Memory management in Android 4.1.2

[pctech]

Bought a Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 which I'm chuffed with as a phone but was wondering how the Low Memory Killer works in Android, anyone know what it precisely does and when it will take action as I did have a stall last week when trying to send a text.

[Simon]

Sorry, not used an Android phone for years. 

[kinmel]

I use the "Advanced Task Killer" widget to free up memory.

[mervl]

I'm insane with two Androids, one with 1GB and the other 2GB memory and absolutely no problems with memory, even with over 200 apps and several dozen running at any time - so the low memory killer seems very unobtrusive. Memory seems to run with a significant buffer of at least one third. On the occasional slowness it seems to be due to the connection rather than the memory as far as I can see. (Both processors have plenty of oomph though).

I use the excellent (free) all in one Battery Doctor to manage both battery and app/connection management, from one of the devs on the excellent XDA forums. Simple comprehensive and seems to work better than some paid alternatives.

[pctech]

I was prompted to download a new firmware the other day and it looks like Samsung have removed a lot of the unnecessary stuff that was running so it appears more responsive.

[Baz]

Im not an expert but theres loads on the internet about apps and managing them.It seems the best thing to do is let android system control the apps, dont use a task killer.Having apps ' running ' in the background is usually better as they start up quicker and use less CPU cycles.Android is very good at managing whats running and what you dont use often.

I have used a task killer but was forever checking it and killing apps, some which start up straight away, using more CPU.I restarted my phone and just left it to sort itself, after maybe 3 days the apps running went from about 18 to 9 or 10 just through android managing it, I never used the task killer.

any way heres a explanation of it, theres loads available have a google.

http://lifehacker.com/5650894/android-task-killers-explained-what-they-do-and-why-you-shouldnt-use-them

[pctech]

Cheers Baz, as I say I only looked as the phone completely stalled on me but then again the modem could have been doing something as I understand in the NovaThor chipset it depends on the CPU.

[pctech]

I applied a new firmware to the phone when it became available (still 4.1.2) but was supposed to bring stability improvements.

I've just done a factory reset as I have had the phone lock up on me several times with the screen going dark.

I'm beginning to think the NovaThor 800 Mhz dual core chip is a little underpowered to run Jelly Bean.

[Glenn]

This should give you all you need to know about the phone http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=2375

[pctech]

Cheers.

A factory reset seems to have helped matters as it seems to be performing better now.

[pctech]

just finished setting everything back up as I want it and definitely seems to be working much much better.