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General Discussion => Welcome and General Discussion => Topic started by: FINate on August 27, 2017, 09:56:45 PM

Title: Squeeze more life from your Android phone
Post by: FINate on August 27, 2017, 09:56:45 PM
The Android UI is heavily animated (https://material.io/guidelines/material-design/introduction.html). Things slide, ripple, move around, etc. It takes processing power to render all this, which can really slow things down. If your phone feels sluggish try reducing or even turning off the animation from the developer settings:

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/speed-up-your-android-by-adjusting-animation-settings/

My new phone (a less powerful cheaper model) is now faster with animation set to 0.5x (vs 1x) and friends have reported that their old phones are usable again. In theory it this should help with battery life though I haven't tested this. YMMV.
Title: Re: Squeeze more life from your Android phone
Post by: Dicey on August 28, 2017, 05:05:43 AM
Bookmarked that. Thanks! I'll try it in the morning.
Title: Re: Squeeze more life from your Android phone
Post by: Gimesalot on August 28, 2017, 08:36:50 AM
I have a galaxy S4 and instantly noticed an improvement in performance by turning off the animations.  Thanks for this tip!
Title: Re: Squeeze more life from your Android phone
Post by: oneday on September 02, 2017, 07:52:09 PM
Thanks! Changed some settings on my phone; hoping to avoid an intermittent lag.
Title: Re: Squeeze more life from your Android phone
Post by: nnls on September 03, 2017, 02:47:39 AM
Thanks will try it, I have a relatively new phone so not sure how much difference it will make
Title: Re: Squeeze more life from your Android phone
Post by: Laserjet3051 on September 03, 2017, 10:58:16 AM
Thanks! The ancient android smartphone I have  is sluggish as hell no matter how much i clean it up. Looks like this developer mod instantly improved performance. But at whats cost? Will find out, I guess.
Title: Re: Squeeze more life from your Android phone
Post by: bortman on September 03, 2017, 11:36:16 AM
I have a Tracfone Moto E with KitKat 4.4.4

Just tried this trick and found that things were a little "choppy".

Then I found this ...

http://lifehacker.com/disable-animations-on-android-to-improve-performance-1583554900

... where a commenter noted that s/he lost some functionality when setting these parameters to zero. I just tried 0.5 for all three settings and the phone seems snappier.

Thanks for the tip!


Title: Re: Squeeze more life from your Android phone
Post by: RobFIRE on September 11, 2017, 06:37:47 AM
Thanks. Turned off (to zero) the three animation settings on my Moto G3 and it certainly feels snappier. Wish I'd known about this one for my previous phones!

(Haven't as yet seen any issues with the animations off, can set to 0.5x if I do)
Title: Re: Squeeze more life from your Android phone
Post by: Bateaux on September 11, 2017, 08:41:21 PM
I think it helped my S4. 
Title: Re: Squeeze more life from your Android phone
Post by: boognish on September 12, 2017, 12:45:26 AM
Righteous, my 1st gen moto x has been turdlier and turdlier, this should help stave off cravings for a new phone
Title: Re: Squeeze more life from your Android phone
Post by: steevven1 on September 12, 2017, 08:07:24 AM
Just chiming in to say that setting all 3 animation settings to "off" as suggested in the article made a big speed difference on my Motorola Droid Mini. VERY useful tip. I have been turning off animations in Windows and macOS for years, but never knew how on my phone.
Title: Re: Squeeze more life from your Android phone
Post by: fattest_foot on September 12, 2017, 08:20:54 AM
Righteous, my 1st gen moto x has been turdlier and turdlier, this should help stave off cravings for a new phone

Honestly, I haven't had too many complaints still about my Moto X.

I read something a long time ago that said most next generation phone innovation has more to do with things like better cameras or resolution than processing. Meaning older phones can still perform decently enough. You just won't have a tablet sized phone.

Anyway, the animations off thing is weird to me. It's almost like animations are purposefully introduced lag designed into everything. When I hear a lot of you describing it as "snappier" I think that's exactly it. You've taken the lag out of the system.
Title: Re: Squeeze more life from your Android phone
Post by: jo552006 on September 12, 2017, 08:35:39 AM
Anxious to try this.  My phone is painfully slow.
Title: Re: Squeeze more life from your Android phone
Post by: FINate on September 12, 2017, 08:58:04 AM
Anyway, the animations off thing is weird to me. It's almost like animations are purposefully introduced lag designed into everything. When I hear a lot of you describing it as "snappier" I think that's exactly it. You've taken the lag out of the system.

The animations are part of "Material Design" for Android - it's eye candy that a bunch of designers came up with in an attempt to make it stylish. Nevermind that animations require processing and battery power to render, that's a problem for engineering to solve. Much of these things were designed with so-called flagship phones in mind - the most expensive and powerful models - so not a surprise that less powerful and older phones have issues with it.
Title: Re: Squeeze more life from your Android phone
Post by: lexde on September 12, 2017, 09:44:15 AM
I have a newer phone (s7) but this improved it! I had some trouble with animations off but .5 is awesome.


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Title: Re: Squeeze more life from your Android phone
Post by: dang1 on September 13, 2017, 04:16:26 AM
I have a Galaxy S 7 , and with the animation gone, it's even snappier now. Thank you
Title: Re: Squeeze more life from your Android phone
Post by: MustachioedPistachio on September 13, 2017, 04:24:11 AM
Thanks for the tip! Much better now.
Title: Re: Squeeze more life from your Android phone
Post by: Optimiser on September 18, 2017, 01:35:19 PM
Thanks. This made a noticeable difference on my Nexus 6P
Title: Re: Squeeze more life from your Android phone
Post by: Serve&Volley88 on September 20, 2017, 07:50:45 AM
Great tip, this made a difference!
Title: Re: Squeeze more life from your Android phone
Post by: jms493 on September 20, 2017, 08:22:05 AM
Yes this will help on any phone.  It basically renders the window immediately without any silly animation.  I disabled all 3.

My Phone - Moto g5+