Phone quandry - help me out.

[Wozza63]

There isn't much point in using a task killer, it doesn't really help, Android is pretty good with handling memory and will lower the priority of background apps if need be, this is especially noticeable on 4.1+ Unless you disable the apps completely through Settings > Apps > Installed then they will just restart using CPU power, which makes the phone slower and uses battery.

What Android version are you using? If you are happy with the risk, you could install a custom ROM that is based on 4.2 or 4.3. That would make the phone much much quicker because Project Butter has definitely helped me

 

[Boozad]

Let me know what you think of the iphone after a few weeks use Booz.

After a week I'm happy with having one back to be honest. It is a lot nippier than the 4 I gave my daughter and is thinner, lighter and a bit longer. The Xperia had become very sluggish after just five months in comparison and I hadn't really done a lot to it in terms of customisation and adding apps. I do miss some of the screen real estate and the more 'mature' look of the OS, but there were a lot of annoying things on the Xperia that I really don't miss (web pages always loading way too large for the screen when Chrome was opened, Google account buggering up constantly, alarm clock way too complicated, two file management systems where one (Astro) buggered up the other (standard photo album), I could go on but I won't).

So I'm more than happy with the iPhone 5, realistically I only use phones for very basic apps and I don't use them intensively so perhaps this was the best solution. I'll just never understand why my 4 went completely wonky but has worked fine for my daughter.

 

[Yamikotai]

Bit disappointed with my Galaxy S2's lifetime to be honest. Not even 2 years old and it performs pretty poorly to be honest even for standard tasks like texting. I suppose a factory reset might fix my issues but can't really be bummed with the hassle!

Factory reset will make it like new, but make sure you update the phone via Kies since I think it has official Jelly Bean 4.2.2 now which should improve the performance a lot if you haven't already.

 

[Grimezy]

I think I am due an update, I think I'm still on 4.0.4 ><

Also my phone memory and usb memory seems to be getting pretty low, do you reckon buying an SD card could help? It's not cluttered with junk, I think the main reason is I have a few photos and vids on there that I don't wanna delete. I suppose I could stick an SD card in, move all photos, vids, music, contacts over to that and then Factory reset the rest of my phone?

 

[SmokeDarKnight]

Yeah i gave my dad my GS2 and i have tried factory reset stock roms, cynagenmod etc after he was complaining the phone was just getting slower and slower, ended up puting stock Jelly Bean on it think its 4.1.2 might be wrong but its got the same problem so im thinking its either a hardware problem or the thing is just worn down, its only a year old though.

 

[Wozza63]

I don't know what an S2 is like tbh but I know that it wasn't until around the release of the S3 or ICS that the software and hardware really started to shine and become a true competitor against iOS

But its possible to make any phone pretty quick with ROMs, root and custom kernels. Get a De-odexed kernel if you want a custom one, these are basically ripped apart and removed everything unnecessary and makes it much lighter. I imagine the S2 has lots of different options available in that area on XDA

 

[Yamikotai]

I know three people with S2's currently. I've stuck SlimBean 4.2.2 on all of them (easily my ROM recommendation for anyone with a Galaxy S 1/2/3/4), and 90% of the time they're just as snappy as my S3.

 

[pr1s0ner]

I noticed a pretty big speed improvement after running these scripts....

Supercharger