5 easy things you must do now to make your Android phone run faster

Last Updated on 2016-05-19 , 1:50 pm

Most Singaporeans and Malaysians use an Android phone, and when our phone starts to slow down, we’ll either just buy a new one or simply accept the fact that we’re outdated. Some even switch to iPhone because rumours have it that it’s faster. Eh, relax lah. When the light bulb in your house is spoilt, don’t change the entire house lah. Just do these and you’ll see a big difference!

1. Clear your cached app data
IT experts might just raise a hand and say, “NO! The whole idea of caching data is for it to be faster…” Yes, we agree, but what about apps that you seldom use? Clearing the cached data of these apps will save a lot of space, and more space = quicker phone.
To do so, simply go to Settings, Apps and manually select apps that you seldom use. Do note that for some apps, if you clear the cached data, you’ll have to log in again. So remember that password!

2. Use static instead of animated wallpaper
Yeah, it’s cool to see the stars moving towards you when you unlock your phone. But honestly speaking, who cares? Before you can see the movement of the stars, you’ll have opened an app. It’s cool but it’s just so bloody useless.

3. Turn off auto-sync
Even as you are sitting down reading this, your phone could be syncing your emails from your server or your Google contacts. Without these syncs, how would you know when someone’s birthday is (hint: Face…)?
Having too many apps auto-syncing will definitely make your phone slower, and also drain more battery and data. So do yourself and your wallet a favour by going to Settings, Auto-sync and just select the apps that matter, and select a longer timeframe to sync if you can. After all, do you honestly need to sync your WhatsApp contacts? How many phones do you use, man?

4. Restart your phone
You’ll be surprised to know that there are MANY people who didn’t do that (you could be one of them, right?). Just like computers, smartphones need a restart so that the apps can run more smoothly after a refresh. But unlike computers that requires just a click, here’re the steps:
1. Switch off your phone
2. Wait for about twenty seconds
3. Switch on your phone
4. Do it every few days
I know: funny that these common sense steps can be considered “steps”.

5. Uninstall or delete unused apps
Stop reading this for a while and check how many apps you have downloaded just because it’s free. 2? 4? 6? Or 20? 40? 60? For all you know, these apps are constantly running in the background. Deleting them all could make your smartphone as fast as your Nokia 3310. Or even faster. OMG.