to give your Android device an
immediate performance boost is to kill some of the apps that are currently
running in the background. You can either do this manually or enlist the help
of a third-party app such as Task Manager which is available from the Google Play
store.
Background syncing
By default, many of the Google apps and indeed many
third-party services will attempt to synchronise in the background as often as
they can. This is useful for some apps like email and calendar, but not for everything.
Go to Settings> Accounts and select one of your accounts which will show how
it is currently set up. You can then, for example, go to the Calendar app, hit
the menu button and choose Settings. Here you will be able to define exactly which
calendars will sync and when, and this process can be repeated for email and
other syncing services.
Use the internal memory
If your device includes expansion card capability, it is
very tempting to just move every app to the card to save on internal memory.
This will offer some performance benefits thanks to the extra memory, but if
you use an app stored on the external card a lot, you could be forgoing these improvements
with reduced performance when opening the app each time. The general rule of thumb,
if you have enough internal memory, is to try to keep your most often used apps
stored away from an expansion card.
Optimise your RAM
Just like desktop PCs, Android smartphones and tablets will
benefit from defragmentation from time to time. One quick way to clean things up
is to simply turn your device off and back on, but for more serious tweaks an
app like Memory Booster (available for free on the Google Play store), will do
the trick. It will not offer significant improvements for the more powerful
high-end devices, but for slower models the benefits will quickly become clear.
This is something you should try to run every few days if you have regular performance
problems.
Understanding developer options
Developer options let you access parts of Android you would
otherwise be unaware of. In the latest version of Android they are hidden very
well. You have to go to Settings>About phone and tap the Build number
section seven times for them to appear. It will be worth the effort, however.
USB Debugging: This feature lets you connect an Android
device to a desktop computer to transfer data between each device and to
install apps directly without any standard notifications.
Show CPU usage: though this feature is designed for developers,
you can also use it to show the current CPU usage at any time. Useful for finding
apps that are using all of your processing power.
Stay awake performs an obvious task and that is to keep the
screen awake when charging. This is useful if you need an onscreen clock or
photo slideshow running.
Background process limit: if you own a device that is
lacking in processing power, you can use this feature to limit the number of
background process that can run between nought and four processes.
Allow mock locations: This clever feature allows you to fake
your location and to not be stuck with your current GPS co-ordinates. You can
then search for other areas quickly when planning trips.
Show touches: A simple option that will visually highlight
each point on the screen as you touch it. It is designed for development, but
is actually useful for normal day-to-day tasks.
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