Speed Up Your Android Tablet… Again

Speeding Up android tablet seems to be something that a lot of people including myself pursues. Previously I have written an article about what to do to speed up most android tablets, while the tips did worked I have since done even more since I still have some weirdness going on with my 7 inch galaxy tab tablet (not the original one).

So, here are a few things that I did to speed up my tablet. It seems to be working quite well now and I haven’t seen much lag during daily usages.

Root your device

This is definitely required for the steps below. I just used the app called FramaRoot which was handy to root your devices without having to connect to your PC and run ODIN and the rest of the usual rooting steps.

Freeze unused applications.

I use “root app delete” to disable in build apps that I don’t use. An example is “Pulse” app, it’s not a bad app but I don’t want to use it, the problem is that I can’t uninstall it because it’s a pre-packaged app from Samsung. Thankfully we have some way to freeze it.

A word of advise, when using root app delete, start with junior mode first just to make sure you are not deleting anything crucial to the operating system.

Disable Unused System Service

Install the app called “Disable Service”. 

This one is probably not for everyone, I am able to disable these services because I’m not using my tablet for music playback nor taking picture at all. Also for whatever reason these services are the CPU hog inside my tablet!

The services that I disabled in my tablet are:

1. Google play music: MusicPlaybackService, MediaStoreImportService
2. Media Storage: MediaScannerService

Install Rescan Media Root

Like I said, I don’t use the media services too much but occasionally I want to get photos in my gallery. So, in order to do it every now and then I install the above app.

Install Cache Booster pro

Unlike CynogenMod where we can modify the system cache using its in-built option, we have to rely on this 3rd party app. Installing this will allow you to set the cache at boot time. In my case setting the cache at 512 helps quite a bit.

Use opera beta + off road mode

I found that using the default browser and Chrome are really heavy, even Firefox is just a tad lighter. Using Opera beta is good so far though and I opt to use the beta version because its able to load desktop version of websites using even when on the “off road” mode.

Install Google Now launcher

This is probably one of the lightest launcher that I can find. There’s not much configurability, unlike Nova launcher or Apex launcher, however it suits my needs. The Google now part was kinda cool but I ended up disabling that as well in the end.

Some Thoughts

Using the above techniques, it’s actually possible to speed up my tablet significantly, it was barely usable for a while. Mind you that this is a different tablet from the one that I talked about last time, thought not the newest one. The tablet is Galaxy Tab 7 2, running Jelly Bean Android.

I don’t understand personally though how a tablet can get this bad and it’s impossible to update the OS as well. Perhaps one of the criteria to buy a new tablet should be the after sales support to see how long it’s going to get any update after purchase. Certainly not happening much with my Samsung tablets.

Categorised in: Android, Performance