Realistically, How often should I turn off/restart my S5?

audioyolk · May 6, 2014

Got the galaxy. How often do i need to turn this off or restart this device to ensure a long lifespan/optimal performance? Does it matter whether I actually turn it off for a period of time or just restart it? thnx

John Bean · May 6, 2014

I never restart my phone (Nexus 4) unless something goes wrong - which has happened only twice. Other than that I let it do its own thing with no obvious deterioration in performance between restarts.

I imagine your S5 is no worse than the Nexus in this respect

funkylogik · May 6, 2014

^this
Don't worry about it or try to do anything special, when the screen is off the phone goes to sleep. There are maybe things you could do to improve the battery's life span but they're probably negligible and not worth worrying about especially on a phone like yours with a replaceable battery.
Sometimes a reboot freshens things up but less and less on modern phones.
Reboot if you feel like it, let the battery die if it's gona die, leave it on charge for days if you want...
These are just my opinions though and I'm sure some people will have different opinions but these devices are really tough now :thumbup:

BzB · May 6, 2014

yep android is not like windows in that it needs periodic restarts in order to keep everything running smoothly. i haven't restarted my s5 since i got it on release day a few weeks ago. my s4 was the same way and ran for months on end with the only time turning it off when i couldn't wait for it to charge up and swapped in a fully charged spare battery.

AZgl1500 · May 6, 2014

The only reason to reboot an android phone is IF the phone does not have enough RAM to run multiple processes.

ie, my original Galaxy S, called a Fascinate by Verizon, normally only has about 268 mB of RAM free to run apps in.

If I tried to run more than 2 or 3 apps at the same time, it would lock up. Only thing that got its' attention was to pull the battery.

not so on modern phones, and especially the GS5. They now have gigabytes of RAM.... even the base model with 16 gB still has over 8 gB free to use....

you would have to have an awful lot of stuff running simultaneously to bog it down... not likely to happen.

Just use the Task Bar, Double Menu tap tap, CLOSE ALL, and it will be happy

jmatteis · May 6, 2014

The s5 doesn't have 16 gb of ram. It has 2 gb of ram. It has 16 gb of memory for s ops, music, pictures. Etc.

SporkLover · May 6, 2014

audioyolk said:
Got the galaxy. How often do i need to turn this off or restart this device to ensure a long lifespan/optimal performance? Does it matter whether I actually turn it off for a period of time or just restart it? thnx

I restart it at night before it goes on the charger. Killing apps does not seem to always release RAM back to the non active app level.

SolApathy · May 7, 2014

SporkLover said:
I restart it at night before it goes on the charger. Killing apps does not seem to always release RAM back to the non active app level.

Android is very efficient with managing memory. The only reason you should need to restart your phone is if:

a. You have excessive battery drain (can be caused by misbehaving app)
b. After you so a system update (if the phone does not restart automatically)
c. If you need it to charge as fast as possible

Aside from that the android OS is pretty robust. A lot of the task-killer apps actually cause more battery drain because apps have to restart themselves. There are legitimate times when task-killers work, but for the most part your internal android task management software can handle everything quite well.

Just my opinion

Hadron · May 7, 2014

Yeah, just don't worry. I reboot my HTC One when I update the ROM, otherwise it just runs, and I don't bother with clearing apps either. Unless Samsung have royally messed-up the OS I can't see why the S5 would be any different.

When comparing with old phones remember that they not only had fewer resources but they were running older OS versions. Even 2.2 to 2.3 was a noticeable improvement in memory management, and with modern versions plus a large amount of Ram anyway there really should be no problem.

SporkLover · May 7, 2014

SolApathy said:
Android is very efficient with managing memory. The only reason you should need to restart your phone is if:

a. You have excessive battery drain (can be caused by misbehaving app)
b. After you so a system update (if the phone does not restart automatically)
c. If you need it to charge as fast as possible

Aside from that the android OS is pretty robust. A lot of the task-killer apps actually cause more battery drain because apps have to restart themselves. There are legitimate times when task-killers work, but for the most part your internal android task management software can handle everything quite well.

Just my opinion

I hear what you say and as a staunch no task killing app kind of user, I agree. But when I have no active apps, and no stray processes are running, but I still see mem usage at 90%.... I reset. I do it every night, because otherwise it can cause strange buffering issues on apps like YouTube.

Reset brings it back down to 60%.

androidlover9 · May 8, 2014

I turn my S3 off at least once a day

PainFX · May 8, 2014

is there a difference between reboot vs a soft reset?

jmatteis · May 8, 2014

Mine is also showing about 90% memory usage, with everything closed or killed. I haven't been restarting my phone.

androidlover9 · May 8, 2014

PainFX said:
is there a difference between reboot vs a soft reset?

Judging from the name, soft reset could mean it doesn't fully reboot everything idk.

androidlover9 · May 8, 2014

jmatteis said:
Mine is also showing about 90% memory usage, with everything closed or killed. I haven't been restarting my phone.

Memory as in ram? go to your task manager, hold down the home button for a few seconds then tap task manager, go to the setting that I believe says ram manager, then tap restore ram or something idk

PainFX · May 8, 2014

androidlover9 said:
Judging from the name, soft reset could mean it doesn't fully reboot everything idk.

on iphone, rebooting the phone doesn't make a difference. but a soft reset can solve issues.

androidlover9 · May 8, 2014

PainFX said:
on iphone, rebooting the phone doesn't make a difference. but a soft reset can solve issues.

What? I never understood that confusing OS anyways....

jmatteis · May 8, 2014

androidlover9 said:
Memory as in ram? go to your task manager, hold down the home button for a few seconds then tap task manager, go to the setting that I believe says ram manager, then tap restore ram or something idk

If I hold down my home button goes to my Google page thing.

androidlover9 · May 8, 2014

jmatteis said:
If I hold down my home button goes to my Google page thing.

Oh right! You have a Galaxy S5, okay, press the task manager button (it's on the left beside the home button) then press the thing that says task manager and follow the instructions I told you before and you should be all good

jmatteis · May 8, 2014

androidlover9 said:
Oh right! You have a Galaxy S5, okay, press the task manager button (it's on the left beside the home button) then press the thing that says task manager and follow the instructions I told you before and you should be all good

Yep on mine I long press the multitasking button and it goes to home screen settings where you can move pages and folders. Etc.
And yes I have an s5. This is an s5 forum.

androidlover9 · May 8, 2014

jmatteis said:
Yep on mine I long press the multitasking button and it goes to home screen settings where you can move pages and folders. Etc.
And yes I have an s5. This is an s5 forum.

Don't long press it, just tap it, and press the pie chart! That's what it is! I looked up an image of it lol. (It's in the lower left corner)

SporkLover · May 8, 2014

Soft Reset = Reboot = Restart .... Hard Reset is different... its a Factory reset.

jmatteis · May 8, 2014

androidlover9 said:
Don't long press it, just tap it, and press the pie chart! That's what it is! I looked up an image of it lol. (It's in the lower left corner)

Oh okay. See that now. But with only 2 apps running, this being one of them I'm sitting at using 1.4 of a possible 1.8 gb

androidlover9 · May 8, 2014

jmatteis said:
Oh okay. See that now. But with only 2 apps running, this being one of them I'm sitting at using 1.4 of a possible 1.8 gb

Press the reduce ram option or whatever... Been a while since I used touch wiz

jmatteis · May 8, 2014

androidlover9 said:
Press the reduce ram option or whatever... Been a while since I used touch wiz

Don't see that option at all. Just the apps.

Realistically, How often should I turn off/restart my S5?

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