How To Stop
Slow-killing Your Smartphone
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Follow
these simple steps to save yourself the trouble of buying an expensive new
phone every few months
Welcome to the
‘smartphone trap’. Almost all of us have succumbed to it. We buy a new phone,
marvel at the speed, download a ton of apps, use it for a few months, get
frustrated as the phone slows down, try a few tips to resuscitate it, give up,
buy a new phone. We blame the phone companies, the coders for developing laggy
OSs, the app makers for releasing half-baked products. Guess the one person we
don’t blame? Ourselves! Smartphones have been around for way too long for you
to not know that you’re screwing up the phone in more ways than a gigolo on a
busy night!
SMARTER CALL
1. Once in every six
months, delete all photos and videos that you don’t need, take a backup and do
a factory reset of your phone.
2. To keep your phone working super fast, do not fall in to the
‘smartphone trap’.
3. Remember that heavy widgets slow down your phone.
Kill
the task killers
The most popular tip
phone ‘experts’ will give you is to use a task killer app to free up RAM. These
apps slow your phone down as the OS on your phone keeps apps in RAM so they
restore when you need them. When Task Killers shut them down, the phone has to
start them from scratch thus slowing it down. Delete the damn thing. Instead,
once in a few days close all apps and reboot your phone.
Put a
break on speed boosters
These aren’t working at
the hardware level, thus what they promise is purely a placebo effect. Plus
most are ‘free’ with all kinds of advertisements running on them all the time
that slow things down to a crawl.
Lean
screen
It doesn’t matter how
powerful your phone is. Widgets, apps with heavy notifications, live wallpapers
use a huge amount of resources in the background and take a huge amount time to
redraw the home screen every time you come back to it. Lean is good here!
App
attack
Take it easy on the apps.
Think before you install one. Apps are the main reason that your lightening
fast phone turns into a drugged turtle. Apps like Facebook, Snapchat can slow
your phone down by 30 per cent. Make sure that every app that makes to your phone,
deserves it.
Anti
the antivirus
Another myth. Yes, there
are viruses out there. Unfortunately that huge bloated antivirus software that
most people install won’t find anything. Keep the apps you’ve downloaded from
legitimate sources, don’t click on silly links, back up your data and get rid
of that antivirus scam on your phone.
The
auto-sync conundrum
Yes, we get smartphones
for auto-sync apps and they are notorious for slow downs. Let the email, the
social media, the instant messaging apps do their essential magic – but take it
easy on others that are slow killing your phone.
Clean
boot
Once every six months go
through all your photos and videos and delete all the crap. Prune your contact
list. Back it all up. Don’t backup your apps though. Do a factory reset of your
phone, install only the apps you really need and start all over.
Nerd
options
There are more intense
things you can do like rooting your phone, using a different ROM or flashing a
custom kernel. If it all sounds like gibberish then you’re better off not even
thinking along those lines. This is mainly for those with an inner geek
calling.
There it is then. Your
free guide to not falling into the ‘smartphone trap’. Its simple and doesn’t
cost anything at all. Do these things and it’ll feel like you have a new phone,
except you didn’t pay anything for it.
Rajiv Makhni is managing
editor, HTBR11UN17
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