[david-gpu]

> The problem is I don't want it to be doing computationally complex things. I want to use an irc chat equivalent

Have you considered the possibility that the phone is doing what most phone users want, and that their needs being more complex than yours doesn't mean that "programming can be massively wasteful on resources"? Instead, the phone you purchased is not fit for your purposes.

> But mundane tasks I know shouldn't by any rights be complex regularly take forever to complete

It is also possible that what it takes to complete that task is somewhat more complex these days than you realize. Not because it's poorly programmed, but because the software is designed to support many more features than you are currently using. An individual user may only rely on 5% of the features, but different users want a different set of 5%. Supporting other people's needs isn't any more wasteful than supporting your needs.