Need help about this forum and phone maintenance

[steveanderson1357]

Hi y'all. Haven't ventured out of the "phone forums" before so I would like people here to direct me. Would like some insight because I see so many people having problems and there seems to be so few resources. It seems "phone maintenance" is a new subject because it never gets mentioned. This may be android's weakest point--I see no support anywhere. So it seems to me many phone problems may be caused by inadvertent, unwitting, user error, aside from the normal bugs which are bad enough.

To one point: the dumbphones I've had have given me warnings about insufficient phone storage. They have given me "delete some text messages to receive new text messages, etc. Some phones delete oldest automatically. With the multifold increases in phone storage size, many people have just forgotten about it, and I've never seen any instructions in a manual. I'm reading of people with thousands and thousands of thousands of messages. Correct me if I'm wrong. Ok, I've seen the arguments over RAM and task killers and I believe the android developers when they say RAM should be full and that is not an issue. But no discussions about other storage being full. No mention in manuals about limits. No automatic maintenance in android, that I know of. Doesn't a phone correlate to a computer hard drive where a minimum needs to be free? Otherwise crashola?

So first problem is where to put this thread or find an existing thread. Searching for "maintenance" won't find anything but the "usual". So here it is, in the "Android Discussion".

So firstly, how do you find out the internal storage? Normally, only total amounts are given on specs, never usable, except on I believe pdadb.net. As an aside, with the current crops having multi-gig storage, this all may be moot. Will these storage sizes be the norm or will there always be limits? Where is the usable storage listed? And what is the minimum? Is there a desirable threshold that should not be exceeded? And how does the average user without huge storage know that this may be a problem and needs to be maintained. For that matter, any normal phone maintenance that may correspond to normal pc maintenance with any additional items necessary. Is this discussed anywhere? I would appreciate directions to the best place to find more info. Here seems like a good place to start.

[dan330]

yes.. it it is not talked about much.. because android takes care of most of what you talk about.

Quick System Info or Elixir : are some good apps that give you the info you seek. Elixir is powerful and useful, but you need to play with it.

Text messages in 2.2 is automatically deleting 200 sms per contact. You can change this to higher or lower.

RAM size.. yes it does affect your phones performance. Android will attempt to keep managing the apps you activate, but it starts to fall when the RAM falls below 50mbs for active apps. So the more you load the less available for Android to use. From my personal experience, you should try to keep more than 100mb free.

uninstalling apps that you dont need anymore...will help.

2.2 also has apps-to-sd. this can be used to move big chucks of the apps you loaded from the market to the sdcard. Not all apps can be moved. this will help keep more RAM free.

There are bad written apps on the market too.. not many...but some. if you load an app and you notice issues with your phone. Uninstall the last app. see if that helps.

reading in a forum like this.. and searching for issue you have.. can be good too. there are other forums as well. XDA is a good one for rooting and custom modifications.

[takeshi]

Originally Posted by steveanderson1357

Hi y'all. Haven't ventured out of the "phone forums" before so I would like people here to direct me. Would like some insight because I see so many people having problems and there seems to be so few resources. It seems "phone maintenance" is a new subject because it never gets mentioned. This may be android's weakest point--I see no support anywhere.

It's mentioned all the time. Forum sites are your best support and that's not just for Android. I'd say the same for any mobile OS.

Originally Posted by dan330

RAM size.. yes it does affect your phones performance. Android will attempt to keep managing the apps you activate, but it starts to fall when the RAM falls below 50mbs for active apps. So the more you load the less available for Android to use. From my personal experience, you should try to keep more than 100mb free.

10MB of RAM or storage? Either way that number sounds high. Especially for devices with 256MB. This is really going to depend partially on a given person's usage.

Originally Posted by dan330

2.2 also has apps-to-sd. this can be used to move big chucks of the apps you loaded from the market to the sdcard. Not all apps can be moved. this will help keep more RAM free.

No. This keeps storage free. Storage (where apps are installed to and used for cache & data) is not the same as RAM (used to run apps).

[dan330]

^^^ load your "storage" full of apps.. and have it down below 35mb... and then tell me your phone dont lag or start to lock-up.

I know that does seem confusing to me too.. there should be 2 memory areas.. 1GB / 512MB... but for what ever reason... android see them as one big area.. and partitions off what it needs for each.

grab "quick systems info" app. take a look at all the different memory partitions. add them up... you can also see a lot of wasted space .. not usable to us or to android. there is a mod to help reallocate the lost mem back to usable area.
if you want that mod.. search for "Firerat mod"