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5 Tips To Speed Up Your Android Smartphone

The Android mobile platform is becoming more and more popular in today’s smartphone game, and I don’t even want to begin to try and guess how many different devices there are on the market right now. And while new applications and software updates become more advanced, they also become more demanding, which can cause a lot of smartphone users to want their device to run faster! Most wireless carriers have 2 year upgrade plans, which causes users like me to eventually be stuck with an older and slower device for awhile. But even for those of you who have older android phones, don’t worry, there is still hope! This is a quick 5 tip guide to getting your Android phone to run a lot faster! Enjoy!

#5 – Clean Up Those Apps!

This is one of those things that isn’t absolutely necessary, but will also definitely help speed up your phone a bit. It always helps to go through your installed applications every once in awhile and check for any that you are not using or ones that you just installed to try out and forgot to uninstall. Go ahead and uninstall any apps that you don’t need or want. This isn’t a major speed increase, but will help some and is a very good habit to get yourself into.

#4 – Watch Your Widgets!

I know everyone loves their widgets, myself included, but getting to crazy with them can cost you some performance and speed. Go ahead and check to see which widgets you have up that you are actually using. Lots of widgets can cause your smartphone to run a bit slower than it could normally. Also realize that live widgets, or widgets that update frequently such as different weather widgets, can cost you more performance than some of the more stationary widgets. That being said, take a look at your widgets and maybe consider taking some of them off, or changing the update settings of your live widgets to less frequent. If you’ve gone widget crazy, a little clean up on your home screen can go a long way!

#3 – Use a Task Killer!

I know some people have gone back and forth about the usefulness of a task killer. I have tested many different task killer apps and have also tested without and I can conclude that using a task killer can indeed give you a performance increase. The task killer app Brian and I would both recommend is called Advanced Task Killer, which can be downloaded for free via the Android Market. This app includes a lot of useful settings, such as an ‘Auto Kill’ feature, an ‘Ignore List’, and a widget to place on your home screen that will kill all your designated apps on press. I would suggest using the auto kill option, and put any apps that you don’t want to be killed on the ignore list. If this doesn’t work for you, just use the widget and make sure to press it every now and then! If you use this app right, you can gain a decent amount of performance back on your smartphone.

#2 – Live Wallpapers Must Die!

I will just say it right out, live wallpapers slow down your smartphone, especially those running older hardware! I know that its fun now and then to watch the pretty colors move across the screen, or to impress your friends with a live circuit board background, but resist the temptation! Live wallpapers are the one thing that anyone with an android phone can simply avoid using to gain a lot of performance! I repeat, avoid using live wallpapers and you will have a faster smartphone, its that simple!

#1 – Get Rooted!

This is obviously the best way to gain the largest performance increase on your Android smartphone, but it takes a little more work. Not everyone may want to root their phone, although it is a fairly quick and easy process now for most devices. (We also have a guide here at theITbros, see bottom link) However, if you do decide to root your phone, know that you will see a major performance boost, even on older devices like the original DROID, and here’s how. Once you’re rooted, you have access to lots of custom made ROMs for your Android smartphone. Most of these come pre-overclocked to allow your phone’s processor to run significantly faster. A lot of them have settings as well for you to tweak the overclock speed to what you want. If you are not wanting to install a custom ROM on your smartphone, being rooted still allows you to use some useful apps in the marketplace. A useful overclocking app that I recommend for good, stable performance boosting is SetCpu, which can be found of the Android Marketplace. Another app that I recommend for rooted users is Titanium Backup, which allows you to uninstall unwanted system applications. To sum up, you really can’t go wrong by rooting your smartphone. This is the best way to get the biggest performance boost on your Android device