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I've a buddy of mine that found ATK on his own, installed it, and says he sees a "noticeable" improvement in speed on his Captivate (And he's got the lag fix already). I tried to reason that it's placebo but he does swear, it was a large improvement in speed. I can look online and find other reports of this.
And before you go down that route, he had nothing much more than stock installed (Facebook, etc... Nothing that I don't have).
I've also seen someone go from 8 hours of battery life to 12 hours just by installing ATK.
Explain these.
If Android TRULY managed memory so well, how does someone gain such performance boost from killing the processes?
If ATK was actually detrimental to battery life, why does someone gain more by using it?
I've seen both sides. I haven't noticed any speed differences running ATK compared to not running it.
I have also seen another side that says ATK hurt their battery life.
Seems there's too much conflicting info out there. You can argue til you're blue in the face that "it is negative"... But you cannot deny results some people are saying. So I'm just asking those of you that argue from that perspective... To explain these situations?
TexUs said:
Explain these.
If Android TRULY managed memory so well, how does someone gain such performance boost from killing the processes?
If ATK was actually detrimental to battery life, why does someone gain more by using it?
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Click to collapse
A quick question, does your buddy kill the processes and then let the phone sit? Sure this is going to increase the battery life but so does pulling it from the phone all together.
Bottom line is there is no definitive answer as to the merits of ATK. If you like it, use it.
Most results tend to be anecdotal in nature. Those that get better battery life out of using ATK probably don't realize it's due to ATK killing off bad apps, and not due to freed-up RAM. If Android needs more RAM, it will shut down programs by itself. That 3MB of RAM you freed up with ATK isn't nearly as useful as the fact that same app you just killed was also hogging your CPU. Cause/effect, correlation/causation, etc.
People also get what's ive heard as the "new phone syndrome" where the phone is used constantly the first couple days, and the battery life is then thought to be horrible.
Also tell your buddy to look up settings > about phone> battery usage as the battery is largely affected by voice calls and the screen. A 5 min call uses more than you think.(thus the reasoning behind why I don't use atk)
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
To a large extent battery life, phone, and app performance will always be somewhat subjective. No two people are going to use their phones in the exact same manner. depending on how a person uses their phone and what they have installed on their phone ATK may very well improve their phone's performance - especially if they have a bad acting app on their phone.
As for my personal testing, my phone does better without ATK. However I was a little biased against ATK from the beginning and this could have affected my results. I have used a half dozen different linux distros over the past eight years and while I have many times had to kill or force close an application, I have never needed to manually manage memory. Linux generally does a good job at managing memory and multitasking.
I can't say for your friend, but I was using a task killer for the first month I had the phone, and now I do not. So far performance, and battery life are the same with and without. I finally removed my old task killer and installed watchdog all I have it set to do now is simply alert me if an app is using excessive cpu, which would likely be due to poor app quality anyway. Other than that I've had no issues.
Mercath said:
That 3MB of RAM you freed up with ATK isn't nearly as useful as the fact that same app you just killed was also hogging your CPU. Cause/effect, correlation/causation, etc.
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I guess this is true. I've never seen claims that Android manages CPU, etc effectively, I've just seen claims about the RAM usage.
ageros said:
I can't say for your friend, but I was using a task killer for the first month I had the phone, and now I do not. So far performance, and battery life are the same with and without.
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Click to collapse
That's what I've done as well, and yea... Can't tell a difference with and without (of course I also go "back" out of apps when I'm done).
i dont think it works that well
Has Samsung debloating been quantified or are we operating on an 'action bias'? 'I took action so it MUST be effective. I even perceive more battery life !' This happens when we buy cars, golf clubs, computers and maybe when we debloat?
Has anyone compared two identical phones with identical software and shown before and after performance numbers over a significant time-frame? If not, we may be operating on assumption and action bias. This would be an outstanding XDA study and article.
FWIW I use a non-rooted S6, Nougat, and disabled stock apps and processes I don't need via BK Disabler 3 days ago. Can't perceive any improvement in battery. Had no performance issues before debloating and perceive no improvement post-debloat.
There are many guides on XDA that advertise the wonders of debloating your device, it's not rocket science really, less apps running in the background and less apps waking up the device from sleep equals more battery life out of your device.
Since you've disabled your apps, you can take it to the next step by reading this Well-known guide on getting the most out of your battery.
Good luck
I am currently on stock Android 12. I flashed the unlocked stock image (non-verizon) a few weeks back. With Android 11, Android 12, LineageOS, etc. every browser I have tried including Chrome, Brave, Via, etc. all drain the battery way faster than browsers did on my previous Moto G5 plus. i would say when I am surfing the net on my browser (usually just reading forums, no video), the battery drains about 1% every 5 minutes or less. I have tried 2.4Ghz wifi, LTE, etc. and data connection type doesn't seem to impact anything.
Is this normal for this phone? anything to do to reduce browser battery drain?
If you go into battery usage graph, is the browser the only app listed as using up the battery (and not the screen brightness, or another app that may be contributing to the heavy usage)
JohnC said:
If you go into battery usage graph, is the browser the only app listed as using up the battery (and not the screen brightness, or another app that may be contributing to the heavy usage)
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correct. if I am using other apps the battery drain isn't near as severe. I keep the display setting "extra dim" enabled all the time and I keep it down as low as I can tolerate. I use a pitch black wallpaper use dark mode in browsers so they have mostly black background with white text.
Phone idle is the only other thing that seems to use a sizeable amount of battery according to the battery usage data in settings.
Sounds about right. Came from a Moto G7 Play (15 months back) and saw similar drain rates. All three devices have similar battery specs which plays into the units being used to assess drain. Is what it is.
FWIW - Opera
DB126 said:
Sounds about right. Came from a Moto G7 Play (15 months back) and saw similar drain rates. All three devices have similar battery specs which plays into the units being used to assess drain. Is what it is.
FWIW - Opera
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Not gonna lie, it makes me want to go back to Motorola when this Pixel bites the dust.
badtlc said:
Not gonna lie, it makes me want to go back to Motorola when this Pixel bites the dust.
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Many Moto's bring a nice package with unique tricks. Gotta do your homework on what features are most important when the time comes.
DB126 said:
Many Moto's bring a nice package with unique tricks. Gotta do your homework on what features are most important when the time comes.
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I definitely did that. I only got the 4a because it was the perfect size and had a headphone jack. I assumed with a newer hardware set and similar sized battery compared to my old phone batter life "should" be better. Nope.
Na, it's more complicated. 4a sports more sensors, brighter/denser display, faster processors, etc. System and personal apps clearly play a role in longevity (behind screen brightness); you'd need to do a detail study to understand what's drawing when and why.
I use to fuss over such matters but find the device lasts a full day for my use case which is all that really matters. Charges up quick from a modest size battery pack when camping/traveling. Just like past Motos.
Not sure who I'll partner with in the next dance. Love Pixel cameras (especially in challenging conditions) and routine updates. Miss some of Moto's innovations, like active display and actions. Needs to be close to AOSP; no Samsung UX butchery. In the end form factor will likely be the deciding factor once non-contenders are ruled out.
badtlc said:
I assumed with a newer hardware set and similar sized battery compared to my old phone batter life "should" be better.
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I don't know what CPU you came from, but if the Moto only had "small" cores then of course it used less battery. "Big" cores use more power. They go faster too, but if you have a constant load, then they'll eat battery faster.
I don't know if there's a non-root way to disable the big cores, but I suspect you can do it with root (but don't know for sure).
Otherwise, you gotta get your browser to stop running JavaScript. If you're watching video you need to make sure the browser is offloading all the decoding to the hardware codecs rather than doing it on the CPU.
And if the screen is on, it might help to try and get it "more black" (eg. Use night mode) or turn down the brightness. The screen is often the primary user of power when a device is being used.
a1291762 said:
I don't know what CPU you came from, but if the Moto only had "small" cores then of course it used less battery. "Big" cores use more power. They go faster too, but if you have a constant load, then they'll eat battery faster.
I don't know if there's a non-root way to disable the big cores, but I suspect you can do it with root (but don't know for sure).
Otherwise, you gotta get your browser to stop running JavaScript. If you're watching video you need to make sure the browser is offloading all the decoding to the hardware codecs rather than doing it on the CPU.
And if the screen is on, it might help to try and get it "more black" (eg. Use night mode) or turn down the brightness. The screen is often the primary user of power when a device is being used.
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Thanks for the suggestions. My power complaints are just limited to the browser so I dont think it is just the larger CPUs. I think my standby consumption issues are related to Stock Android as I am now running GrapheneOS and my standby power consumption now matches my old Moto G5 Plus.
As for browser usage consumption, I have tried everything but disabling Javascript. I will try that and see if it breaks anything I use regularly. Thanks for the idea.
tangent back to general power consumption, I typically disable just about everything behind the scenes as I can. I keep the theme on pitch black. I use the extra dim setting to keep screen brightness as low as I can tolerate. I use night mode in browser to keep as much black background as possible. I disable all tap-to-wake or sensor based features. When I was trying to run Android 12, I disabled all the smart services and removed all the google apps I could. I removed all permissions I could. I restricted all apps I could. I disabled adaptive settings, etc. There is a bunch of stuff running in the background on Android 12 and I just could not
Welcome to the future. Older phones had better battery life
Locklear308 said:
Welcome to the future. Older phones had better battery life
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Click to collapse
I dont think it is all the phone. GrapheneOS has 40% better standby battery usage than stock android 12. On graphene, it matches my old Moto G5 Plus. It is either lazy programmers with inefficient coding these days or it is google having the stock OS do waaaay too much by default with no way to disable it.
I'm trying to figure that out now.
badtlc said:
I dont think it is all the phone. GrapheneOS has 40% better standby battery usage than stock android 12. On graphene, it matches my old Moto G5 Plus. It is either lazy programmers with inefficient coding these days or it is google having the stock OS do waaaay too much by default with no way to disable it.
I'm trying to figure that out now.
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I totally agree on the lazy thing. So many devs now days are so lazy. I develope QuickBase databases and constantly run into extremely poorly setup realms/apps. Just basic stuff. Lol
According to some news, the so called "Game Optimizing Service" is availeable on S22 Ultra devices - which potenially controlls about 10.000 Apps of the App-Store.
Can someone confirm if it is installed / active on S22 Ultra on SD & Exynos ?
[Update: Samsung reponds] Galaxy phones appear to be throttling 10,000 Android apps, like OnePlus did
According to recent findings, Samsung is throttling thousands of common Android apps on its Galaxy devices, and without a clear reason.
9to5google.com
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1499009797035008002
Package Disabler Pro
krogoth said:
Package Disabler Pro
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pay for the money greedy developer.
Here's a link to my thread, i debloat Samsung firmware including GOS (Game Optimizing Service) for the best performance and battery.
[DISCONTINUED] Samsung Galaxy One UI - Optimization Guide
THIS IS A SUGGESTED CONFIGURATION FOR SAMSUNG DEVICES OUT OF SUPPORT/CLOSED I - RECOMMENDED SETTINGS To Start With - Factory Reset before starting optimisations - Factory Reset after every Major update (One UI/Android) - Remove SIM before first...
forum.xda-developers.com
I remember that Samsung used something like this in my Note 5 and S7 Edge from Android 6 to limit game performance on purpose.
I advise you all to disable this "optimization".
Reports say that the GOS cannot be disabled the old way b'cos it's now system app since One UI 4.0?
Will it help to uninstall insted of disabling?
You can't disable it in OneUI 4.x
It's part of the Kernel now.
Maybe instead of panicking and basing decisions on headlines and mob mentality you think about the reasons why this might have been done to start with?
Most of if not all of these apps will be very poorly optimised in general but especially for the hardware in the S22 series of devices - this means that left unchecked they will use more resources than they really need to, warming up the devices causing thermal throttling to kick in and draining the battery fast (as well as possibly reducing the lifespan of certain components).
This APK keeps these things in check, but for games where you really need more performance you can use gamebooster to switch to performance mode and recovery virtually all the lost power (if not all of it) - making it your choice to sacrifice heat and battery life for performance when you need it, not all the time.
Yeah, I uninstalled it via ADB but it returns after reboot.
Yeah only thing working from the sounds of it is being rooted and using a package disabler but yeah then you lose widevine currently.
I've disabled all it's permissions including "Change system setting", maybe that helps.
Also here it's mentioned that it's possible to disable the GOS for non-game apps, still waiting for answer to how though:
https://www.reddit.com/r/samsung/comments/t56kta
Lennyuk said:
Maybe instead of panicking and basing decisions on headlines and mob mentality you think about the reasons why this might have been done to start with?
Most of if not all of these apps will be very poorly optimised in general but especially for the hardware in the S22 series of devices - this means that left unchecked they will use more resources than they really need to, warming up the devices causing thermal throttling to kick in and draining the battery fast (as well as possibly reducing the lifespan of certain components).
This APK keeps these things in check, but for games where you really need more performance you can use gamebooster to switch to performance mode and recovery virtually all the lost power (if not all of it) - making it your choice to sacrifice heat and battery life for performance when you need it, not all the time.
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Click to collapse
It is more or less the same discussion as we had with the oneplus 9 pro.
I am not seeing bad intend - but i dont't support the overall approach.
Most of theses apps are poorly optimized .... Even if so: That's none of the OS to take care of - especially not if you can't change / edit the overall parameters as a user on a "per App" Solution. I would love to see MS introduce something like this into windows....
Also the oem now actively could impact the performance of an App and the developer ist reliable anymore: "Well Samsung decided our app has to run like this, thanks for buying the pro version, but we can't help you". Wonderfull. And if Samsung has a bad day - maybe we are dropping the performance of some famous apps even more.... cause samsung would love to push the own alternative. Which includes some new advertising service... One could get creative with this stuff.
The reduction of lifespan is also a argument which is... at least questionable. I would argue that this is then poor product design or use of wrong or not fitting-quality components for the job. Makeing up "flaws" in Hardware by Software isn't really a solution to the overall problem
OK, so apparently this GOS thing is what the "Processing speed" option controls. It enables all apps to run at native speeds. I thought it just raised the clock speeds or something. Hmm..
@omnimax
not really. The thing is that the term - "Game Optimizing Service" is a bit missleading.
It is not about allowing named applications to run "native" or "unristricted". Named applications run with predefined ressourcess which aren't by any means "native". It's not about "raising" clockspeeds. It is about restriction of availeable ressourcces.
Lennyuk said:
Maybe instead of panicking and basing decisions on headlines and mob mentality you think about the reasons why this might have been done to start with?
Most of if not all of these apps will be very poorly optimised in general but especially for the hardware in the S22 series of devices - this means that left unchecked they will use more resources than they really need to, warming up the devices causing thermal throttling to kick in and draining the battery fast (as well as possibly reducing the lifespan of certain components).
This APK keeps these things in check, but for games where you really need more performance you can use gamebooster to switch to performance mode and recovery virtually all the lost power (if not all of it) - making it your choice to sacrifice heat and battery life for performance when you need it, not all the time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nah, this is the same situation as OP did with OP9 series, except US SD user's cant even root and remove it completely so you're stuck at their mercy. If it was configurable, not enabled by default, only affected games and didn't phone home all the time, they might get a pass.... but the way it's implemented is pretty much the definition of malware.
Can't even opt-out
Always runs, with permissions or not.
Phones home with potentially identifying information. (EU people, check out how GDPR is handled here, it's probably not)
Makes your device slow.
The road to hell is paved on good intentions and what not...
I am really amused to see so much discussion on this here on XDA and social media as well. For 98% of the folks, as long as your phone runs smooth and gives you an all day battery life, enjoy it. Many app developers are also not saints. They may leak data and bloat code etc so OEMs need to take the matter in their hands. For avid gamers, they should probably get a gaming machine and use phones only for casual gaming. With current tech limits, gaming on phones will necessitate some tweaks to optimize performance. Apple is polished because it simply stops everything else in the background and focuses ONLY on 1 task on the foreground. And iPhones also do heat up after sometime while gaming.
linom said:
I am really amused to see so much discussion on this here on XDA and social media as well. For 98% of the folks, as long as your phone runs smooth and gives you an all day battery life, enjoy it. Many app developers are also not saints. They may leak data and bloat code etc so OEMs need to take the matter in their hands. For avid gamers, they should probably get a gaming machine and use phones only for casual gaming. With current tech limits, gaming on phones will necessitate some tweaks to optimize performance. Apple is polished because it simply stops everything else in the background and focuses ONLY on 1 task on the foreground. And iPhones also do heat up after sometime while gaming.
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It's really not the OEM's place to "take matter into their own hands". Don't push your use case on everyone else. Samsung does not know my user case, just like Apple does not know my use case, just like YOU don't know my use case. People bought this (and other, like the OP9) phone partially due to benchmark scores that should translate into performance metrics for their use case. When that's not the case, then they should be mad they got a paperweight. Check out the GOS enabled geekscore, it's basically a GS10. Why should users be happy they got a smooth UI experience when the things they actually want to do on a phone is gimped?
Your sentiment on a gaming machine... are you serious? This phone costs more than an actual mid-upper tier gaming PC. Some people like to play games on their phones, and some games are mobile only.
Again, optimizing by itself is not necessarily a bad thing. They just need to make it an opt-in experience, explain what it does clearly, let the users choose which apps to "optimize", and start letting people use their hardware like their own.
craznazn said:
It's really not the OEM's place to "take matter into their own hands". Don't push your use case on everyone else. Samsung does not know my user case, just like Apple does not know my use case, just like YOU don't know my use case. People bought this (and other, like the OP9) phone partially due to benchmark scores that should translate into performance metrics for their use case. When that's not the case, then they should be mad they got a paperweight. Check out the GOS enabled geekscore, it's basically a GS10. Why should users be happy they got a smooth UI experience when the things they actually want to do on a phone is gimped?
Your sentiment on a gaming machine... are you serious? This phone costs more than an actual mid-upper tier gaming PC. Some people like to play games on their phones, and some games are mobile only.
Again, optimizing by itself is not necessarily a bad thing. They just need to make it an opt-in experience, explain what it does clearly, let the users choose which apps to "optimize", and start letting people use their hardware like their own.
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Yeah, maybe you're right. They need to be transparent on the optimization choices.
lokto7 said:
Reports say that the GOS cannot be disabled the old way b'cos it's now system app since One UI 4.0?
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Click to collapse
Cannot disable, adb fails...
Is anyone else noticing bad ram management? I know it is 6gb but something feels off. I can only keep like 3 maybe 5 apps in the background. Any suggestions 10.0.0.0.1 192.168.1.254?
Yeah, I also noticed this, when I switch to maybe 3rd recent app it has to re-load the app. This did not occur in my pixel 4.
frustrating. Especially when only switching between a couple apps. Moreso that there's plenty of RAM free when this happens. Not sure what Android takes into consideration when closing apps out. Could be the app itself decides to close out after certain amount of inactivity. I notice it with Chrome often.
I've noticed the 6a seems to keep a lot more memory open than my 4a did (both have 6gb). I run the same 'family' of apps, background and foreground, as before on my 4a except I seem to keep ~2gb free on the 6a vs. ~1gb free on the 4a. That's hardly a scientific evaluation ofc. Esp. with android's 'free mem = wasted potential/speed' PoV. It's still a new-ish phone...I'm sure google has some tuning to after it has a chance to 'analyze the analytics'...or whatever, lol.
I am noticing the opposite. In fact, my phone gets really hot for no good reason. And whatever it is, it isn't reporting the usage in the battery drain report.
edufur said:
I am noticing the opposite. In fact, my phone gets really hot for no good reason. And whatever it is, it isn't reporting the usage in the battery drain report.
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Not sure if you're using hotspot, that causes a large amount of drain and heat. Also my VPN was using a lot of battery.
damian5000 said:
Not sure if you're using hotspot, that causes a large amount of drain and heat. Also my VPN was using a lot of battery.
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Nope. Not using hotspot. Also not using VPN.