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by SkyMarshal 5370 days ago
An anti-answer: Use as few apps as possible, and when you do download ones, make sure to go into Settings -> Manage Applications and move them to the SD card if they didn't automatically install there.

Don't know how the SGS2 is in this regard, but my Nexus S absolutely chugs if I'm not careful to keep main memory as free as possible.
3 comments
mrinterweb 5369 days ago
I have found this to be the case at times. Not all apps are created equally and some are less responsible with their memory and how many CPU cycles they consume. With a true multiprocess OS like Android, this can be problematic as background applications can be unnecessarily greedy. One application that can help determine what applications are consuming CPU, memory, and battery is "System" by NextApp, Inc. With System's monitoring capability you can often determine which applications are misbehaving.

I once was trying to figure out why my battery was only lasting four hours. I used System's monitoring and figured out that the Facebook app was consuming >90% of CPU cycles. I learned later that the bug was confirmed and that Facebook fixed the problem, but in the meantime, I was able to uninstall Facebook and thus I restored my phone's battery life and responsiveness.

I'm sure there are plenty of other good system monitoring applications for Android. System is the only one I have used.

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phunehehe 5370 days ago
I have a Nexus S. I install everything shiny on it (by looking at the featured apps, the weekly top apps from AppBrain, the iPhone top Apps app). I have never moved any app to SD card. The phone didn't chug so far...
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mrich 5370 days ago
S2 has heaps of internal storage (16GB) so this is not a problem :)
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SkyMarshal 5368 days ago
Nexus S has 16GB of internal storage too, but it's considered to be the SD card (no external SD card slot). It only has 1GB RAM, but for some reason apps are allowed to install there instead of the SD card. Install too many, and you fill up that 1GB with installed apps and running apps, and then the whole OS starts to chug.
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Jose_GD 5363 days ago
Are you sure apps are allowed in to install in RAM? It seems to me you're confusing RAM with internal storage. You don't fill up the 1 GB RAM with apps, you use the 16 GB internal storage for them.
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