Related
Ok, so there are task killer threads that lead me to believe that they a are a waste of time by and large, and that android automatically sorts things out. Those same posts also point out that task killers are an extra drain on the battery having to start applications over again uses more battery than leaving something dormant in the background. These posts are not the thoughts of one person but unanimous to those threads. All very well, but then there are the battery saving threads that say to close down all applications that aren't being used to save additional battery??? Again this is the view of everyone in those particular threads, so is there any chance of getting the two camps to FIGHT! And then I can decide which I shall choose to do!
For info I currently have task killer and use it all the time and get a full days use out of my battery which is good because I cane the hell out of it! But If I could improve it that would be good. I have however this afternoon decided to not use task killer for a few days and see how I get on. But an explanation would be good from both sides.
I never use a task killer and get 2 or 3 days use out of of my Desire. No point in a war just use your Desire for a week without a task killer and then a week with. I am pretty sure you will just find the task killer slows things down and doesn't improve battery life. You will not find any of the ROM chefs using a task killer either!
HI
I was reading one of those posts this morning and decided to uninstall task-killer.I have to say that after half day of heavy use my device started to be so laggy it took contacts or calendar 5 seconds to open!then I checked running processes and pretty much everything I was playing with was still running.memory dropped to 10MB and device became unusable.cannot say battery use has improved.I think it was the same.
But my task-killer is back up and running.
I must say that I am new to Android.I was using WM for long time.I can cook my own ROMs so I am not a noob but I know very little about Android.so if anyone knows what could be the reason of this huge slowdown I will be grateful for explanation.
And one more thing that needs to be said...
My device is rooted and I am using a2sd too.
polystirenman said:
HI
I was reading one of those posts this morning and decided to uninstall task-killer.I have to say that after half day of heavy use my device started to be so laggy it took contacts or calendar 5 seconds to open!then I checked running processes and pretty much everything I was playing with was still running.memory dropped to 10MB and device became unusable.cannot say battery use has improved.I think it was the same.
But my task-killer is back up and running.
I must say that I am new to Android.I was using WM for long time.I can cook my own ROMs so I am not a noob but I know very little about Android.so if anyone knows what could be the reason of this huge slowdown I will be grateful for explanation.
And one more thing that needs to be said...
My device is rooted and I am using a2sd too.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You may like to read this:
http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/
dhiral.v said:
You may like to read this:
http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well.i did read that before.that is why i do not understand why my phone was so slow.they are claiming that android should close apps by itself to reclaim memory.but in my case that wasn't true.everything was running and nothing was getting closed by system.
Here's another good read:
Google and Cyanogen comments imply task killer/manager apps are pointless
Both Dianne Hackborn and Cyanogen say Task Killers are useless, even developers of these apps concur. You should listen to them, I guess they understand juuust a little bit more than we do what Android is about.
pascanu said:
Here's another good read:
Google and Cyanogen comments imply task killer/manager apps are pointless
Both Dianne Hackborn and Cyanogen say Task Killers are useless, even developers of these apps concur. You should listen to them, I guess they understand juuust a little bit more than we do what Android is about.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i would like to believe it.i was so excited when i saw a post saying that i should get rid of task-killer.but as i wrote before after half day of heavy use(my phone is new so i play with it a lot :-D ) without task killer my phone was soooooo slow i couldn't use it anymore.today i had task-killer back on the phone and all day no slowdown what so ever.i don't understand that.i am starting to think it is related to A2SD and memory being relocated to SD card.
I also agree that taskkiller (the way it works for WM) is not good for android, because android has a better memory management...
but there is another flavour of taskkiller in the market... which are based on this:
How to configure Android's *internal* taskkiller
Unfortunately, your phone needs to be rooted before you can use that method.
If you worry about memory remember that the worst kind of memory is...free memory ! Because it's not being used. Obviously ram gets reclaimed and freed when it's needed.
As said in a couple more redundant threads, there might be a rogue app which you are better off closing because it stays in the background wrongly eating cpu cycles, but this is very very rare. Otherwise I think it's just the usual placebo effect...
andycted said:
If you worry about memory remember that the worst kind of memory is...free memory ! Because it's not being used. Obviously ram gets reclaimed and freed when it's needed.
As said in a couple more redundant threads, there might be a rogue app which you are better off closing because it stays in the background wrongly eating cpu cycles, but this is very very rare. Otherwise I think it's just the usual placebo effect...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you read the link in my previous post?
ANOTHER thread about this... There must be plenty of threads on this now, but I'll just once more give my impression.
Personally I have had HTC widgets like NEWS or MAIL or CALENDER hang or crash on me and I could not restart them unless I restarted the phone. In this case an app killer was ESSENTIAL. I don't believe you need to leave the app killer running always and kill every single task when your done, but its essential to have one installed so if a widget hangs (as has happened quite a few times on the Desire) you can kill the hung app without having to try a 5 hour shut down(another desire issue) and battery removal.
Also... after 2 days use of many apps and camera use and internet and youtube app etc, your internal RAM will be about 50mb available to programs. yes, android is supposed to kill stuff as it needs, and Im sure it does, but 50mb free memory compared to 150mb the lag is VERY obvious. So I do tend to kill tasks like camera and youtube etc if I have not used them in a day and my phone seem slaggy. the phone definetly runs faster then. Thats just a fact. So the internal android task killer is not as efficent as you'd like to think. Android 2.2 runs 450% faster than 2.1 so maybe then no lag will EVER be noticable. I'll still keep a task killer installed though in case widgets crash or hang.
I found my battery most efficient with this setup:
- Installed Advanced Task killer (free)
- Security level: High (it doesn't show system apps)
- I have put all frequently using apps on ignore list: ATK, Messages, BatteryTimeLite, Internet, Weather, Clock, Calendar (so Android manage with those apps)
- Auto kill Level: Safe
- Auto kill Frequency: 2 hours
With that setup battery lasts almost half time longer than without TK or with killing all apps when screen goes off. Also I don't have any force closes / lag.
Never experienced lag at 100 or 20 mb free.
mcgon1979 said:
but 50mb free memory compared to 150mb the lag is VERY obvious.
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Click to collapse
The amount of free memory doesn't necessarily have anything to do with lag.
As Android does not use virtual memory (unless you've hacked in swapper, which is a bad idea anyway), it will attempt to make best use of available memory which may mean keeping recently used items in memory, and thus "consuming" free memory. However, if those items are not actively processing, they should not be consuming CPU cycles and therefore consuming little to no power.
As far as a running system is concerned, having lots of free memory just means that it is being underutilized.
I don't kill tasks and my phone never lags - that's just a fact too!
Regards,
Dave
boge said:
I also agree that taskkiller (the way it works for WM) is not good for android, because android has a better memory management...
but there is another flavour of taskkiller in the market... which are based on this:
How to configure Android's *internal* taskkiller
Unfortunately, your phone needs to be rooted before you can use that method.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Using this method it is possible to make the native task killer a bit more aggresive. I did some experiments with this on the HTC Hero and it just might have improved speed slightly but at the expense of stability.
"Normal" task killers are completely pointless but if people want to use them why not? It they want to sacrifice both battery life and performance by using one surely that is their choice. Whatever the experts says will not convince them.
I suppose you could use one to kill the very occasional hung app. i.e. Once every few days, but most people seem to use them constantly and totally indiscriminately.
1. About Cpu: get a task manager with cpu monitoring and verify for yourself, frozen applications in background don't do anything.
2. About memory: If an application needs 10 MB it just uses 10 MB and couldn't care less if there are 11, 100, 1000 MB free. The only moment you COULD see a tiny slowdown is the instant it needs 20 and there are only 10 available, but the system is quite good in managing that, and freeing resources (there are six levels of memory cleaning which progressively remove unused applications from the background)
3. If you stop monitoring memory usage, stop worrying about the system, you'll find out it manages itself perfectly and you enjoy the phone a lot more.
Interesting article about installed apps and a battery.
http://blog.gsmarena.com/android-handsets-batteries-should-last-for-more-than-a-day-google-says/
"...Page accused the installed apps of causing the problems and claimed that software running in the background exhausts the battery quickly...."
Interesting article about installed apps and a battery.
http://blog.gsmarena.com/android-handsets-batteries-should-last-for-more-than-a-day-google-says/
"...Page accused the installed apps of causing the problems and claimed that software running in the background exhausts the battery quickly...."
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
as said in the post above, get a cpu monitoring task manager and see for yourself if you have something wrong. Personally I don't have any.
Also watch battery history which tells you if the phone doesn't manage to go properly to sleep (partial wake)
regarding that article, iphone users get way less battery time and they don't even have multitasking...
-------------------------------------
Ipad's dont have "Spell Check" thery have "Replace" built into Safarii adn it wokrs just fineq!!!
I personally installed auto memory manager, an app that configures android's internal task killer. Its not a task manager by itself, uses android's task manager. You can set the limits in MB for all the app categories android has.
I was using it in my hero as well and found it really useful. Before having it installed, after some time my free memory was ~50mb, thus my phone was sometimes lagging. Now its always above 100mb and no lag at all
Hello Android Gurus
I have bought Galaxy S (My first Android phone) 2 weeks ago and i have been experimenting with it since. I have noticed one thing regarding how android manages memory and its quite alarming.
When i start my phone I typically have around 160 Mb of RAM. As i load an application that requires 10 MB for example, the available RAM evidently drops to 150 MB but when I kill the application the RAM goes up but not to the previous level (e.g. goes up to 157).
little RAM is always lost as applications are opened and closed. This means that after a couple of hours of using the phone, the RAM goes down to 40 MB and the phone becomes REALLY laggy and you have to restart
The above behavior is typical of windows mobile, and that is exactly why i shifted to Android thinking it is better.
My questions to the android experts out there are the following:
1- Why is memory leaking like this. Such a behavior results in a phone with very bad user experience
2- Is this typical behavior of Android, if yes then i'd better sell my Galaxy S and look for an alternative OS
3- Is this due to TouchWiz by Samsung, if yes then i will wait for subsequent updates to see if this problem could be resolved by Samsung
4- Will the 2.2 Froyo update resolve this issue ?
I used to have an iphone 3gs before this one, and no matter how much you open or close applications, the UI is always smooth and responsive. The thing that made me really hate Apple and its products is their "Closed OS" that does not enable you to do much with your phone. That is why i moved to Galaxy S thinking it would give me a better experience
Thanks for your thoughts.
FREE RAM IS A WASTED RAM, golden rule of android.
Some time ago I did even a video so you can check what i'm talking about... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ewxuy12KuUA
Dexter666 said:
FREE RAM IS A WASTED RAM, golden rule of android.
Some time ago I did even a video so you can check what i'm talking about...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's an awesome video! I never knew the games looked so nice. I'm on a download spree because of that video now
Strange
Dexter666 said:
FREE RAM IS A WASTED RAM, golden rule of android.
Some time ago I did even a video so you can check what i'm talking about... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ewxuy12KuUA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is quite strange, the less RAM you have the more non-responsive the phone is and laggy.
Enough RAM has to be maintained to guarantee a smooth user experience.
If the phone requires 100Mb of RAM to run smoothly, then this much has to be maintained.
from my experience with the Galaxy S, there has to be atleaset 80 to 100 MB to maintain a somewhat smmoth interface.
Edit:
I also understand from your input that this is a Samsung problem, not an android problem, and that no matter how low the RAM is, the interface will always be smooth ??????
Mate, just one word - google.
There are about a billion articles online on android memory management, how to impoove it etc.
Dexter666 said:
FREE RAM IS A WASTED RAM, golden rule of android.
Some time ago I did even a video so you can check what i'm talking about... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ewxuy12KuUA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i dont understand how this shows anything? You are manually exiting each one of the games, forcing it to quit anyways. A better test is just to hit the home button, and continually load up the next game.
andy2na said:
i dont understand how this shows anything? You are manually exiting each one of the games, forcing it to quit anyways. A better test is just to hit the home button, and continually load up the next game.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This means that after a couple of hours of using the phone, the RAM goes down to 40 MB
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+red baloon on vid which says phone was used for >day, so "free" ram was <50MB, becouse browser etc. reserve some MBs for quick comming back.
And still was no problem to run anything I choose.
Dont quite understand..care to explain more? I'm getting puzzled abt this shortage of ram thingy. Some suggest to use task killer to free up rams while you say dont. But looking at your videos its fast..please explain. Thanks
Sent from my GT-I9000
Android handles the memory management itself. The moment it runs below certain amount of free memory it will start the kill apps. There is no need to run an app killer. Altho the default settings are not enough to provide a smooth experience. Check out the freememmanager app in the market to change the settings. As long as min 45 mb is free everything will run smooth.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
RADLOUNI said:
2- Is this typical behavior of Android, if yes then i'd better sell my Galaxy S and look for an alternative OS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is typical Android behavior. See ya later.
Really though, if you're killing tasks, then you're already taking horrible advice from people who haven't an inkling of an idea on how Android manages memory.
Keep in mind that your phone is only using 256MB of its total 512MB of memory. Once a newer kernel is released with himem the phone will use all 512MB.
Android's garbage collection can be set to be more aggressive which would sort of fix your issue by killing more background applications. However, you might as well wait for the newer kernel which will fix your problem anyway.
Though it was more 320 out of 512
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App
RADLOUNI said:
The above behavior is typical of windows mobile, and that is exactly why i shifted to Android thinking it is better.
My questions to the android experts out there are the following:
1- Why is memory leaking like this. Such a behavior results in a phone with very bad user experience
2- Is this typical behavior of Android, if yes then i'd better sell my Galaxy S and look for an alternative OS
3- Is this due to TouchWiz by Samsung, if yes then i will wait for subsequent updates to see if this problem could be resolved by Samsung
4- Will the 2.2 Froyo update resolve this issue ?
Thanks for your thoughts.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This has to do a lot with Android's garbage collector. The reason task-killers are not the best way to go, is because when you kill tasks a lot of the memory is not recovered (garbage collector does not work as it should). Android by default won't start killing apps until you get between 20-30MB of memory. For some reason, in the SGS, as you said, when ram drops below 70MB, the phone starts to feel pretty laggy; the best way to remedy this is to use applications like autokiller or minfreemanager, which require you to be rooted.
For a more in-depth explanation of how android kills processes see this http://andrs.w3pla.net/autokiller/details (from the developer of Autokiller).
I would like to know why the phone feels so laggy when ram drops below 70MB, from what I understand, this shouldn't be the case...
2- Is this typical behavior of Android, if yes then i'd better sell my Galaxy S and look for an alternative OS
--> No, this is not typical behavior of Android, i use my HTC Magic before Galaxy S, no lagging problem even the memory is lower than 15MB.
The galaxy S defaults are too low for when it starts removing apps from RAM, you need to root it and then install minfree manager or autokiller (which is not a task killer don't be deceived by the name)
Brantyr said:
The galaxy S defaults are too low for when it starts removing apps from RAM, you need to root it and then install minfree manager or autokiller (which is not a task killer don't be deceived by the name)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
doesn't solve the mystery because this is a non-issue on other android phones.
why do i need to keep 50-70mb free to get a smooth running phone where others can handle 30mb free without problems.
Goshh..thanks for simplified. Now ive removed the task killer..and stand firm by the android golden rules...cheers..
Sent from my GT-I9000
I noticed this same low ram behavior on my galaxy s. After boot the phone shows like 180 mb of ram free after a couple days the phone will drop down to 30 mb of ram all the while I'm killing apps running in the background with task killer.
The phone slows down significantly even after I kill everything.i thought android was supposed to circumvent these kind of low ram Issues.
inurb said:
I noticed this same low ram behavior on my galaxy s. After boot the phone shows like 180 mb of ram free after a couple days the phone will drop down to 30 mb of ram all the while I'm killing apps running in the background with task killer.
The phone slows down significantly even after I kill everything.i thought android was supposed to circumvent these kind of low ram Issues.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is.
And you're supposed to not be messing with how Android manages things cuz taskkilling screws it up.
reuthermonkey said:
It is.
And you're supposed to not be messing with how Android manages things cuz taskkilling screws it up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So you suggest that I not force close any apps using taskkiller and just let android 2.1 do it's thing with memory management?
When I had the phone for the first week without taskkiller installed, the device ran very slow after the first couple days of use. Your saying that the slowness will go away as android dishes out memory effectively?
I'll uninstall taskkiller and let the device run longer than a week and see if it ever speeds up. thanks
I'm still pretty new to Android so I don't know what is normal, but why does the system use so much RAM when it is supposedly doing nothing? On my 2GB model, after a reboot it says that 1.2GB are free, but this soon drops to 900MB and continues to drop to 500 or 600MB, even if all apps are closed. Is this something I should just ignore and trust that tge Android system knows best and uses RAM appropriately?
kanagawaben said:
I'm still pretty new to Android so I don't know what is normal, but why does the system use so much RAM when it is supposedly doing nothing? On my 2GB model, after a reboot it says that 1.2GB are free, but this soon drops to 900MB and continues to drop to 500 or 600MB, even if all apps are closed. Is this something I should just ignore and trust that tge Android system knows best and uses RAM appropriately?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This must be the well-publicised Android 5.0.x memory leak.
DanielKennethRego said:
This must be the well-publicised Android 5.0.x memory leak.
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Click to collapse
Possibly, but my Memo Pad 7 seems much the same, and that's still on 4.4.2
If there is free memory then Android will let the apps sit in memory invisibly even after you have closed them - this way they will load faster next time you launch them. If the amount of free memory gets low Android will close some of those invisible apps. So that is normal, unless the amount of free RAM keeps decreasing while you do nothing with it - in that case there must be some bad memory leak.
In android, unused memory is kind of waste so system will allocate usage in a high percentage for efficiency.
DanielKennethRego said:
This must be the well-publicised Android 5.0.x memory leak.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
graphO said:
If there is free memory then Android will let the apps sit in memory invisibly even after you have closed them - this way they will load faster next time you launch them. If the amount of free memory gets low Android will close some of those invisible apps. So that is normal, unless the amount of free RAM keeps decreasing while you do nothing with it - in that case there must be some bad memory leak.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
xda_husky said:
In android, unused memory is kind of waste so system will allocate usage in a high percentage for efficiency.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
kanagawaben said:
Possibly, but my Memo Pad 7 seems much the same, and that's still on 4.4.2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is not a memory leak. All devices which are on papers 2GB are actually less than that. Take memory for example. My Nexus says 32GB but I get around 27GB. Same goes on with USB flash drivers/ pen drives.
Secondly, On Windows, you want to keep as much RAM available as you can so that programs have enough room to operate. When RAM fills up, Windows is forced to start using hard drive space as virtual RAM and hard drives are much slower than physical RAM.
This is not true for Android.
Android’s operating system has its own native handler for assigning RAM to apps and making sure that all of it is being used in the most optimal way. In fact, Android purposely tries to keep apps loaded into RAM for better performance. RAM is fast, remember? On mobile devices, every bit of speed is critical for a good user experience, so keeping apps in RAM is actually a good thing. So regardless how much your RAM is shown, it wouldn't affect your user experience unless the apps installed in your phone are more than RAM can handle at a time which means either update your phone with more RAM or uninstall your apps that you do not use!
Hnk1 said:
It is not a memory leak. All devices which are on papers 2GB are actually less than that. Take memory for example. My Nexus says 32GB but I get around 27GB. Same goes on with USB flash drivers/ pen drives.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is not what OP is saying, at all.
DanielKennethRego said:
That is not what OP is saying, at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The OP says that the memory decreases over time. If you read my post again, i simply said as you more applications are loaded over time, the memory starts to decrease! This is what causes the memory to decrease and if you could use a bit of logic, you could have easily come to the conclusion
Hnk1 said:
The OP says that the memory decreases over time. If you read my post again, i simply said as you more applications are loaded over time, the memory starts to decrease! This is what causes the memory to decrease and if you could use a bit of logic, you could have easily come to the conclusion
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
...And that is not what I quoted in my reply, is it?
DanielKennethRego said:
...And that is not what I quoted in my reply, is it?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sometimes it's good to swallow some pride and in that there's more dignity. I explained everything from bits and pieces and I'm sure OP can conclude it unlike you.
Do not hesitate to quote me for any query. Always welcomed
Hnk1 said:
It is not a memory leak. All devices which are on papers 2GB are actually less than that. Take memory for example. My Nexus says 32GB but I get around 27GB. Same goes on with USB flash drivers/ pen drives.
Secondly, On Windows, you want to keep as much RAM available as you can so that programs have enough room to operate. When RAM fills up, Windows is forced to start using hard drive space as virtual RAM and hard drives are much slower than physical RAM.
This is not true for Android.
Android’s operating system has its own native handler for assigning RAM to apps and making sure that all of it is being used in the most optimal way. In fact, Android purposely tries to keep apps loaded into RAM for better performance. RAM is fast, remember? On mobile devices, every bit of speed is critical for a good user experience, so keeping apps in RAM is actually a good thing. So regardless how much your RAM is shown, it wouldn't affect your user experience unless the apps installed in your phone are more than RAM can handle at a time which means either update your phone with more RAM or uninstall your apps that you do not use!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I must say, although most of what you say is true, having less free ram absolutely does have a negative effect on user experience. My browser tends to crash, non-intensive games face lag spikes and the general UI stutters. Is this due to Android or Asus' tweaks to Android doing a poor job at managing ram? I don't doubt that in a perfect scenario with a perfect OS, what you said holds true.
I've not had good experience with the RAM so far. My browser tabs fall out of memory more than my cheap 1GB phone. It's rather disappointing. Even just switching between 2 or 3 tabs and going back to a tab after a few seconds and it's already fallen out.
aloy99 said:
I must say, although most of what you say is true, having less free ram absolutely does have a negative effect on user experience. My browser tends to crash, non-intensive games face lag spikes and the general UI stutters. Is this due to Android or Asus' tweaks to Android doing a poor job at managing ram? I don't doubt that in a perfect scenario with a perfect OS, what you said holds true.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
damian5000 said:
I've not had good experience with the RAM so far. My browser tabs fall out of memory more than my cheap 1GB phone. It's rather disappointing. Even just switching between 2 or 3 tabs and going back to a tab after a few seconds and it's already fallen out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes as I mentioned before, if the apps which are preloaded are more than RAM can handle, you'd surely see a lag but killing background apps wouldn't be of much help either unless your RAM memory has too many preloaded apps already which is affecting performance of your phone. If you are rooted, apps like greenify / titanium can hibernate / freeze apps which take up memory and usually this helps in better user interface but again many other argue the opposite.
Are you using Asus Browser ? If yes, I'd suggest to use chrome as your default browser because Asus Browser is not only slow but also it drains a lot of battery. This has been proven extensively and even reviewed on different websites including gsmarena.
Basically Nexus provides pure Android interface which every manufacturer tweaks a bit according to their own needs. Usually this tweaking means more memory usage(Ram) by system UI. This is one reason that Samsung's touch wiz lags a lot on lower end phones but the same hardware runs smooth without touchwiz. The reason is Samsung has lots of tweaks in system UI .
Some browsers conserve memory by only keeping the tab used in memory and rest are loaded when you switch them. They aren't preloaded but usually this option is available in settings to preload pages which would use more memory.
I have preordered the device with 4gb so I'm afraid I can't compare your device with mine in this regard.
Kindly tell me which browsers are you using so I can comment further
Hnk1 said:
Yes as I mentioned before, if the apps which are preloaded are more than RAM can handle, you'd surely see a lag but killing background apps wouldn't be of much help either unless your RAM memory has too many preloaded apps already which is affecting performance of your phone. If you are rooted, apps like greenify / titanium can hibernate / freeze apps which take up memory and usually this helps in better user interface but again many other argue the opposite.
Are you using Asus Browser ? If yes, I'd suggest to use chrome as your default browser because Asus Browser is not only slow but also it drains a lot of battery. This has been proven extensively and even reviewed on different websites including gsmarena.
Basically Nexus provides pure Android interface which every manufacturer tweaks a bit according to their own needs. Usually this tweaking means more memory usage(Ram) by system UI. This is one reason that Samsung's touch wiz lags a lot on lower end phones but the same hardware runs smooth without touchwiz. The reason is Samsung has lots of tweaks in system UI .
Some browsers conserve memory by only keeping the tab used in memory and rest are loaded when you switch them. They aren't preloaded but usually this option is available in settings to preload pages which would use more memory.
I have preordered the device with 4gb so I'm afraid I can't compare your device with mine in this regard.
Kindly tell me which browsers are you using so I can comment further
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Using Chrome. That's the whole point of having more memory, so they don't have to be reloaded when switching.
If I had 10 tabs open and switching back and forth over a long period of time, this is understandable. Not 2 or 3 tabs and switching between two tabs within 10 seconds. Defeats the entire purpose of having 2GB of RAM. The same thing happens switching between apps. Many of them fall out of memory within just a few seconds of switching back and forth. My 1GB phone does better than this. Something to do with whatever memory management Asus has set up.
damian5000 said:
Using Chrome. That's the whole point of having more memory, so they don't have to be reloaded when switching.
If I had 10 tabs open and switching back and forth over a long period of time, this is understandable. Not 2 or 3 tabs and switching between two tabs within 10 seconds. Defeats the entire purpose of having 2GB of RAM. The same thing happens switching between apps. Many of them fall out of memory within just a few seconds of switching back and forth. My 1GB phone does better than this. Something to do with whatever memory management Asus has set up.
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I understand your frustrations and it could be Asus related buy I think this is how chrome operates generally so it's the browser in my opinion. I suggest you use dolphin browser (not mini version) because it usually preloads pages on my devices and it is fast as well but I usually use it for flash support only. I prefer opera classic (now opera) on my phone with chrome . On my tab, I use chrome only. It always works for me and it's Asus made. Tell me what you think of it after using it a bit . I like chrome for its sync support which is very simple and helpful.
Hnk1 said:
Yes as I mentioned before, if the apps which are preloaded are more than RAM can handle, you'd surely see a lag but killing background apps wouldn't be of much help either unless your RAM memory has too many preloaded apps already which is affecting performance of your phone. If you are rooted, apps like greenify / titanium can hibernate / freeze apps which take up memory and usually this helps in better user interface but again many other argue the opposite.
Are you using Asus Browser ? If yes, I'd suggest to use chrome as your default browser because Asus Browser is not only slow but also it drains a lot of battery. This has been proven extensively and even reviewed on different websites including gsmarena.
Basically Nexus provides pure Android interface which every manufacturer tweaks a bit according to their own needs. Usually this tweaking means more memory usage(Ram) by system UI. This is one reason that Samsung's touch wiz lags a lot on lower end phones but the same hardware runs smooth without touchwiz. The reason is Samsung has lots of tweaks in system UI .
Some browsers conserve memory by only keeping the tab used in memory and rest are loaded when you switch them. They aren't preloaded but usually this option is available in settings to preload pages which would use more memory.
I have preordered the device with 4gb so I'm afraid I can't compare your device with mine in this regard.
Kindly tell me which browsers are you using so I can comment further
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Using Firefox, I read about the stock browser issues before getting the phone.
Clearing ram using the built in booster appears to help with performance, although it could be a placebo, and it's certainly less pronounced than on my previous phone with only 1GB of ram.
I have greenify'd/frozen a lot of apps, including some of the Asus bloatware. No comment on improved performance though.
Overall, I'm happy with the performance but low ram still seems to bother me, although such scenarios are rare.
aloy99 said:
Using Firefox, I read about the stock browser issues before getting the phone.
Clearing ram using the built in booster appears to help with performance, although it could be a placebo, and it's certainly less pronounced than on my previous phone with only 1GB of ram.
I have greenify'd/frozen a lot of apps, including some of the Asus bloatware. No comment on improved performance though.
Overall, I'm happy with the performance but low ram still seems to bother me, although such scenarios are rare.
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I think you are more worried about RAM that is left in your memory rather than actual performance. This can happen especially if you had very high expectations from this phone. According to ASUS, this is a midrange phone on their website. Not a flagship if you are hoping!
I suggest check the performance by installing some heavy graphic games and see if it lags or not. I am sure that would be the best way to find out!
Good Luck!
The browser pages redrawing is almost certainly the lollipop memory leak. I don't have a zenfone 2 yet, but my nexus 7 had this problem up until the release of 5.1, so hopefully Asus updates to that soon.
i notice when i uninstalled clean master..my ram always on 1 gb free unlike before it stays at 650..700 free...notice my phone is even faster now
TOT_tomdora said:
The browser pages redrawing is almost certainly the lollipop memory leak. I don't have a zenfone 2 yet, but my nexus 7 had this problem up until the release of 5.1, so hopefully Asus updates to that soon.
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Correct, thank you for finally making that point clear as it's the main reason, which clearly isn't Asus' fault.
pato2015 said:
i notice when i uninstalled clean master..my ram always on 1 gb free unlike before it stays at 650..700 free...notice my phone is even faster now
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An ironic, yet awesome find pato!:thumbup: Be sure to relay this to the other places on the net that you're involved with that pertains to the Zenfone 2.
Sent from the Ace's MB865 using Tapatalk
I can live with the Nexus 5X' relative sluggishness when compared to the Nexus 5, but what really stops me from doing my work is the phone killing apps when I switch between them.
Example: I may be filling out a form on a website in Firefox for Android. I need to look up a word in the dictionary, so I switch over to the dictionary and look up the word. When I switch back to Firefox, the application has obviously been killed, as it reloads the page.
Example2: I'm listening to the Audio version of the Economist via the Economist app. The speaker mentions a certain placename and I open the Google Maps app in order too find where it is on the map. Suddenly the audio will stop playing - the app has been killed.
The above gets considerably worse when switching between more than two apps and is really hindering my work and productivity.
Now this almost never happened on the Nexus 5, which also only had 2 GB of RAM. So is it the power saving feature of the Nexus 5X kicking in? Is there a way to stop it from happening?
Marshmallow simply has very bad RAM management from what I've seen. I used to have the Nexus 5 too and as you said, multitasking was a very good experience on it (especially on Kitkat). Google's OS takes more of the phone's resources after each update (with no major new features or improvements). Marshmallow looks exactly the same as Lollipop, except for the tiny feature of apps permissions, and the Now on tap that I barely use (same for Android pay which I'm sure most of Nexus 5x owners won't even be able to use it outside the US). So I still don't understand why they had to jump so fast to a new version of Android while Lollipop still had a ****load of bugs that need fixing, they could've worked more on Lollipop to perfect it first then give us Marshmallow after 2 years maybe, we're not in a hurry.. I just hope they don't stop again at Marshmallow 6.1/6.2 or something and introduce Android N *sigh*
Sounds like you have more user installed apps with constantly running background services installed that the phone can comfortably handle with 2GB memory.
Check the memory stats in Settings - if the average over all the time options is 1.6GB or above used then your phone is going to struggle and cached apps are going to be getting cleared out when switching regularly. Look down the list particulary for apps running close to 100% of the time with a big RAM fingerprint. Also check running services in developer settings to get an idea of what is running a service all of the time.
Once you've identified the worst offenders make that difficult decision - is the apps utility worth it for the impact on performance. Consider reporting the memory use to the developer, particularly if it's much lower after a reboot and increases over time. Plenty of playstore apps ship with clear memory leak issues.
Other than that the other option is reasonably regular reboots to keep the system fresh and clear out any memory leaks.
thanks for the suggestion. Well here's the top 5:
Android operating system 524 MB
Wechat 156 MB
Firefox 117 MB
System UI 105 MB
Android system 99 MB
Clearly it's mostly the system using all resources. Firefox and Wechat, sure, I find them rather essential to my life, but together they don't even use as much as the OS.
Thing is, I can't remember this happening on the Nexus 5.
Sounds like you may have some apps using up a lot of your memory. I haven't been seeing any redraws with my apps, even 24+ hours of sitting in the background. The other day I was switching between gaming, streaming a live sporting even, and text messaging and the phone didn't drop a beat despite the game alone using 600MB of RAM.
Are those the average RAM or peak?
that's what shows up when I get the details of the RAM usage through settings
still this never happened on the Nexus 5, at least I can't remember
Yeah, I have a hard time believing it's the apps. I never had this issue come up in my Moto X 2013 (also 2 GB of RAM) using the same apps. We're seriously talking about one app open, switching to another app. No reason switching back to the first app should have everything reload.
Unless by "some apps," you mean that they have somehow not been optimized for Marshmallow in some way or other. But the apps simply running a process? A smartly-made OS (Lollipop, KitKat) will know "Hey, we have to kill something to free up RAM? Why don't we kill an app that hasn't been used in a while?" and a less-smartly-made OS (perhaps Marshmallow...?) will think "Hey, we have to kill something to free up RAM... why don't we kill the app the user just used?"
And there are two figures there - average and peak - which are those?
If there are the averages rather than peak then both Firefox and Wechat have got a problem.
---------- Post added at 06:42 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:34 AM ----------
Marshmallow and Lollipop low RAM behaviour is pretty much identical and quite aggressive (the OS tries to preserve quite a chunk of free memory which is uses on the sly as a display buffer), KitKat was less aggressive.
I don't have any problem multitasking on my Nexus5x, but then again for the apps I've got when I check the memory tab I'm normally averaging 1.2-1.4GB used and 400-600MB average memory free so there is plenty of space for the OS to gracefully cache and uncache processes. If the phone is normally running at 1.5GB-1.6GB used and 200-300MB then the LMK is going to be kicking in frequently. It kicks in at around 250MB free on a Nexus5x.
It was the default setting, i.e. average. HM ok good to know. It's happening quite often when listening to the Economist too. Which is really bull****, it should treat it as audio playing. Why would Android kill your music.
I agree music players don't get the priority they should, although that particular 'bug' at least gives a clear symptom that lack of free RAM is an issue, if not the cause of the issue e.g. the OS, to many running services from user apps, or a particular user app with memory leak issues.
I came to the Nexus5x from a 1GB Moto G where it was almost impossible to keep background music running in combination with navigation after Lollipop without uninstalling pretty much everything else user installed and have got used to monitoring the RAM footprint and behaviour of apps as a result.
I've suffered the problem once since I've had the Nexus5x and that was due to the music player (Soundcloud) being a memory hog (120MB+) with it's background music player service coupled with a memory leak in the driving app I was testing at the time - Automate - it was peaking at 460MB use.
I'm not so precious about what is installed now but anything that wants to run a constant service either has to be tiny when running that service or absolutely fundamental to my use of the device.
I find this to be the worst problem .We want to kill our apps like we are use to.Switching between email and chrome is horrible especially when you have to start your application all-over again (submission request) Hopefully some XDA member will figure out how to solve this issue. For now I am testing DEVELOPER OPTIONS allow running
apps in background ? Anyone know what the default value is??
Hey,
So I've been using my Nexus 5x with much pleasure but lately it's getting impossible to switch tasks fast, because they're all closing because of memory shortage. Looking in my settings it shows me that Android OS (780mb), play services (150mb) and Android system (140mb) and System UI (90mb) together take up almost 1,2GB of the 1,8gb memory. I don;t know if this is related to me being in the preview program (and having a lot of preview images updates over the last year) or it's just that the newer Android takes up more memory.
I'm pondering stepping out of the bèta program and reflashing the stock rom, but I was wondering if any of you can shed some light if this will actually help.
Thanks!
eldinnie said:
Hey,
So I've been using my Nexus 5x with much pleasure but lately it's getting impossible to switch tasks fast, because they're all closing because of memory shortage. Looking in my settings it shows me that Android OS (780mb), play services (150mb) and Android system (140mb) and System UI (90mb) together take up almost 1,2GB of the 1,8gb memory. I don;t know if this is related to me being in the preview program (and having a lot of preview images updates over the last year) or it's just that the newer Android takes up more memory.
I'm pondering stepping out of the bèta program and reflashing the stock rom, but I was wondering if any of you can shed some light if this will actually help.
Thanks!
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It's part of the new method for ram management. It's normal. You'll notice those take up tons of ram even on a fresh install. Over time the more apps you install the more processes they auto start. This is what will cause those things to happen. For me I noticed for example first when the HDR processing of taking a picture would push hangouts out of memory even when I was actively talking voice, it just wasn't in the front running. Android does much like windows now in claiming lots of memory to better manage and allocate it as needed
Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk
On a fresh boot, my phone takes up 1.2GB of RAM, and quickly rises to ~1.4-1.5GB. It usually says there, as I don't use a lot of apps, so I'm not multitasking a lot. It's pretty odd compared to my other devices that use anywhere from 500-700MB of RAM for the OS, but it seems to do it's job just fine nonetheless.
Side note, since I don't have a lot of Apps, and I'm not concerned about RAM usage, I've disabled zram and ksm. Haven't noticed any difference, TBH.
crazyates said:
On a fresh boot, my phone takes up 1.2GB of RAM, and quickly rises to ~1.4-1.5GB. It usually says there, as I don't use a lot of apps, so I'm not multitasking a lot. It's pretty odd compared to my other devices that use anywhere from 500-700MB of RAM for the OS, but it seems to do it's job just fine nonetheless.
Side note, since I don't have a lot of Apps, and I'm not concerned about RAM usage, I've disabled zram and ksm. Haven't noticed any difference, TBH.
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On a fresh boot it loads every apps auto start process. So that doesn't change anything at all. I am not talking about apps using ram from being run. I'm talking about all the processes they have that are triggered and restart when things occur.
Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk