Help Sudden slowdown of Samsung Galaxy Portal

[drphil]

Hi all,

Got my phone a few weeks ago and haven't done that much to it, other than getting shot of the "3" brand firmware.

Got my internet access last week and downloaded a few things and I have noticed a dramatic lag since. Not sure what has caused it or what should be removed. Rather than strip everything off again I thought I'd ask here.

What I have added;

Launcher/Home
ADW Launcher

Apps
Currency Converter
BBC Sport news
Ebay
ESPN ScoreCenter
Twitter
Facebook

Games
Solitaire
Robo Defence (free version)
Paper Toss
Jewels
Basketball Shot
Abduction

Task Killer
Advanced Task Killer (free)

Pics/backgrounds
About 25 pictures, all 480x640 size jpegs.

I now have a delay when doing anything. If I turn the phone sideways, it takes about 1 second to flip to landscape. If I enter messaging or contacts, also a 1 second delay. Haven't had any freesing or force closes, except when I downloaded a different launcher, which I then uninstalled.

Also I created a folder on one screen and put shortcuts to all the games in it, yesterday it stopped working. When I clicked on the folder it just highlighted but didn't open. I could still access the games through the main list but the folder just wouldn't respond so I dumped it.

Are all the pics and games etc stored on the phone itself or on the micro SD? I.e. would a bigger micro-SD have any impact or is that purely for media storage, pics and songs etc?

Finally, am I missing something with the task killer? It has an icon in the status bar, when I open it up it gives a list of running applications etc and the option to "kill" them. Isn't the point of the task killer to kill these unnecessary things automatically rather than having to be told all the time?

I'm not looking to mod my phone extensively to make it lightning fast, I just want the same responsiveness that it had at the start! As I said, I can remove all the things I installed, (although I'd rather not remove Robo Defence as I have some points accumulated!) but I'm hoping for some advice that may avoid that!

 

[paulscott]

Ive got a portal on 3 too, mine is running the 2.1 it came with and I've always had that crap delay on rotation (turned it off) and when entering texts it can take up to 3 or 4 seconds. Apps are stored in the phones internal memory and your music and pictures are on the SD card. Getting a new SD card will have no improvement on performance. Unfortunately I think the problem is its just not the most powerful phone. Try LauncherPro, its a gigantic improvement over the stock pantheon, not sure about it in comparison to ADW though.

As for the task killer, have a read of this http://androidboss.com/android-and-task-killers-dont/

 

[drphil]

Unfortunately I think the problem is its just not the most powerful phone.

But mine was fine when I got it, fine after the debrand, only started having the delay after I started downloading stuff. I just wondered if it was something specific that caused the slowdown or if it's just something that will happen once you load it up. But I haven't loaded it up much, I dread to think what it would be like if I downloaded a few dozen apps!

Try LauncherPro, its a gigantic improvement over the stock pantheon, not sure about it in comparison to ADW though.

I downloaded LauncherPro first but it wouldn't run at all, just force closed all the time so I dumped it and tried ADW.

Interesting about the task killer, I wonder if that is what is slowing me down!

 

[paulscott]

I have very very similar things installed on mine (abduction, bbc, robodefence) and mine has remained sort of slow from the beginning, although launcher pro made a really good improvement over the utter nonsense that is the pantheon launcher. I really wanted an HTC desire but couldnt afford the price plan haha

What version of android do you have as well?

 

[drphil]

I have very very similar things installed on mine (abduction, bbc, robodefence) and mine has remained sort of slow from the beginning, although launcher pro made a really good improvement over the utter nonsense that is the pantheon launcher. I really wanted an HTC desire but couldnt afford the price plan haha

What version of android do you have as well?

What version etc of LauncherPro do you have? Maybe I had an older version, was yours free? Not sure why mine kept crashing.

I'm version 2.1 too, only got it about 3 weeks ago.

 

[paulscott]

I've got version 38 of Launcherpro, and the free version, there are updates all the time.

 

[drphil]

My mistake, it was Helix Launcher I tried before and it wouldn't work.

Installed LauncherPro now. No difference in speed, but I do prefer the look of it so I chucked ADW.

Uninstalled the task killer too, will see how it goes.

 

[hippo_potamus]

Try not using the task killer or configure it to only kill apps and not system related tasks on manual mode. The OS should take care of things for you.

 

[drphil]

Try not using the task killer or configure it to only kill apps and not system related tasks on manual mode. The OS should take care of things for you.

All it ever listed for "killing" were things like messaging, browser, calculator etc.

Have since stopped using it, makes no difference to the general sluggishness of the phone.

 

[paulscott]

All it ever listed for "killing" were things like messaging, browser, calculator etc.

Have since stopped using it, makes no difference to the general sluggishness of the phone.

Hmm I have no idea now, if you still cant find anything after some more looking about maybe you should look at custom ROMs for the performance boost.

 

[Poopyfist]

You say it started after you began downloading things, my first instinct based on that is to assume virus - but I haven't heard much of anything about viruses on the Android OS. I have seen on the marketplace several free anti-virus apps, it may be worth it to download one and run a quick scan.

 

[Hutchy]

I've got one of these too and found that performance improved somewhat once I had removed the E-bay app.

 

[XplosiV]

Try turning off background data. I only ever enable that when I need to access market.

Also disable auto sync of google mail, calender etc.

Lastly try removing all widgets from your home screens, again they use background data.

See if that speeds your phone up. other than that, flash it, and root it, and get yourself a mod from the samdroid kitchen ;--)