When you invest thousands of naira in a new
smartphone, you expect it to last for a while.
Unfortunately, there are tons of tiny factors that
could be slowing down your phone that you might
not even be aware of.
If you’re Android phone is feeling sluggish, try a
few of these easy fixes.
First, restart your phone.
It’s easy to forget that our phones need a good
restart every once in a while, just like any other
type of computer. Before you take any other
measures, try shutting down or restarting your
phone.
Make sure your system is up to date.
If your phone is running slow, it’s possible that
you may not have installed the latest Android
software update. Head over to Settings >About
device >Software update to see if there are any
updates available.
Delete old photos, apps, and anything else you
don’t need anymore.
If your phone is still slow, try getting rid of files
you don’t need. It’s easy to forget to delete old
photos and music files, but getting rid of content
is one of the easiest ways to get your phone
running smoothly again. Apps could be using
resources from your phone to perform processes
in the background, which could be slowing down
your phone. The less clutter, the better.
Clear your app cache.
Your phone will sometimes store certain images
or pieces of data associated with an app so that
it doesn’t have to download them every single
time you open an app. This is generally a positive
feature, especially if you’re trying to cut back on
how much data you use.
But, if your phone is running slow, there may be
images stored on your phone from apps you don’t
even use anymore. Delete these by going to
Settings > Storage > Cached data.
Turn off or reduce animations.
Here’s a neat little trick — you can unlock an
entirely new Settings menu within your Android
phone that lets you get rid of animations in the
Android OS to make it feel faster (via Android
Authority).
Head over to Settings > About phone, and then
scroll down to a category called Build Number.
Tap Build Number exactly seven times. Once you
do this, you’ll get access to a “Developer options”
menu in the phone’s system settings. In this
menu you’ll find categories like Window animation
scale, Transition animation scale, and Animator
duration scale. Tap each one and set it to .5x or
off.
Try installing a custom ROM.
By installing a custom ROM, you’re essentially
replacing the system files for Android with new
ones that may add new features, as Android
Authority explains. Since the code for Android is
open-source, anyone can modify it. CyanogenMod
and AOKP are two of the most popular ones.
If you have an older Android phone that’s no
longer receiving software updates, installing a
custom ROM will allow you to run more recent
software on your phone. This could make it run
faster if your phone’s current performance is
sluggish.
Be warned: you need to root your Android phone
to install any custom ROMs, which voids the
warranty. Rooting is a process that gives you
root permissions on your phone, hence the name.
It’s similar to running a program as an
administrator in Windows, as Lifehacker describes
it.
If it’s just the Chrome browser that’s bothering
you, there’s a way to fix that.
If you’ve noticed that the Chrome browser has
been a little slow on your Android phone, there
may be a way to fix that. You can allow the app
to use more memory so that it runs faster.
Simply open Chrome, launch a new tab, and type
the following in the URL bar: chrome://flags/
#max-tiles-for-interest-area. A menu will pop up
that lets you change how much memory the
browser uses. You should select “512″ instead of
the default “128″ if you want to make Chrome run
more quickly.
Watch out for apps that use a lot of processing
power.
Often times, weird bugs or issues with your phone
can be traced back to one app. The problem,
however, is that it’s hard to tell which app is
causing the problem. If you think this may be
happening to your device, try using Watchdog
Task Manager. The app monitors how much
computer power and resources an app is using to
let you know which one might be slowing down
your phone.
Limit or disable background data
One reason your phone may be running slowly is
because they could be using data in the
background. Limiting or disabling this may not
only speed up your phone, but it could help you
cut down on how much data you use each month
too. Navigate to Settings > Data Usage, and
scroll down to see which apps are using data in
the background.
If all else fails, try a factory reset.
If your phone is unbearably slow, try performing a
factory reset. This will wipe all of your data, apps,
photos, music, and anything else stored on your
phone, so you’ll need to back everything up. A
factory reset basically returns your phone to the
condition it was in when you first bought it. It’s
not guaranteed to make your phone faster, but if
there is a problem caused by an app or file you
downloaded and you can’t track it down, a factory
reset will get rid of it. To do this, navigate to
Settings >Backup and reset>Factory reset.
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