Does live wallpaper contribute to battery drain more so than regular wallpaper?
I am guessing it might as it probably requires more system resources to run.
Sent from my SGH-T989 using XDA App
jordanishere said:
Does live wallpaper contribute to battery drain more so than regular wallpaper?
I am guessing it might as it probably requires more system resources to run.
Sent from my SGH-T989 using XDA App
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Yes.
A normal picture will conserve most battery.
On an AMOLED screen a dark (best black) picture will conserve even more.
It really depends on the live wallpaper. I notice no extra battery drain with MultiPicture LWP, but it only shows images. While it does run in the background and updates every 4 hours or when I double tap the screen, it isn't constantly moving or interactive with sensors.
Something that is constantly moving (especially at a high frame rate) or uses the accelerometer will use more battery life.
If there is battery drain with MultiPicture LWP, it's so minimal that I don't notice a difference.
Supersonic Evo 4G | MIUI | Tapatalk
How long do you sit staring at your Homescreen? Most of the time it's as long as it takes to launch the app that you want to use, isn't it? Which shouldn't be long at all.
on cm7 nexus live wallpaper i notice no additional battery drain at all. Setting screen timeout to under 1min helps alot too
What about those stock live wallpapers from Samsung like the Galaxy live wallpaper or Northern Lights wallpaper, do they consume so much more than normal wallpapers?
Like how much more?
If normal wallpaper with normal use of the phone drains the battery in 24 hours, will one with stock Live wallpapers like the two I mentioned, make it 23 hours?
Or is it so drastic that it will make it 20 hours?
Hours are only for reference.
Thanks.
Just try it out, go airplane mode, screen always on, both types of wallpapers for say 2-3 hours compare battery drain.
DirkGently said:
How long do you sit staring at your Homescreen? Most of the time it's as long as it takes to launch the app that you want to use, isn't it? Which shouldn't be long at all.
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This is exactly the point I wanted to inquire about.
Question: how exactly does the process of live wallpaper work on Android in terms of cpu and memory, thus battery drain?- not being a developer, I really don't know the particulars.
In other words, if the home screen isn't actually being displayed (say, the phone is "asleep", or you have an app open, like the browser, the dialer, or Angry birds) does the LWP process still run full bore in the background, calculating it's fractals or whatever? Or is it suspended whenever the home screen isn't displayed?
For that matter, even if it does remain running in the background, which of these is likely to consume more battery: the algorithm/calculation processes, or the actual manipulation of the pixels on the display? (I realize that may depend somewhat on the nature of the wallpaper too).
Because like Dirk said up above, I really don't think anyone spends that much time on their phone with the home screen just sitting there, (you're either using it or you're not) so if it's the latter case -if manipulating pixels eats the most juice- then for the most part, LWP shouldn't have much impact on battery drain. If the former, then static wallpapers are certainly better, but I still don't see a need for a plain black background. Unless you have an insane screen timeout set, like 10 minutes.
Anyone? Thanks!
Its actually very subjective due to phone, apps installed and running, as well as the live wall paper you are using during that time..
For myself i do use some of the live wallpapers from the phone itself and for some better programmed ones, it may take up 2 - 3% of battery when running for about 5 hrs. Badly designed ones or those which come with ads do take up lots more, remember one i downloaded took up to 15% battery for the same time frame.
If you are particular for battery life.. i would suggest to use those darker themed wall papers as it does make some difference overall.. at least to me
Yeah, my battery life has been abysmal, I just inherited this phone (SCH-i500) from a family member; but after a little conditioning, it does seem to be improving somewhat.
Anyway, then can I assume you're saying that some live wallpapers hit on the battery even when they're not being displayed?
personally, i don't find using LWP affects my battery in any significant manner... given that i use LWP that display simple looping animations. Some LWP make use of your accelero/gyro sensors and some consume some extra resources due to touch interaction. I personally think these are the LWP to avoid though they appears to be a great eye candy.
Then again, each time i wake my phone, i would only stay approx 1-3 seconds on home screen before running an app or performing another task rendering my LWP useless.
In my understanding, just because an app(including LWP) is in your memory(ram) or in the "running" list in app manager, does not mean its using up your battery. Its the process that requires CPU that consumes power. And once you're away from homescreen, they LWP rendering stops almost(if not) immediately thus does not consume your battery that much. I also believe that bright coloured or high contrast(white focus) LWP(or even regular wallpaper) will use up more battery given that most of our battery issues comes from big displays.
Hevlaska said:
In my understanding, just because an app(including LWP) is in your memory(ram) or in the "running" list in app manager, does not mean its using up your battery. Its the process that requires CPU that consumes power. And once you're away from homescreen, they LWP rendering stops almost(if not) immediately thus does not consume your battery that much. I also believe that bright coloured or high contrast(white focus) LWP(or even regular wallpaper) will use up more battery given that most of our battery issues comes from big displays.
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Thanks hevlaska, this is the information I was looking for. Seems to me then that a relatively non-interactive LWP shouldn't be a drain on the battery.
Nymblz said:
In other words, if the home screen isn't actually being displayed (say, the phone is "asleep", or you have an app open, like the browser, the dialer, or Angry birds) does the LWP process still run full bore in the background, calculating it's fractals or whatever? Or is it suspended whenever the home screen isn't displayed?
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This really depends of the developer. The most important method of a wallpaper is
Code:
onVisibilityChanged()
That method is called whenever the wallpaper is hidden behind other application or comes back visible. When going unvisible all the processes of WP should be terminated but this is allway not the case if the WP is designed badly.
So, even if you hide your wallpaper it may still have some cpu heavy process running if the developer has decided to do so.
a static image its a better solution for more battery
mikpel said:
This really depends of the developer. The most important method of a wallpaper is
Code:
onVisibilityChanged()
That method is called whenever the wallpaper is hidden behind other application or comes back visible. When going unvisible all the processes of WP should be terminated but this is allway not the case if the WP is designed badly.
So, even if you hide your wallpaper it may still have some cpu heavy process running if the developer has decided to do so.
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Okay, so this was the information I was really looking for.. Thank you!
Now if it were just easy to look at the source code of the files inside a LPW apk to see how that's been set.. I've seen threads here on that but apparently dex files are a PITA, and besides that there's the whole reverse-engineering stigma.. not that I'd want to do that even if I could.. which I can't. (I have no head for programming, I've tried)
That said, I've found this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=14049173
I guess if I get really, really curious.. for what it's worth, I could try it. I'm a fan of Magic Smoke and Plasma, I'd use those if the onVisibilityChanged() is set in them.
hi,
i use a static pic as background and an non stock battery to.
it works perfect. So now it's your turn to take the things you want. More Battery vs. LWP.
Related
I was playing yesterday with some normal wallpapers instead of my normal live ones and noticed that when I do not use a Live Wallpaper and I go to my huge list of applications, the scrolling if amazingly smooth but when I have a Live wallpaper it is a bit choppy for my taste.
Anyone else noticed this?
My Quadrant and Neocore scores do not change though.
My biggest complain with Live Wallpapper is the excessive battery usage. It seems the live wallpaper will be active whenever screen is on, even if the an application is running and the wall paper is invisibile.
I thought that too but the fact that I still get the same scores with benchmarks seems to indicate it does not affect apps but only the main interface or something.
Did you notice different scrolling smoothness?
foxbat121 said:
My biggest complain with Live Wallpapper is the excessive battery usage. It seems the live wallpaper will be active whenever screen is on, even if the an application is running and the wall paper is invisibile.
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This is NOT true. The live wallpaper is not active while an app is in the foreground. A way to see this is to run System or a task manager and look at the CPU of the live wallpaper when you're in the task manager...0%
mobilehavoc said:
This is NOT true. The live wallpaper is not active while an app is in the foreground. A way to see this is to run System or a task manager and look at the CPU of the live wallpaper when you're in the task manager...0%
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I beg to differ. I've run a 1-hour GPS navigation on the phone. Afterwards, I checked the battery usage chart, the live wall paper is second highest on the list of battery hogs, right behind the screen display. I never linger on home screen for more that a few seconds. So, it is either the Live wall paper use battery extremly fast in that a few seconds, or it is active and suck battery juice while sitting in the background.
Ok and can either of you confirm my smooth scrolling question? lol
foxbat121 said:
I beg to differ. I've run a 1-hour GPS navigation on the phone. Afterwards, I checked the battery usage chart, the live wall paper is second highest on the list of battery hogs, right behind the screen display. I never linger on home screen for more that a few seconds. So, it is either the Live wall paper use battery extremly fast in that a few seconds, or it is active and suck battery juice while sitting in the background.
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Which live wallpaper are you using? If it's a 3rd party from market maybe it's not working properly. If you use any of the ones that come with the phone out of the box, you won't have this issue.
I don't use any 3rd party ones. The m moving water is the one I used.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
foxbat121 said:
I don't use any 3rd party ones. The m moving water is the one I used.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
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That is all nice but can someone do a very quick test to confirm the main question...if your apps scroll choppier ? That is using Launcher Pro +
foxbat121 said:
My biggest complain with Live Wallpapper is the excessive battery usage. It seems the live wallpaper will be active whenever screen is on, even if the an application is running and the wall paper is invisibile.
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Strange, my LP (stock or 3rd party) has never been more than 2-3% battery usage.
shaolin95 said:
That is all nice but can someone do a very quick test to confirm the main question...if your apps scroll choppier ? That is using Launcher Pro +
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I switched from live wallpapers recently, icons don't seem to be extremely choppy, the screen catches a bit of lag when I swiped it back and forth though. When I changed to a still background I didn't catch any lag. It effects it a little but not enough to not use the live wallpapers because of it. I don't use live wallpapers because of battery usage
shaolin95 said:
I was playing yesterday with some normal wallpapers instead of my normal live ones and noticed that when I do not use a Live Wallpaper and I go to my huge list of applications, the scrolling if amazingly smooth but when I have a Live wallpaper it is a bit choppy for my taste.
Anyone else noticed this?
My Quadrant and Neocore scores do not change though.
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I have noticed a SIGNIFICANT change in performance after choosing a static wallpaper! Swiping different home screens and opening up the app drawer is buttery smooth with launcher pro. I concur with your assertion shaolin
wuxingwarrior3 said:
I have noticed a SIGNIFICANT change in performance after choosing a static wallpaper! Swiping different home screens and opening up the app drawer is buttery smooth with launcher pro. I concur with your assertion shaolin
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Thanks mate...yeah is annoying because i know the phone is not really struggling to do the wallpaper as no matter how simple or complicated the live wallpaper is, the not so smooth scrolling issue remains the same at least to my eyes.
I just went with a static one for now since I like the super smooth response time
E_man5112 said:
Strange, my LP (stock or 3rd party) has never been more than 2-3% battery usage.
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Like I mentioned, you have to leave screen on for a long time, like doing a navigation. 2~3% is still big percentage of battery usage for the little time it is on (when you doing nothing but leave it on home screen).
i have mario live wall paper running all the time, or if not the VR tunnel one, and the phone runs very smoothly, no lag
stock JH2, no fix of any kind
shaolin95 said:
I was playing yesterday with some normal wallpapers instead of my normal live ones and noticed that when I do not use a Live Wallpaper and I go to my huge list of applications, the scrolling if amazingly smooth but when I have a Live wallpaper it is a bit choppy for my taste.
Anyone else noticed this?
My Quadrant and Neocore scores do not change though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Please note that this is not a matter of not been smooth is a matter of not being as smooth when scrolling with Launcher Pro at least.
I did not notice it was not as smooth until I tried a non live wallpaper myself.
It is kind of what happens with that Asphalt game...most people feel it is very smooth with the latest 3.1.8 version until they try 3.1.3 which was the last one that did hardware accelaration then they notice how much smoother it can really be.
I did notice the difference and it was very annoying.
Live wallpaper would actually freeze on some 3rd party wallpapers until I did the 1 click fix and ever since then I have zero issues.
It's like a different phone.
Static wallpapers give me much, much smoother desktop performance when swiping around the screens. The other big reason that I got rid of live wallpapers is because I use Weather & Toggle Widget, and with the live wallpaper running the weather animations are super choppy and laggy. The cloud animations especially are not all that smooth to begin with, so the live wallpaper just seems to make it worse.
Has anyone installed this CPU temp & usage widget only to notice your CPU usage gets stuck @99% usage? How accurate is the info in this widget? Is it because I have no task killer on my device & there may be several processes running in the background? I notice the CPU usage is down under 50% after a restart or boot up. Can someone add any enlightening information please.
Sent from my Inspire 4G using XDA Premium App
if you are referring to Temp+CPU yes I have been using it for ages. its not what is making you CPU go high, unless you have refresh for it set really fast. mine is currently set for 1sec
Hi Bro, i recommend Elixir app, that what are you looking.
it wouldnt let me edit the post.
also if you refresh is set to a really long interval, it will appear to be stuck at 99% of its 99% at the polling time, and will say that for the duration its set at.
no need for a task killer. i personally use startup manager (be careful as the freebie is a trial and if it expires you cant undo what it changed easily) to prevent things i rarely/never use from starting up. a good writeup on why to not use task killers specific to android. i used *nix for years so i didnt even bother looking for a task killer. in nix within a day your ram is full and always stays full. its managed beautifully and makes multitasking a breeze
http://geekfor.me/faq/you-shouldnt-be-using-a-task-killer-with-android/
Hi Guys
I'm after a battery widget that is just a battery widget. I don't want one that reports back what my battery usage was all night just a widget to sit on home screen I can click that gives me information of the current battery status such as percentage left and battery temp.
I used to have a HTC one on stock sense 3.0 but since I've upgraded to ICS using ARHD i can't get the widget anymore. I got the old widget from htc sense app but I don't have this anymore.
I use this one https://play.google.com/store/apps/...o#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDUwMSwiY2NjNzEuYm13LnBybyJd it sounds like it will do what you want. The link is for the paid version, but you can also download a free version.
BMW & current widget are the more popular 1s...
Do the above all sit in the background though and use up my resources. I'm after a good reporting tools really rather than a 24 hour battery reporting tool.
I'll give the suggested a go though and see how it goes
Here's one that does nothing but report battery percentage and can be set to read temperature. https://play.google.com/store/apps/...UwMSwibmV0Lm1haWNhcy5hbmRyb2lkLmJhdHRlcnlzIl0. It uses little if any resources. I keep it on my main home screen just for reference.
stev32k said:
Here's one that does nothing but report battery percentage and can be set to read temperature. https://play.google.com/store/apps/...UwMSwibmV0Lm1haWNhcy5hbmRyb2lkLmJhdHRlcnlzIl0. It uses little if any resources. I keep it on my main home screen just for reference.
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Thats exactly what I'm after!! thanks Stev32k!!
shame its not the fancy HTC one but maybe they'll release it again on the new htc sense app.
I use current widget...not sure if it is what you are looking for, but I find it very useful to monitor battery draining applications.
System info widget is good. Shows batt, temp, phone storage, SD storage and ram. I think its 99cents
sent from space
Hello Guys! Since your talking about battery widget i have a question: after the ICS update on my sensation the stock battery indicator turns to orange color below 20% ( before it was 25%) but i cant find any battery app that show the same animation, all of them turn to orange below 25%! any seggestions??
Brand new to Android coming from iOS. Battery life is an issue. Reading up. Ran Carat and found the Battery Percentage App I installed was identified as a Battery Hog itself! Going to run a couple more days before using something like JuiceDefender Plus.
How essential are these processes?
GO SMS Pro (does it always have to be running? should I dump it and go back to stock messaging app?)
HTS Sense (assume no way around this except custom ROM)
TegraZone
Google Services
Media
Maps (Haven't even run G Maps once yet!)
Swiftkey 3 - wow, takes up 19MB. Hope it is really THAT much better than HTC keyboard?
And odd thing is that in many cases, I can't see how you close the app, let alone, REALLY close it. Of course this was no different than iOS, when you closed it, it still was in memory in the background so it would resume when you brought it back up. On iPhone you press the Home button to close it and go back to the spring board. Same here? I know - dumb newbie question.
jazee said:
Brand new to Android coming from iOS. Battery life is an issue. Reading up. Ran Carat and found the Battery Percentage App I installed was identified as a Battery Hog itself! Going to run a couple more days before using something like JuiceDefender Plus.
How essential are these processes?
GO SMS Pro (does it always have to be running? should I dump it and go back to stock messaging app?)
HTS Sense (assume no way around this except custom ROM)
TegraZone
Google Services
Media
Maps (Haven't even run G Maps once yet!)
Swiftkey 3 - wow, takes up 19MB. Hope it is really THAT much better than HTC keyboard?
And odd thing is that in many cases, I can't see how you close the app, let alone, REALLY close it. Of course this was no different than iOS, when you closed it, it still was in memory in the background so it would resume when you brought it back up. On iPhone you press the Home button to close it and go back to the spring board. Same here? I know - dumb newbie question.
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It's not a dumb question at all. Android uses a different system to manage memory, and does a good job. To get better battery life, look at your settings and turn off automatic syncing, gps, location services, etc. The problem is that not all the time you will have wifi/data. The phone constantly is looking for data and that uses battery as well. You can kill the maps in the task manager, but it might restart itself when you reboot and update the app, and there's no way around this unless you root your phone.
To find the task manager, go into the apps menu, and look for Task Manager. You can completely kill apps from there, but I wouldn't worry about it too much, android does a good job most of the time. For those apps that are stubborn it's good for.
If you don't want to root, try going into settings and then apps. You can disable apps that you might consider "bloatware" such as AT&T apps and youtube, etc.
jazee said:
Brand new to Android coming from iOS. Battery life is an issue. Reading up. Ran Carat and found the Battery Percentage App I installed was identified as a Battery Hog itself! Going to run a couple more days before using something like JuiceDefender Plus.
How essential are these processes?
GO SMS Pro (does it always have to be running? should I dump it and go back to stock messaging app?)
HTS Sense (assume no way around this except custom ROM)
TegraZone
Google Services
Media
Maps (Haven't even run G Maps once yet!)
Swiftkey 3 - wow, takes up 19MB. Hope it is really THAT much better than HTC keyboard?
And odd thing is that in many cases, I can't see how you close the app, let alone, REALLY close it. Of course this was no different than iOS, when you closed it, it still was in memory in the background so it would resume when you brought it back up. On iPhone you press the Home button to close it and go back to the spring board. Same here? I know - dumb newbie question.
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Click to collapse
Actually on iPhone you don't just press home, you double click home hold the app when a minus comes up then you close it.wow I never knew how many clueless people could be with an iphone..anyways for the HTC one x you press the capacitive button to the right of home then you swipe up on the app to quit it.Now If you want to permanately remove bloatware/other processes, you have to root the phone ...although juice defender ult is a great app..the one x battery is great for me..even when I was on stock..maybe turn off fastboot( in power settings) turn off all the sound, Screen brightness low, touch settings(vibrate when keys touched..etc).check push notifications manually.. believe me android is more productive in battery life then IOS. Hope I helped. A thanks would be appreciated
Ya, I knew how to close apps in background on iPhone, just didn't explain it right. To bad there's nothing close to Intelliscreen X for Android. Really miss the collapsible notification widgets on the lockscreen. Widgetlock with Tesla Unread Counter is a step in the right direction. I guess with such a small screen the iPhone developers have always been forced to get creative with how the apps use screen space. Those guys at Intelliborn really pulled off an amazing app. Too bad none of the people that have not jailbroken their iPhones can use it.
Battery life is much much better now (still in first 24 hours of usage). Not sure what I had running, but it could have been the Battery Percentage App I downloaded that Carat listed on the Battery "Hogs" list that I uninstalled. Ironic a battery meter would cause much more battery drain. Unfortunately I read than on HTC they have no option to switch to % where other phone do. Haven't used JuiceDefender Plus yet, but maybe that will give me the info. The battery icon is so worthless for knowing "really" how much you have left except for a general estimate.
Oh and THANKS on the swipe up thing. Is there a "must know" guide for "power users" coming over from iOS to Android/Jelly Bean that would tell me more of this stuff. I never would have guessed it and was flip through the apps wondering "how the hell to I close all these?" Still in my first day though. Man this phone is fast.
Well, battery was doing great then I wasn't doing much with phone and could feel it get hot. I watched Battery go from 85-65 in about 30 minutes! I went into Carat and saw high CPU, but you can't see from Carat what is eating the CPU so downloaded Android Task Manager, great app. Used realtime processes report. Of course #1 CPU eater is the Process Monitor itself (only when you are looking at it). But I was seeing the PowerAmp "Service", "Music Enhancer" and "Sound Set" and "HD Widgets" all very active in CPU usage. Wasn't using PowerAmp or HD Widgets. Haven't even used any of the widgets!
Is there something other than carat that will give me an average CPU usage say in the last hour of all the background services and processes so I can determine what's eating the battery in a short period of time - or am I stuck just looking at realtime process info?
It looks like from a brief search PowerAmp service is "normal". I have a HUGE MP3 library of 3000 songs I just synced yesterday - is gradually processing them or something? I also downloaded Neutron Player. Both have excellent sound quality but the Neutron interface is geeky - PowerAmp more like iTunes but I'm an Audiophile so if I have to go to Neutron to avoid this PowerAmp "Service" from eating my battery from time to time I will.
I've been using the app button and the swipe up a lot now to clear out apps - but like iPhone I'm guessing in most cases it doesn't make a huge difference as Android, like iOS sort of sleeps the background apps anyway. Or should I be in the habit of checking and closing background apps not being used? It seems the "services" are what can cause the issue more (other than foreground apps). Still learning. Bare with me.
I'm not a gamer. If there was a setting (without needing root/custom ROM) to underclock the CPU a little, I'd probably take that for more batter life. Seems on the One X+ I'm guessing much of the extra battery capacity is offset by the higher clocked processor! It's probably just a matter of me finishing getting the phone configured the way I want, stop adding apps, then debug the CPU/Battery hogs and uninstall, change settings, or start using JuiceDefender. My guess.
Feel like such a newbie. Found the built-in Android Battery Usage screen. Shows Android Task Manager as using it the most! But I was having the hot temp/battery drain before I even installed that! Second is the Android OS. Third is WL Theme Viewer. That makes sense as that WidgetLock Theme view app created a big database. But the battery drain continued after it was done! Then Sounds Set, HTC Sence, Google Play Store, Carat, HD Widgets. What the hell is HD Widgets doing? So no jump out culprits - except Sound Set seems suspicious!
I'm new to Android 4.3 and recently got a Nexus 7 2nd gen. I'm playing around with my home screen setups and wondered if using multiple widgets on the launcher screens degrades performance?
I have an email, calendar, and weather widget currently on my main screen.
Thanks,
Rick
It depends on your syatem config as long you have good specs you don't have to worry about. But as always they are always running in background and takes up a lot of memory, So yes they somehow degrade overall performance of your device.
mrishantsharma01 said:
It depends on your syatem config as long you have good specs you don't have to worry about. But as always they are always running in background and takes up a lot of memory, So yes they somehow degrade overall performance of your device.
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This is something you could monitoring in the settings area to see the level of memory being consumed correct?
yes they degrade system performence as they on running in background....
Sent from my GT-S5302
C5Longhorn said:
This is something you could monitoring in the settings area to see the level of memory being consumed correct?
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Click to collapse
Yea you got it.
it will just use your RAM as they run in background... also it might consume your battery (depends on the widget)