Top Tips & Tricks to make your Android (Nokia) run Faster & improve its overall performance

If you are using a Nokia Android Smartphone and reading this article you may either be not happy with the way your smartphone performs or just want to get better performance out of it and want to see it work faster. So, here we are with top tips and tricks that will help in making your Nokia Android smartphone or any Android smartphone for that reason run faster and improve its overall performance.

Stay updated (Android Apps & OS):

This seems very simple yet is vital for keeping your device running at its best. System updates bring fixes, performance improvements and more to make your device running at its optimum. So, grab those OS and firmware updates. Go to Settings–>System—>About Phone—>System Updates.

Apps updates are even much frequent and you need to keep them updated by checking in Google Play Store or set them to update automatically. App updates again bring performance improvements and fixes making them run optimally.

Don’t overload your device with Resource-hungry apps:

Don’t just install unnecessary heavy apps as they will consume lots of required resources and will make your device run slow. It is better to decide for yourself how many apps you require for getting the experience you desire and you will be surprised to know that most of the surveyed smartphone users don’t require more than 10 apps.

Keep the Home-Screen light by limiting widgets & Live Wallpapers:

If possible avoid Live Wallpapers and limit the use of widgets to the minimum. Use a static background image and only use widgets which provide you essential information on the go. Keeping the number of Widgets under control and avoiding Live Wallpapers will improve your phone’s general performance and navigation.

Uninstall & Disable unused apps:

Apps installed on your phone take storage space and consume RAM by running background processes. The more the apps you install more the storage space occupied or the more background processes running on your phone, the slower your phone’s performance. So, you can uninstall unused apps by going to Settings–>Apps and uninstalling not required apps.

You can also disable those apps that can’t be uninstalled because of Vendor or Smartphone manufacturer’s settings.

[Video] Manage Background apps:

Here is a hands-on video that can help you in learning how to use Adaptive Battery feature and control/manage apps that can run in background. This is one of the most important battery life improvement tip that can help you immensely. Also, note that it is valid for Nokia smartphones running Android Pie. For devices running Android Oreo check similar tips below.

Manage Background apps (Oreo & Oreo 8.1):

You can easily manage number of apps that are allowed to run in the background. This ensures better performance by making sure that only those apps run in background which you really need to do so to keep sending notifications to you or which you want for any other reasons. It minimizes use of RAM and processor and keeps them free when you actually need to launch a new app or do something.

On Android Oreo 8.1 go to Settings–>Battery–>Background Activity manager. Now “enable Blacklist” and from the list of app appearing below toggle on all the apps and games that you don’t want to run in the background. Toggle off those apps and games that you want to run in the background. Check the screenshots below.

There is one more option of “Background Activity cleaner” which you can use also to extend battery life. But if you switch it on notifications of some apps/games may not be visible to you instantly.

Turn-off or Reduce animations:

By reducing or turning off some of UI animations you can make your Android smartphone feel snappier. For reducing animations first enable Developer options by going to Settings > About phone and scrolling down to the System section to look for Build number. Now tap on it seven times and you should see a message about being a developer. Now go back and find the Developer options listed under System by going to the main Settings menu. You can now go to Window animation scale, Transition animation scale, and Animator duration scale one by one. Tap on each of them and set it to .5x or off.

Reduce or Stop Auto-Sync:

We usually have many accounts on our Android devices like for Mails, Cloud Storage and others that keep on syncing content to servers. This takes lots of resources and very frequent syncing can lead to very bad system performance because of being a memory-hog. You can go to Settings–>Accounts and either turn off the Auto-sync completely, which can be an impractical solution or reduce the Auto-Sync frequency by going to individual accounts. The latter work better and you can keep the frequency of sync for the accounts under control which you require to access less.

Use a High-Speed MicroSD card:

It is always recommended to use a high-speed memory card for better performance. It can badly impact your phone’s overall performance if your MicroSD card is not fast enough. We recommend using Class 6 or Class 10 SD cards for better results. Click here to read about our recommendation in detail for MicroSD cards.

Task Killer or Process Killer:

You can download a good Task Killer app or Task Manager app from Google Play Store. Advanced Task Killer and Super Task Killer are one of most well-known Task Manager apps. You can use these apps to kill the extra processes running in the background that consumes precious RAM and make overall smartphone performance suffer. Using these apps you can also set automatic killing of processes after a certain period of time.

Perform a Factory Reset:

In case you are facing too many issues and nothing else works you should try to perform a factory reset. Go to Settings > Backup & reset > Factory data reset. Some people even recommend doing it periodically or before a system update to get a feel of the new and untouched OS.

Try a Third Party Launcher:

In case the default UI skin pre-loaded by the smartphone manufacturer is not good enough and is heavy, you can choose a better option from lots of launchers available in Play Store. Nova Launcher, Nokia Z Launcher are examples of some popular Third party launchers which offer good performance.

Advanced options:

Wipe App Cache Data:

Go to Settings–>Storage–>Cached Data and tap on it. You will get a prompt asking permission to “clear cached data for all apps”. Tap on ok to clear cached data for all apps or you can individually go to apps to clear their data. This can help in your smartphone running faster.

Wipe Partition Data:

It is good practice to clean the Partition Cached Data once in a while to remove temporary files which in turn can make your Android run faster. Power off your Android device and then press and hold power and volume down button to enter the “Recovery Mode”. Once in recovery mode, first press and hold the power button and then the volume up key to enter the options where you will see “Wipe Partition Data” option. Use Volume up and down key to select the option and press the power key to delete Partition Cache Data.

Root your smartphone:

Rooting allows you to do many changes to your Android smartphone, not possible otherwise. You can then install Custom ROM, remove apps that are not allowed to be removed otherwise and even overclock your smartphone for faster performance. You can refer to our article about One click rooting with or without using a PC by clicking here.

Overclock, Install Custom ROM:

These are advanced options and may also void your warranty. So exercise caution here. If you’re willing to root your Android device then you can overclock it using an app like SetCPU or Android Overclock which can make your device run faster but you may face issues like overheating. So handle with care.

• Recommended Further Reading: Ten Tips To improve battery life on Android