Android task killers improve your phone's performance while also boosting battery life—or at least that's the much-debated promise. Here's a look at how task killers actually work, when you should (or shouldn't) use them, and what you can do instead.
A task killer is an app from which you can (sometimes automatically) force other apps to quit, the hope being that the fewer apps you have running in the background, the better your Android's performance and battery life will be. Not everyone agrees with this premise, though. The argument about whether task killers are effective rages all over the internet: Android forums are full of threads with constant bickering and conflicting anecdotal experience, making it difficult for most users to make sense of the situation.
Below, I'm going to dig into the truth about Android task killers: that apart from maybe some older phones, Android manages tasks fairly well on its own, and how task killers present quite a few problems. I'll also take a look at the rare occasions when they're useful, and offer some alternatives you should try to improve your phone's performance and battery-life quirks.
Before we dive in, here's a quick overview of how Android handles process management by default.
How Android Manages Processes
In Android, processes and Applications are two different things. An app can stay "running" in the background without any processes eating up your phone's resources. Android keeps the app in its memory so it launches more quickly and returns to its prior state. When your phone runs out of memory, Android will automatically start killing tasks on its own, starting with ones that you haven't used in awhile.
The problem is that Android uses RAM differently than, say, Windows. On Android, having your RAM nearly full is a good thing. It means that when you relaunch an app you've previously opened, the app launches quickly and returns to its previous state. So while Android actually uses RAM efficiently, most users see that their RAM is full and assume that's what's slowing down their phone. In reality, your CPU—which is only used by apps that are actually active—is almost always the bottleneck.
Why Task Killers Are (Usually) Bad News
Apps like Advanced Task Killer, the most po****r task killer in the Market, act on the incorrect assumption that freeing up memory on an Android device is a good thing. When launched, it presents you with a list of "running" apps and the option to kill as many as you want. You can also hit the Menu button to access a more detailed "Services" view, that lists exactly which parts of each application are "running", how much memory they take up, and how much free memory is available on your phone. This set-up implies that the goal of killing these apps is to free up memory. Nowhere on the list does it mention the number of CPU cycles each app is consuming, only the memory you'll free by killing it. As we've learned, full memory is not a bad thing—we want to watch out for the CPU, the resource that actually slows down your phone and drains your battery life.
Thus, killing all but the essential apps (or telling Android to kill apps more aggressively with the "autokill" feature) is generally unnecessary. Furthermore, it's actually possible that this will worsen your phone's performance and battery life. Whether you're manually killing apps all the time or telling the task killer to aggressively remove apps from your memory, you're actually using CPU cycles when you otherwise wouldn't—killing apps that aren't doing anything in the first place.
In fact, some of the processes related to those apps will actually start right back up, further draining your CPU. If they don't, killing those processes can cause other sorts of problems—alarms don't go off, you don't receive text messages, or other related apps may force close without warning. All in all, you're usually better off letting your phone work as intended—especially if you're more of a casual user. In these instances, a task killer causes more problems than it solves.
What You Should Do Instead
That said, not all apps are created equal. Many of you have used task killers in the past and actually found that after freeing up memory, your phone works a bit better. It's more likely that this is because you've killed a bad app—one that was poorly coded, and (for example) keeps trying to connect to the internet even when it shouldn't. Any performance increase you experience is more likely because you killed the right app, not because you freed up loads of memory (or, in many cases, it's just placebo). Instead of killing all those apps, find out which ones are actually causing the problems. If you really know what you're doing, you may benefit from using a task killer to stop the one or two inefficient-but-loved apps on your phone.
Note, however, that this is still a contested notion. A lot of developers (including ROM builder extraordinaire, Cyanogen) will not even look at your bug reports if you're using a task killer. In this humble blogger's opinion, your best bet is to stay away from regular task killer usage entirely. If you absolutely have to have that one battery-killing app on your phone, though, kill away—just be aware that when you experience a recurring Android bug later on, the task killer may be at fault. Of course, you can just stop using it to determine whether that is or isn't the case.
With task killers firmly in the better-off-without box, there are still a number of other things you can do to fill the void, improving your performance and battery life
Watch for Runaway Processes: Previously mentioned Watchdog is a slightly different kind of task killer, in the sense that instead of telling you your phone's out of memory and it's time to go on a task killing spree, it alerts you when the occasional app starts eating up CPU for no reason. You can then kill the app with Watchdog and get on with your day (though honestly, at that point, I usually just reboot my phone). If it happens often with the same app, however, you may want to move on to the next step.
Uninstall Bad Apps: Worse than the occasional, one-time runaway app is the poorly coded, always-eating-CPU app. If you find (with Watchdog or through some other method) that a particular app seems to drain CPU and battery life whenever it's running, confirm your suspicions by uninstalling it and seeing what happens. If an app is causing problems on your phone, you're probably better off without it.
Root Your Phone: We advocate rooting Android devices a lot at Lifehacker, but that's because it really is as useful as everyone says it is. You can over- and underclock your phone with SetCPU, install custom ROMs that noticeably improve performance and battery life, and use the ever-useful, crapware-thwarting Autostarts utility to stop apps from starting up on your phone in the first place. Honestly, with one-click rooting apps like previously mentioned Universal Androot available for most phones, rooting only takes a few minutes to do, and you'll be much happier for it.
Update: Many of you also mentioned the root-only app Titanium Backup, which will help you get rid of the pre-installed crapware that comes on most phones, which are one of the worst offenders of phone lag. Thanks to all of you that sent this in!
Seriously, Use the Power Control Widget: This may sound ridiculously obvious, but if you aren't already using some form of the Power Control widget, you should. The things that drain the most battery on any smartphone are Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and your screen. Turn them off when you don't need them and you'll find that you can eke out considerably more battery life.
Charge Your Phone: Even more obvious yet rarely heeded advice: Charge your phone often. This isn't as hard as it sounds for most people. While you're sometimes stuck going out for 14 hours with no place to charge your phone, the majority of us spend our days in our homes, our offices, and other places rife with electrical outlets. Buy a few extra chargers and place them strategically around your home, car, and office. Whenever you're sitting around at home or working away at your desk, you can use that time to dock your phone and give it some extra juice without worrying about battery or performance drains. Before I upgraded to Android 2.2, my battery life was pretty awful, but just having a charger in my car and next to my computer made a huge difference in how often I got the dreaded "low battery" message.
Task managers are a controversial subject in Android-land. We've done our research and this is what we came up with, but we're always keen to hear how similar or different your experience is, so share with us in the comments.
original post here
and other similar thread but not same as above
Nice post and thank you
ICS - míñíCM9 -[B_C_N_P]
Ur welcome
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Xperia X8
Good thanks for this post . Hey can u tell me whats the most popular apps , that eats a lot of CPU ?
proadi96 said:
Good thanks for this post . Hey can u tell me whats the most popular apps , that eats a lot of CPU ?
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Thanx u! ! for my observation, i think is a big file of game data and facebook for android should not be install on your phone
proadi96 said:
Good thanks for this post . Hey can u tell me whats the most popular apps , that eats a lot of CPU ?
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I would say Facebook, GPS apps, Timescape, Whatsapp-like apps.
Sent From My W8 Using Tapatalk
Don't forget to thank the original author and edit the thread AT TOP to state it's not your words
Thanks
Sent from my E15i using XDA
Yes . . Thanx remind me
Sent from my E15i using xda premium
Exelent post. I'll uninstall my task killer now, and I'll try Watchdog app to see the the difference on performance and battery life. For example, I have Navigon installed, but always closed, I'm using sometimes. Is that app draining battery when closed?
El_Wizard said:
Exelent post. I'll uninstall my task killer now, and I'll try Watchdog app to see the the difference on performance and battery life. For example, I have Navigon installed, but always closed, I'm using sometimes. Is that app draining battery when closed?
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Watchdog will tell you how much of your cpu a certain app is using. So i believe (pls correct me if i'm wrong) that that would give an indication if it is actually playing a part in draining your battery.
Sent from my X8 using xda premium
This is just a copy paste from lifehacker
Sent from my ST18i using xda premium
Nice Post
Uninstall Bad Apps..it improve performance and battery life..
Nice post And thank you :
yes ! and i have mention it also dude
Sent from my X8 using xda premium
pako96 said:
help
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why?
Sent from my X8 using xda premium
Yeeaa this guy went 'help' on my other thread too
RohinZaraki said:
Yeeaa this guy went 'help' on my other thread too
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what he want ?
Sent from my X8 using xda premium
AckeflyRyzle said:
what he want ?
Sent from my X8 using xda premium
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I have no idea bro
Sent from my E15i using Tapatalk
He started a thread on general (a Q&A thread) about how to flash a rom.
Not sure if i should answer anymore as it's on the wrong section?
Usefull information.
Much appreciated.
Thanks!
so which app can make our ram cool???????????? stable 1??/
Related
Has anybody been using autokiller?
Sent from my DROID2 using Tapatalk
Me! At agressive setting I haven't seen the memory go under 77. Cranked it up a bit.. gonna keep an eye on it. I think its better than minfreemanager
Sent from my DROID2 using XDA App
Not me, I'm letting the OS do what it was designed to do...
Droid 2 doesn't need Autokillers
Doesn't need them, but it doesn't hurt. Until there's an easier way to clean up running programs, I've found that the advanced task killer widget is a one-click way to free up program memory and bring a little snap back to the OS. Yes things eventually clean up themselves in 2.2, but it doesn't hurt to speed the process along.
spaceape99 said:
Doesn't need them, but it doesn't hurt. Until there's an easier way to clean up running programs, I've found that the advanced task killer widget is a one-click way to free up program memory and bring a little snap back to the OS. Yes things eventually clean up themselves in 2.2, but it doesn't hurt to speed the process along.
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Click to collapse
Task killers actually hurt battery life under FroYo. The biggest hit to battery life isn't full RAM but CPU usage. By killing an idle app you're forcing the OS to reopen that app the next time it needs to be launched; opening an app takes more CPU cycles than switching an idle app to the foreground. Your battery will be better off if you let the OS do its job. It's far more efficient at handling memory management than your or I, especially now that it's been designed to keep as much running in RAM as possible.
Spitemare said:
Task killers actually hurt battery life under FroYo. The biggest hit to battery life isn't full RAM but CPU usage. By killing an idle app you're forcing the OS to reopen that app the next time it needs to be launched; opening an app takes more CPU cycles than switching an idle app to the foreground. Your battery will be better off if you let the OS do its job. It's far more efficient at handling memory management than your or I, especially now that it's been designed to keep as much running in RAM as possible.
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Amen, couldn't have said it better.
Spitemare said:
Task killers actually hurt battery life under FroYo. The biggest hit to battery life isn't full RAM but CPU usage. By killing an idle app you're forcing the OS to reopen that app the next time it needs to be launched; opening an app takes more CPU cycles than switching an idle app to the foreground. Your battery will be better off if you let the OS do its job. It's far more efficient at handling memory management than your or I, especially now that it's been designed to keep as much running in RAM as possible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What about for apps you never use, like for ex: mail app, or music(use winamp)?
I have advanced task killer only for when an app gives me trouble (freezes, lags, etc) and I only kill that specific app. Other than that I let the phone do what it was made to do
Sent from my Motorola Droid 2 with Fission 2.2.2
Hey guys, If you have been involved in this community for a while then you well know how developers feel about task killers. Many such as Cyanogen have spoken out saying they are useless and not good for the phone. Heck, even Google released a blog about how Android works.
http://androinica.com/2010/05/07/google-and-cyanogen-comments-imply-task-killermanager-apps-are-pointless/
So, is the stock task killer build into the J16 update going to have the same negative effect? I am wholly against task killers. I work in the industry and every time I am helping a customer or selling a phone I make sure they know the negative impact these have on a phone. But i want to know what you guys think.
Dev doesn't have problem with Task manger per se, they have problem with the "auto-kill" ability of some of the task manager in the Market.
I personally think JI6 task manager is cleanly done. It even tells you the CPU usage, so you can just kill of the "trouble" APP. It also doesn't show any of the system apps so, making it impossible to screw things up.
Plus, it's got other information that are helpful as well.
PaiPiePia said:
Dev doesn't have problem with Task manger per se, they have problem with the "auto-kill" ability of some of the task manager in the Market.
I personally think JI6 task manager is cleanly done. It even tells you the CPU usage, so you can just kill of the "trouble" APP. It also doesn't show any of the system apps so, making it impossible to screw things up.
Plus, it's got other information that are helpful as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
True, it is that System app that can mess with crap. But what about apps that share processes with other apps?
Task managers are total crapware...well for the most part...auto killers are the plage avoid them...the bully in task manager seems to be okay for only one thing to kill an app that had locked up or needs to be reset...other than that its a waste of space and battery drain if you run the widget.
Sent from this mobile thinngy =p
microfire21 said:
Task managers are total crapware...well for the most part...auto killers are the plage avoid them...the bully in task manager seems to be okay for only one thing to kill an app that had locked up or needs to be reset...other than that its a waste of space and battery drain if you run the widget.
Sent from this mobile thinngy =p
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Click to collapse
All the widget does is tell you how many active apps are running. The task manager is welcome seeing as how even some built in apps don't allow you yo cleanly exit them and Android apps tend to consume large amounts of RAM.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
I think I've made it clear on my stance, but I will say the task manager on JI6 seems fine. The fact that it shows the CPU usage is the key part. And like others have said, it does not show system apps... just don't end the obvious ones that are syncing or widgets...
Well after running battery graph with and without the widget running...the widget takes 1% from the battery every 10 mins it runs...I liked the factor of seeing what was running in the bg but too much battery use on my stock battery...got a 3300 on the way...might use more widgets and apps after that but with this weak battery not going to use anything that eats battery away....btw running b 1.7 with voodoo lagfix
Sent from this mobile thinngy =p
Personally I don't mind the Task manager. I had "Where" go bonkers on me and I didn't realize it. It was running 80% and my phone started to get hot. I killed the app and it returned to normal.
Never mind the fact that I started "Where" probably 15-20minutes earlier and it ate nearly 20% of my battery in the period with the screen off and sitting at the home screen.
Apps can go rogue and in my opinion thats when they should be used not because it gives you a false since of your saving battery power or to make room for other apps.
kizer said:
Personally I don't mind the Task manager. I had "Where" go bonkers on me and I didn't realize it. It was running 80% and my phone started to get hot. I killed the app and it returned to normal.
Never mind the fact that I started "Where" probably 15-20minutes earlier and it ate nearly 20% of my battery in the period with the screen off and sitting at the home screen.
Apps can go rogue and in my opinion thats when they should be used not because it gives you a false since of your saving battery power or to make room for other apps.
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wow. your phone consumes 20% even when it's not used?
iynfynity said:
wow. your phone consumes 20% even when it's not used?
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Click to collapse
Its cause the app was eating his battery up. Read please.
The widget does not use 1% battery per 10 minutes. Please make up something believable...
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Nevermind responded when I didn't need to.
It's not a ' task manager ' as they call it, its a process manager... in the original vibrant Rom JFD , if you create a shortcut for the activity, 'running services' , it links to the same service... I don't use it but don't mind it as long as they never add an auto kill feature to it... I think it will also stop new users from getting app/task manager crap_ware from the market...
I like it and i think its better than the task killer in the market,
At least it is not suggesting killing everything but showing how much CPU the app is using.
For sure, i won't put that stupid ugly widget in the desktop as it is really useless
N8ter said:
Its cause the app was eating his battery up. Read please.
The widget does not use 1% battery per 10 minutes. Please make up something believable...
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hey, I know that the apps are consuming the battery life. But mine is not like that.
Deleted......
"8. Frequently use the native task manager to free memory.. Long press on the big button to access task manager."
This is wrong advice. This actually increases battery use. The frequently used applications stay in memory so that they will not be loaded again when needed. If you purge the memory like you recommend, these apps will have to be reloaded every time, which significantly increases battery usage.
Deleted......
jangomango said:
No doing this once in a while will kill off any apps you thought were closed.. Quite often I exit a game to find its still there hogging memory.
But thanks for the criticism.
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It's not wasting memory, it's just sitting there doing nothing in case you launch it soon again. If that memory is needed by another program, Android releases it immediately.
Try this yourself. Launch a game, then exit. You'll see the game still in memory. Then launch other apps and games. You'll see that the first game is no longer in memory, because Android saw that that part of the memory is needed elsewhere. It's all automatic and it works well. There's no need to fiddle with it. As I said, fiddling with it actually increases battery usage, because frequently used apps have to be reloaded every single time, instead of being called back from memory.
Deleted......
aydc said:
It's not wasting memory, it's just sitting there doing nothing in case you launch it soon again. If that memory is needed by another program, Android releases it immediately.
Try this yourself. Launch a game, then exit. You'll see the game still in memory. Then launch other apps and games. You'll see that the first game is no longer in memory, because Android saw that that part of the memory is needed elsewhere. It's all automatic and it works well. There's no need to fiddle with it. As I said, fiddling with it actually increases battery usage, because frequently used apps have to be reloaded every single time, instead of being called back from memory.
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I have to disagree with this. Quite often I have noticed that after playing some game my battery still keeps draining like hell.
I know that Android is SUPPOSED to work as you said it would, but there are quite a lot of rogue apps which don't behave like that.
So unless you are 100% sure that your apps are not rogue apps in any possible situation I also have to suggest to use the "kill all" once in a while.
I don't do it often, maybe twice a day but it helps.
Deleted.....
I have done most of the things you mentioned, but my battery is still appalling. I am using VillainROM 1.4, KF2. I really want to fix this, I heard some people are struggling to get 12 hours from their phone, I am one of those.
twitceh said:
I have done most of the things you mentioned, but my battery is still appalling. I am using VillainROM 1.4, KF2. I really want to fix this, I heard some people are struggling to get 12 hours from their phone, I am one of those.
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Click to collapse
I agree, yesterday I barely used my phone. 1 hour and 40 minutes of screen on time, 3G, Sync, Whatsapping most of the time that I used it, wifi, too. Downloaded a few apps maybe 10 minutes of games. It was at 40% when I went to bed 15 hours later. I barely touched it! LOL.
I don't mind though, this is a FANTASTIC phone. I wouldn't change it for any other phone at the moment. I will probably get an extended battery case from Samsung in the near future. It's a case AND a battery ALL IN ONE! Woopie! lol.
twitceh said:
I have done most of the things you mentioned, but my battery is still appalling. I am using VillainROM 1.4, KF2. I really want to fix this, I heard some people are struggling to get 12 hours from their phone, I am one of those.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am starting to believe that it is a hardware fault..If lucky it could be because of the battery. You could try to order another battery and see how it goes.
If not so lucky then its something else in the phone which is almost impossible to fix at home.
jangomango said:
I appreciate you clogging my new thread up with your opinion.. Nice one..
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Click to collapse
I have no personal problem with you, but if you open up a thread for newcomers, you shouldn't give misleading information. Thinking task killers improve battery is a telltale sign of noobness.
For newcomers who really want to learn about memory management in Android and the truth about task killers, I recommend these two articles:
http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/
http://www.droid-den.com/android-guides/android-guide-should-i-use-a-task-killer
jangomango said:
FFS.. my point is.. Some apps you only use once in a blue moon like Games. You dont need these still sitting there..
I appreciate you clogging my new thread up with your opinion.. Nice one..
Plus I find it makes my phone snappier after a good purge.. And FYI I still get over 1 and a half days from the battery..
Is there any chance you can get off my **** now?
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Pretty sure with an attitude like that you'd be lucky to have someone on your ****.
My simple solution. Buy juice defender ultimate. Its cheap only less than 9 dollars. Set it to extreme and configure each app. Then go to market and search 'gothic'. Select the darkest and most plain black wallpaper. You are done! I am getting 2 days on stock rom with this setup. With about 20% of the time surfing the net via HSDPA or 3g.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium App
aydc said:
I have no personal problem with you, but if you open up a thread for newcomers, you shouldn't give misleading information. Thinking task killers improve battery is a telltale sign of noobness.
For newcomers who really want to learn about memory management in Android and the truth about task killers, I recommend these two articles:
http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/
http://www.droid-den.com/android-guides/android-guide-should-i-use-a-task-killer
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd have to agree. Task killers are generally a bad idea.
Sure, there are poorly coded apps that stay in memory and use up CPU cycles. Those are apps that needs to be closed via task killers. But is that really the solution?
What you should do is NOT use such apps. If you do continue to use those apps, you're just supporting the developer for his poor coding. In that case, you're on your own.
OP: Try not to get too antagonistic. This is after all, a discussion forum.
Here's an analogy just for fun....
General consensus: You don't need a case for your phone.
Argument: You do need a case for your phone because SOME phones have antennae issues and a case will alleviate those issues.
Weird solution: Buy those phones wtih antennae issues and then also buy a case.
Real solution: Don't buy those phones with antennae issues! (wink wink)
ohyeahar said:
I'd have to agree. Task killers are generally a bad idea.
Sure, there are poorly coded apps that stay in memory and use up CPU cycles. Those are apps that needs to be closed via task killers. But is that really the solution?
What you should do is NOT use such apps. If you do continue to use those apps, you're just supporting the developer for his poor coding. In that case, you're on your own.
OP: Try not to get too antagonistic. This is after all, a discussion forum.
Here's an analogy just for fun....
General consensus: You don't need a case for your phone.
Argument: You do need a case for your phone because SOME phones have antennae issues and a case will alleviate those issues.
Weird solution: Buy those phones wtih antennae issues and then also buy a case.
Real solution: Don't buy those phones with antennae issues! (wink wink)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 to this, task manager was a good idea in the old days (eclair & froyo), but gingerbread does a great job in memory management, there is no need for "task management kill" everytime you exit. Although I am a bit conservative on "frequently killing apps in gingerbread will actually decrease your battery life", but certainly, doing so will not improve it.
Using the 'Clear Memory' feature in Task Manager will stop and kill everything. Some widgets, apps will stop work. So that feature is extremely kiddish imo.
But using ATK won't do it as it has an Ignore list, if its set up properly then its the best.
Regards.
Sent from GT-I9100
jangomango said:
With all gripes over battery life, I thought it would be a good idea to create a list of steps for newcomers that will help make battery life better.
With these steps I am getting well over 24 hours.
Feel free to add some and I will update the OP.
1. Flash a rom.. I'm using Lightening Rom 2.0 with KG1
2. Flash a kernel.. I use Chainfires KG1
3. Use Titanium backup to freeze any crap you dont need. There is a guide on here already about this.
4. Disable fast dormancy.. *#*#9900#*#*
5. Wifi Sleep Policy set this to Screen Off.. Settings>Wireless & Networks>WiFi Networks>Menu>Advanced>WiFi Sleep Policy
6. Manage your radios.. Use the power widget to turn off BlueTooth,WiFi, GPS, even 3G when not needed.
7. Screen brightness.. Set this as low as you can whilst still being readable.
8. Frequently use the native task manager to free memory.. Long press on the big button to access task manager.
9. Monitor what apps are using battery.. Menu>Settings>About Phone>Battery Usage
10. Use a static wallpaper.. Live wallpapers are nice but draw more power than a still image. Dark backgrounds are best.
11. Full overnight charge with phone off.. I found this makes a difference.
12. Change the frequency at which your mail and widgets update. Instead of 30 minutes or whatever try 1 hour.
13. Turn off AutoSync when not needed. Menu>Settings>Accounts &Sync. Note.. This will do what it says and stop any app or widget syncing though..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll only comment on the points I can share my opinion with:
4. didn't change a damn thing for me regarding the battery, it just made switching betweens 3g and H slower.
5. will try that, but won't it turn wifi off when the screen is off thus disabling any sync via wifi when screen is off?
6. common sense not to leave everything on all the time
7. auto brightness does a good job for me, a mate uses lowest brightness and has no advantages besides having problems reading from the screen sometimes
8. just use it to end apps/games that won't stop after using them like KiesAir
10. true
11. doesn't make a difference
12. sure but whoever needs (e.g. for work) push (like me) will have to skip that
13. see 12.
fenguinpower said:
My simple solution. Buy juice defender ultimate. Its cheap only less than 9 dollars. Set it to extreme and configure each app. Then go to market and search 'gothic'. Select the darkest and most plain black wallpaper. You are done! I am getting 2 days on stock rom with this setup. With about 20% of the time surfing the net via HSDPA or 3g.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
juice defender is my last option to squeeze more time out of my phone. still with my general usage I get around 36h our of one charge, mostly between 24h and 48h depending on how much I use it AND how good the reception is (better reception -> more battery life)
OP deleted.. This was supposed to be a usefull guide for newcomers but soon descended into a viscious disection of all my points. **** you all. Twats.
jangomango said:
OP deleted.. This was supposed to be a usefull guide for newcomers but soon descended into a viscious disection of all my points. **** you all. Twats.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't like healthy debate? These guys were quite polite, you were the one who spat his dummy out.
**** you aswell you **** jockey.
I am now on 25 hours without a charge and still have 65% battery left. Previously I couldn't make it through the day without hooking up the umbilical cord of life. I used to clear apps regularly with the stock task manager but would start out with 150MB free after boot and by the end of the day could not get better than 80MB free. Everyone was crying memory leaks. These are NOT memory leaks but errant programs that cache behind trhe scenes draining your battery and stealing resources. They are also immune to the stock task killer.
I found these bad bad apps by installing Memory Booster Lite from the market. After getting a 0 applications closed I went into the Task Killer in Memory Booster and found a bunch of apps loaded into memory still! Things like Google + hogging 28 MB of memory! There was Amazon Appstore, Maps, Facebook, Beatiful Widgets, Email, Telenav, Netflix, logsprovider....all immune to the stock task killer and slowly eating memory during the day as they load. I killed all the ones I recognized (no com.XXXX stuff) and then checked back in a few minutes to see what would reload. Google +, Beautiful Widgets, Facebook, Maps, and others would reload. Using the paid version of Titanium backup I froze apps like Google +, Maps, Netflix, and others that I don't use daily. You can use other apps for this like Autostarts. I deleted apps that are not worth my memory and battery power. I also set all syncs to manual and keep the display down as low as I need to. The results were tripling my battery life. I also stay on Wifi as much as possible and as soon as I get off XDA App, Tapatalk or any browser clear it with the stock task killer. I always have about 140 MB free now.
Your mileage may vary. The display is the biggest battery killer so if your a gamer, or spend hours reading, don't expect a lot of improvement from this but you will see some. I hope this helps battery life and memory leak myths for some of you.
The important thing in this forum is to have fun and help others.
I'm not trolling, and you do have great suggestions here. I just wish there were some easy way to get an entire day of full use without having to get an extended battery while using the epic to its full potential. I like autosync, adecently lit screen, and my range of Widgets which I use daily. Too bad I can't go more than 16 hours with everything on. I have tried at one point most of your suggestions, and it did greatly improve battery life. I suggest anyone at least give it a shot and then slowly turn back on the things they must have, like gmail sync or haptic feedback.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
Blankrubber, this is a good place to add on to what I just found. The key is to see what else is running that is immune to the stock task killer. I never knew how much Google + and Maps were killing my battery. I got rid of my extended battery long ago but now I am sill amazed. 29 hours and 52% left. But the key when you say using it fully is limiting display time and intensity. No matter what that is the biggest drain so if you are glued to your phone for over 4 hours it will always be tough to make it last. Phones that used to be just phones could go days without charge. Now they are little computers. Think...laptops only go about 2 hours runtime without a charge and those batteries are a lot bigger.
I use Bloat Freezer myself. It shows whatever is running in the background highlighted in gray. Google+,Maps, the others Kenny mentioned are the usual suspects. Doing what Kenny said will help out for sure. Yes, its annoying we have to do this to extend battery life but some apps are always at work. Memory Booster is pretty good. Viper baked it in a ROM a while back. Its definately worth checking out
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
JohnCorleone said:
I use Bloat Freezer myself. It shows whatever is running in the background highlighted in gray. Google+,Maps, the others Kenny mentioned are the usual suspects. Doing what Kenny said will help out for sure. Yes, its annoying we have to do this to extend battery life but some apps are always at work. Memory Booster is pretty good. Viper baked it in a ROM a while back. Its definately worth checking out
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks John, hard to keep up on all these apps to help manage apps and memory. Will have to check out Bloat Freezer. Hope there are less steps than Titanium to unfreeze.
I highly recommend Autokiller Memory.
After reading the dev's page and all he found I installed the app and after setting it up, its maintained my memory free of immune apps and battery life us off the hook!
Sent from an Epic with 4G
If something is just sitting in memory why would that have any effect on battery life? It should actually improve your battery life cuz then it just loads the app from memory and not a full re open of the app. Now if your saying that these questionable apps are just running processes then yes that would have an effect on battery as it is just sitting there doing something. But back to the memory side of this. Memory is used in all devices to take some of the load off the processor to make it load faster. It is there for a reason every device would not use memory if it was not efficient at loading apps and saving battery.
But if you only use the app once a week or so why waste those resources or the initial load time. If it sits in memory and another app needs that memory the processor uses more power and battery swapping apps in and out of memory needlessly. My phone is super fast and running 32 hours with 46% left. I can't put up a better argument than those results. Memory swapping is bad on battery it seems.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
kennyglass123 said:
Thanks John, hard to keep up on all these apps to help manage apps and memory. Will have to check out Bloat Freezer. Hope there are less steps than Titanium to unfreeze.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I button to press to unfreeze with Bloat Freezer....actually 2. You press menu softkey then unfreeze all. The phones baked in apps are in red, running apps highlighted gray, and frozen apps blue. Its really user friendly
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
kennyglass123 said:
I am now on 25 hours without a charge and still have 65% battery left. Previously I couldn't make it through the day without hooking up the umbilical cord of life. I used to clear apps regularly with the stock task manager but would start out with 150MB free after boot and by the end of the day could not get better than 80MB free. Everyone was crying memory leaks. These are NOT memory leaks but errant programs that cache behind trhe scenes draining your battery and stealing resources. They are also immune to the stock task killer.
I found these bad bad apps by installing Memory Booster Lite from the market. After getting a 0 applications closed I went into the Task Killer in Memory Booster and found a bunch of apps loaded into memory still! Things like Google + hogging 28 MB of memory! There was Amazon Appstore, Maps, Facebook, Beatiful Widgets, Email, Telenav, Netflix, logsprovider....all immune to the stock task killer and slowly eating memory during the day as they load. I killed all the ones I recognized (no com.XXXX stuff) and then checked back in a few minutes to see what would reload. Google +, Beautiful Widgets, Facebook, Maps, and others would reload. Using the paid version of Titanium backup I froze apps like Google +, Maps, Netflix, and others that I don't use daily. You can use other apps for this like Autostarts. I deleted apps that are not worth my memory and battery power. I also set all syncs to manual and keep the display down as low as I need to. The results were tripling my battery life. I also stay on Wifi as much as possible and as soon as I get off XDA App, Tapatalk or any browser clear it with the stock task killer. I always have about 140 MB free now.
Your mileage may vary. The display is the biggest battery killer so if your a gamer, or spend hours reading, don't expect a lot of improvement from this but you will see some. I hope this helps battery life and memory leak myths for some of you.
The important thing in this forum is to have fun and help others.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1: you must never actually use your phone at all, if you do then your battery claims are bs
2: you obviously don't understand much about android/linux and how memory functionality works
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
Zeinzu said:
1: you must never actually use your phone at all, if you do then your battery claims are bs
2: you obviously don't understand much about android/linux and how memory functionality works
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Whatever dude. Look at my posts count and thanks count. Got this phone a week after it came out in September and never could get better than 16 hours life out of the battery. I do a few simple things as posted and am at 38% with 32 hours. Obviously you are the one without a clue. Troll out of my thread if you have nothing constructive to add. Believe me or not I have nothing to gain by posting this.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
Zeinzu said:
1: you must never actually use your phone at all, if you do then your battery claims are bs
2: you obviously don't understand much about android/linux and how memory functionality works
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've been around the Android platform for more than 3 years. I've pretty much read all google has shared with us (the Military) for application development and I do agree that there are dormit services that hog up your memory / battery even when your not using the phone.
I agree with this dev and his tool: http://andrs.w3pla.net/autokiller/details
I think that he nailed it when he found out how did Android manage memory and the determination it takes in order to "kill" what you don't use.
Now... Do you care to share what you know about the subject that we don't, in stead of just coming bashing and leaving?
This is a forum, we are more than open to debates here.
megabiteg said:
I've been around the Android platform for more than 3 years. I've pretty much read all google has shared with us (the Military) for application development and I do agree that there are dormit services that hog up your memory / battery even when your not using the phone.
I agree with this dev and his tool: http://andrs.w3pla.net/autokiller/details
I think that he nailed it when he found out how did Android manage memory and the determination it takes in order to "kill" what you don't use.
Now... Do you care to share what you know about that we don't, in stead of just coming bashing and leaving?
This is a forum, we are more than open to debates here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the v6supercharger fixed these issues for me. also if you use go launcher, there is a tab in the app drawer of running apps which you can close with ease!
megabiteg said:
I highly recommend Autokiller Memory.
After reading the dev's page and all he found I installed the app and after setting it up, its maintained my memory free of immune apps and battery life us off the hook!
Sent from an Epic with 4G
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that's the app i use...i only kill the apps that don't close properly after i use them and frozen some services with titanium...i have amazing battery life (eco5 btw, gingerbread is not stable enough for me)
Tw wats ur onscreen time?? Would u post some screenshots? The longest battery I ever had was like 15 hours and 4 hours of onscreen time with around 10% left
Sent From The Evo 3D's PIMP!
omair2005 said:
the v6supercharger fixed these issues for me. also if you use go launcher, there is a tab in the app drawer of running apps which you can close with ease!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 for V6, im usually at 250mb free ram consistently, while closing NOT A DAMN THING
For that basher out there, I am sorry if I don't spend hours watching porn on my phone for you to really judge battery life but here is the pic:
And I may not be able to code Android but I am familiar in C++ and CPU usage and how much you lose by not having available memory to swap programs with.
omair2005 said:
the v6supercharger fixed these issues for me. also if you use go launcher, there is a tab in the app drawer of running apps which you can close with ease!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nice. That was my issue though is that some of these memory/battery killers don't show up in the launcher's task killers. Google + and Maps never show up and get stopped and continue to kill the battery getting data behind the scenes because Google wrote them in that way. It is important to at least check if you have bad battery life what else is running with a good task killer like Memory Booster Lite.
i think the best solution for battery life is autokiller, v6 script and titanium..the stock gingerbread task manager aka (the running services in settings) isn't that great...when i was on eg22, i noticed it displayed the wrong amount of ram left and didn't display every single app running in the background..autokiller is able to see every single app running in the background but never kill the programs with (com.google and android.process)...I only kills apps i use like engadget and pulse..when u exit these with back button, they always stay in the background and use autokiller to make sure it's completely killed...never set any task killer to autokill apps, that will drain your battery faster...and they are some annoying 3rd party apps that always run in the background since they are not coded well (imo)..for example, i froze the script manager with titanium after i implemented the v6 script because it kept restarting itself all the time..i suggest people follow RandomKing's tutorial on how to extend battery life, it helped a lot..http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1106524...i constantly have 150 to 200 ram free with im not running any apps..im on eco5 aosp rom with eco5 (eg22 and eh06 are not stable enough for me)
To be honest, I think you're overestimating the effect these task killers are having on your phone.
Your graph looks very similar to mine when I'm using it moderately, and I haven't installed any task killers. (And, yes, I've got the same Maps, Google+, etc apps on my phone). The only changes I've made are:
- Turning my screen brightness all the way down.
- Having very few non-push syncs.
Today I'll be using my phone a lot as a camera, but I'll try to remember to leave it off the charger one day this week so that I have a power graph that lasts longer than 18 hours.
Just curious, do any of the apps used to save battery on the phone work on the tablets as well? Also, are there any battery saving apps specially made for tablets.
I believe that it isn't battery efficient to use any of these kinds of apps on phones or tablets. Android os is actually pretty good at handling this, and if you introduce another app trying to mess with loading and unloading things from memory, you could force your device to use more of its battery rather than less. There are the occasional rogue apps that use too much memory; you can use an app like watchdog to watch out for those, put them on a blacklist which can auto kill them at user defined percentages.
Betterbatterystats is another app that can help you pinpoint misbehaving apps.
Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk HD
KestrelX said:
I believe that it isn't battery efficient to use any of these kinds of apps on phones or tablets. Android os is actually pretty good at handling this, and if you introduce another app trying to mess with loading and unloading things from memory, you could force your device to use more of its battery rather than less. There are the occasional rogue apps that use too much memory; you can use an app like watchdog to watch out for those, put them on a blacklist which can auto kill them at user defined percentages.
Betterbatterystats is another app that can help you pinpoint misbehaving apps.
Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk HD
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks! Ill keep that in mind