Things you found that sped your phone up

[Lysander]

This may sound unusual to some, but I made some changes on my Xperia 10 II a couple of days ago which unexpectedly had something of a profound effect on speed. I'd be interested to know what others found worked on their Android or i-devices.

Now, the Xperia 10 II was originally released with Android 10 and was amazing with that OS, however it has now been upgraded to Android 12, which is a good OS, but can sometimes feel a little clunky on it. Anyway, I made the following simple changes which have sped things up quite a bit:

- changed the wallpaper [I think having a wallpaper which is too high res can sometimes cause slowdowns]
- removed haptic feedback [really makes a difference to speed without it]
- changed phone to autolock every 30 mins [also a big difference to speed, maybe the constant locking/unlocking slows things down]

I will say that the last one has not only had an effect on speed but a HUGE effect on the enjoyment of using the phone overall. I didn't realise just how often and how frustrating it is to unlock the phone as often as I do. Just swiping it is SO much better, and it autolocks after 30 mins anyway. Some may say, "aghhh but that's risky" but I think it depends on your lifestyle: I work in a quiet office and don't have a busy lifestyle. Obviously if you do have a busy lifestyle or live in a large house you may want to lock your phone more.

Anyway, I thought I'd share what works for me. Please share your own advice/experiences if you have any

 

[Orcvader]

Enabling developer options and reducing all animation speeds to 0.5x. Makes the phone feel much more snappier.

 

[Dazstoke]

A factory reset after an O/S update always used to make a big difference to speed and stability

 

[Rroff]

There is something very wrong with Android battery life and performance over time - even if you only apply limited amount of updates and basically do the same thing day after day eventually battery life drops off substantially and things start to take longer and longer - a factory reset might temporarily reset things but it quickly creeps in again. You might think some of it was due to battery degradation but swapping in a new battery doesn't hugely change the story.

Yet if you go out and buy a new phone things will be back to where they used to be - battery use over a whole day will be similar to what you used to get when the other phone was new, etc. but the same thing will play out over a couple of years or so.

I find it very odd.

 

[opethian]

Thanks for the tips here, I'll try some of them on my Pixel 6.

One thing that I found that really helped me in terms of usability, which just made things much faster -- is to use Nova Launcher and set it up so that it's as minimalist as possible.

No icons on the main desktop, there's a second desktop with my most often used apps and widgets (spotify), and when I double tap the screen on the main, it goes into search which I found that it was faster just to type what app I wanted to launch.

 

[throwaway4372]

In my experience if you're at the point of considering these optimisations you'll be buying a new phone regardless because an old phone with optimisations will still feel like an old phone. Optimisations can be a handy stopgap if you're waiting for a specific phone to release or are lacking funds, otherwise you may as well just get a new phone now because time using a new phone is going to be a better experience than time using an old phone with optimisations.

 

[cjgardens]

There is something very wrong with Android battery life and performance over time - even if you only apply limited amount of updates and basically do the same thing day after day eventually battery life drops off substantially and things start to take longer and longer - a factory reset might temporarily reset things but it quickly creeps in again. You might think some of it was due to battery degradation but swapping in a new battery doesn't hugely change the story.

Yet if you go out and buy a new phone things will be back to where they used to be - battery use over a whole day will be similar to what you used to get when the other phone was new, etc. but the same thing will play out over a couple of years or so.

I find it very odd.

I've noticed this. Especially with older phones.

Why is it, they were once snappy but then all of a sudden go slow and lose Charge quicker

 

[opethian]

I've noticed this. Especially with older phones.

Why is it, they were once snappy but then all of a sudden go slow and lose Charge quicker

Samsung, for all their faults what with the exploding Note several years ago, have some of the best batteries in the business today.

 

[Rroff]

Samsung, for all their faults what with the exploding Note several years ago, have some of the best batteries in the business today.

Samsung make good batteries but sadly not always the ones in their phones - both my Note 1 and 4 I had to change the stock battery after a year - one of the reasons I'm not a fan of phones with non-removable batteries.

The Note 1 battery swelled up after a year (known issue) and the one in the 4 was showing heavily degraded battery life (also known to happen with that model).

 

[opethian]

Samsung make good batteries but sadly not always the ones in their phones - both my Note 1 and 4 I had to change the stock battery after a year - one of the reasons I'm not a fan of phones with non-removable batteries.

The Note 1 battery swelled up after a year (known issue) and the one in the 4 was showing heavily degraded battery life (also known to happen with that model).

I remember having a total of FOUR batteries for the first Samsung Galaxy phone. I did love that device though. The audio quality was really good and Android felt like a breath of fresh air compared to how crippled anbd walled iOS was back then.

 

[Rroff]

I remember having a total of FOUR batteries for the first Samsung Galaxy phone. I did love that device though. The audio quality was really good and Android felt like a breath of fresh air compared to how crippled anbd walled iOS was back then.

I came from Windows Mobile 6.5 professional to Android with the Galaxy Note 1 - while WM6.5 was OK it felt incredibly limited compared to Android with not a huge range of apps and features which were never really fleshed out/matured.

 

[andy_mk3]

My Note 10 is 3 years old next month, apart from changing the animation speed, I've done nothing and it's still snappy and quick. Never been factory reset either.