In my post “Galaxy Note is slow with Jelly Bean?” I was frustrated with the slow down after I updated my Note to Android Jelly Bean.
So far this has helped:
- Removing seldom used apps. This phone has a measly 1G of RAM, and many apps cannot be moved to sdcard.
- Clearing each apps cache (in application manager). This must be done periodically.
- Limiting background processes to 3 or even 2 (in development settings),
- Setting to 0.5x the three windows animation scalings (in developer settings). Some say they should be turned off.
- For browser, turn off “allow web sites access to location info”.
- Removing recently installed apps. These may have had side effects.
- Do not keep activities (in developer settings) But this will slow down app startups time.
- Use GPU rendering
However, the phone is still much slower than when it had the Ice Cream Sandwich Android version. What is still slow? Everything except in app scrolling and use. App switching and setup suffers. This seems to be a memory or cache problem with the new Android update. If it were hardware, the older Android version would have had a problem. The phone has only 1GB of RAM, and this could be acerbating the situation.
Here are some things other people are recommending:
- Factory reset: I did not try the factory reset approach. Not sure of backup and restore capabilities. Also, I read some posts that said a reset did not improve the speed.
- Move apps from card: Is the memory card too slow? Move the apps back to main memory. I did not try this.
- Turn off power saving settings
- Recalibrate the battery? Some say this is never necessary, just do a full discharge and charge cycle.
- If you have “S Voice”, turn off the ‘open via the home key’ setting (in S Voice)
- Is Google Now turned on? See if turning it off has an effect.
- Clear memory via the home button. In Android, unused apps do not have to be stopped, and memory is automatically reclaimed. However, one can try clearing the memory to see if this has any effect. Hold down the home key, then in the app list’s bottom, click on the pie shape.
- Remove bloatware. If you can’t, try to disable them.
- Turn off auto update of applications
- Turn off automatic sync. Unless your making money from social stuff, it can wait
- Restart the phone
You get to the application manager and the development settings via the phone’s Settings menu.
Unfortunately, some of these settings will revert if you turn off and restart your phone. If the above don’t help, the next steps would probably be removing or disabling any newly installed apps. One user even suggested turning off many high end apps like ‘Google Now’, ‘S Suggest’, and so forth.
Legal recourse?
Since this Jelly Bean update was via the approved carrier’s channels, it should be supported. If you bring in your automobile to the car’s dealers for an official upgrade sanctioned by the manufacture, the car should not begin to stall on the highway. But, this is a complex legal issue, I guess. Reference: SOFTWARE PRODUCT LIABILITY: UNDERSTANDING AND MINIMIZING THE RISKS
The custom ROM solution?
Whenever a plea is posted on a forum regarding smartphone issues, some geek will chime in and suggest that rooting and a custom ROM is the way to go. Perhaps, but that is not for the faint of heart and is very complicated. Maybe there will be some advances in this area, for example, see “CyanogenMod for All! ”A mobile revolution” coming [UPDATE].” There is a video on the updater: Install CyanogenMod on your Android Device with the CyanogenMod Installer. Is the Note supported?
Some of the advice out there and even some urls are “suspect”. Be careful trying to root and install a ROM. If you read closely you’ll find these ROMs are beta and unsupported. Also, the install process can fail and your phone can be bricked.
What caused the slow down with JellyBean update?
In this post the author has argued that the install process without using a reset will cause these issues. In the post, the author also says that one cannot correct a bad JellyBean install; it requires a real ROM flash: “… you want the phone cold/hard flashed to 4.1.2 as if the phone were fresh off the assembly line with no OS flashed to its ROM (meaning they should wipe the ROM, first) ….”
This is the problem I have with all these advice pages on the web, they contradict each other. In this post, the author says something about making batteries last longer that is directly called bogus in other web pages. So, while a minor quibble, I then wonder if the rest of the information is correct.
No information is available from Samsung, this is the standard response on their support page:
“Thanks for your inquiry! Unfortunately, we do not have any information about a future update release at this time. Stay tuned to Samsung.com for information.”
Compute devices slow down
From searching for solutions I did find something troubling. All smartphones slow down after months of use. There should be tools to handle this and manufactures and vendors should be more honest about the capabilities of the actual storage and cpu. I tried a monitoring app but it was useless, same thing for a battery diagnostic app. I guess a smartphone requires a smart user? 🙂
There is an alternative. When you buy something it should be guaranteed to work at a certain capacity. When you buy a car you don’t expect it to start slowing down if you give it normal maintenance and don’t change its major components. That is the tricky thing, a compute device is meant to be extended.
Related post: Bloatware should be outlawed.
Updates
- November 3, 2013: Added a section on custom ROM use.
- May 27, 2013: One thing that is needed are tables or a database of what apps can be removed or disabled on various smart phones. The average user is at a loss in determining what is really needed or not. The often made suggestion to root one’s phone is not really very practical for most situations.
- Dec 24, 2013: Some buzz on web seem to indicate the first Galaxy Note will not get an Android update. Time for a custom ROM install? Unfortunately, everything out there seems unstable. An example, for the AT&T i717, we have: “This device does not support the newest version of CyanogenMod.“
- Dec 26, 2013: I got a new battery for the phone. Hmmm. It’s faster. I’ll give it a few days of use to make sure it is not a fluke. The original battery was 2500mAh, the new is 2700mAh. Should not matter?
- Feb 19, 2014: It is not the battery. But, the battery did fix the battery drain issue, and when it does run well, it is slightly faster. Can’t wait to get a new phone one day. 🙁
Links
- Speed up Android home screen display
- SPEED UP your GALAXY NOTE 2 !! some useful tips & tricks, Review by Gadgets Portal
- YouTube showing how to speed up screen: How to Speed Up the Galaxy Note 2, Samsung Galaxy Note 2 Speed
- Who stole my butter? Solving slowness probelms in Galaxy Note after Jelly Bean update
- Speed Up Your Samsung Phone In Under 30 Seconds! Another You tube video on graph acceleration scaling
- AT&T Galaxy Note Jelly Bean Problems: Battery Life, Lag, No Multi-View
- My device is getting slow, apps start misbehaving/crashing. What can I do?
- Samsung galaxy note jelly bean forum thread in Singapore
- Galaxy Note 1 has become slow after upgrading the phone 4.1.2
Some things I’m playing lately …
Meeting Of The Spirits/You Know You Know –
The Mahavishnu Orchestra – Live in Germany 1972
John McLaughlin – guitar, Billy Cobham – drums, Jan Hammer – keyboards, Jerry Goodman – violin, Rick Laird – bass
Thanks really useful !
Thanks a lot !
For me it was Google now. As soon as I turned it off my phone sped back up to normal speed again.
Well luckily i dont have to deal with this Problem’s before updating my note with the latest software i google some drawbacks when u got your phone updated,well there are also a lot of helpful tips on the web to how get rid of our worries with the updates! even wifi lagging,battery draining all of this can be fixed
So far im loving the the latest software update on my note 1!!
Can you provide some helpful links to this valuable information? I did a good search and did not find much except repetition of the same stuff.
I called Samsung about my I717 being slow. They told me to shut the phone off and remove the battery for 30 seconds. Put the battery back and restart. It helped a lot. It seems to be a memory problem with the phone and Jelly Bean. They have to fix this. This is bull !
That only helps for a short period of time, at least in my case.
Good advice. Restrict number of background processes to 1 or 2 helps a lot when switching apps. Also startup manager is also helpful to stop unnecessary services starting up.
Saved as a favorite, terrific website!
I tell you what I did, took the facebook app of the phone.
There is NO comparison to before and after. It was practically crippled before. Now its almost like new.
FBing is now done in the Android web-browser