When you invest hundreds 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.
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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.
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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.
Lisa Eadicicco
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.
Lisa Eadicicco
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.
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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.
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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, as Reddit user erythrocytes64 explained, which Wired picked up.
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.
