It was 2012 when Samsung launched the Galaxy S3, a device that the company described and promoted with a weirdly interesting slogan; A device “designed for humans”. At that time, it was a powerful and modern Android smartphone that had nothing to lose and everything to win. It was minimal and fast, and it felt great when I was holding it in my hands, until it wasn’t.
We’re in 2024 now, and I’m still a Galaxy owner of a similar but newer model; The Samsung Galaxy A52s, which I got almost three years ago for around 350€. When I first got the Galaxy A52s, there were two things I was afraid of, both of which came true. Both devices, although with a difference of almost a decade, are cluttered with pre-install apps that you’ll probably never use, and both became slower after a few months of using them.
During this decade, I’ve used many different phones from various companies, including Xiaomi, Huawei, Samsung, and Nokia. Apart from Huawei, who found themselves in big trouble after getting banned, and my phone not having enough space to install more apps (like the bad old days), Xiaomi and Nokia both provided me with absolutely value-for-money products.
Following the best tips and tricks won’t save your device’s speed
When I first got the Samsung Galaxy S3, Android was an operating system I wasn’t pretty aware of. That was the device that got me into rooting my phone and even going as deep as changing the whole operating system with LineageOS, after trying everything to bring back the speed and smoothness the device had when I first opened it. I knew I wasn’t using my smartphone the wrong way, but I also knew that I had tried various apps over the years and those may have been the reason behind the slowness of the phone.
So I went ahead and did what most people would have done; A reset back to the factory settings. That didn’t work out. Like, it didn’t make any difference whatsoever. So I went ahead and proceeded with a hard reset, which basically did the same thing; Nothing; So I started reading, watching, and finding all the best tips and tricks that could make my almost 1-year-old device a bit faster, while not believing that I had spent almost 700€ to get it.
I had the exact same issues with the Samsung Galaxy A52s, which was supposedly fast enough to run most modern games. Ironically, the A52s also includes a 120Hz display, which is focused on gamers and everyone looking at smoother transitions and effects. Unfortunately, after almost three years with three hard resets, keeping it clean all the time, deleting cookies and history, and having only the necessary apps installed, the device is so laggy that it’s becoming irritating even checking my emails.
You could reduce the animation speed from the developer’s options, but it’s actually worthless
If you’re currently reading this article searching for a solution to making your Samsung device faster, you’ll probably already find out about the hidden option inside the developer’s options that everyone can enable in a couple of minutes and make their device a whole lot faster. Actually, closing and opening apps and windows will be 2x faster than it is already after making those simple tweaks. But there’s a trick; It won’t actually make the device itself faster or smoother, it will just reduce the time every effect and transaction takes from start to finish.
For some people that may be a life-savior change, as it will actually help them work faster on their devices, but why would I need to do all of this when I paid 350€ for a phone? Samsung is now supporting its devices for up to 5 years, but it seems to me that the Galaxy A52s will be so slow at that time, that I don’t think it will be possible for me to keep using it until its end of support; Not with the same operating system at least. But the common Joe won’t get bothered with rooting and changing the operating system of their devices, and why would they? They may see their devices getting bricked, losing their warranty, and probably having a much less secure device on their hands.
It looks as if Samsung is sneakily trying to automatically slow down their devices after a few months of using them, or bloat them with as much bloatware as they can.
As a more advanced user, I do like playing with my Android devices and changing the operating system. Installing LineageOS is one of my hobbies, and whenever I fresh install the OS on any of my slow Galaxy devices, they all seem to run faster and smoother than ever before, including from when I first got them. It looks as if Samsung is sneakily trying to automatically slow down their devices after a few months of using them, or bloat them with as much bloatware as they can, but I’ll get to that in a minute.
It’s not about maintaining and protecting your device anymore
I’ve been listening to people complaining that their almost-new Galaxy devices are slow, laggy, and sometimes even not responding. Some of them are not protecting their devices as they should, and many constantly dropping them on the ground. That could explain why the device may suddenly experience issues with its performance, but not in my case. I’ve never in my whole 30 years of life dropped a device. Never.
Not only that, but I am the kind of guy who restarts his devices often, keeps them updated with the latest releases, and even shuts them down once and a while for a couple of hours. Yet nothing seems to be able to help, and all of my devices are slowly losing their performance over time. Apart from my 5-year-old Xiaomi with 3GB of RAM running like a beast, all my Galaxy devices lost their speed, smoothness, and what made them great in the first few months of using them.
It wasn’t the manufacturer’s fault either, as I had the chance to compare my Galaxy A52s with two other Galaxy A52s, and I’ve been left amazed at how faster my phone was compared to theirs. All those little things that I do to keep my device clean actually worked in the end, but at what cost? Having a device that is just a bit quicker than the same phone another user has doesn’t even make the sliest of change to me to ever get another Galaxy device.
Samsung’s guides won’t make your Galaxy device faster, but Reddit’s will
If none of the YouTubers and content creators out there can’t help me increase my new device’s performance, wouldn’t Samsung know more? That’s what I thought, so I started looking on their official website for tips, tricks, tweaks, and whatever else that would provide even the smallest increase in speed and smoothness.
The first article that I found, titled “How to keep your Galaxy mobile device from slowing down“, gave me tips on how to optimize my device using the company’s own built-in tools, including the battery, power saving modes, storage, and memory cleaning. There were similar steps and ways to optimize your device in another article titled, “How to optimize the performance of a Galaxy smartphone“.
Both guides didn’t help me, as I had already tried everything they instructed me to do, and none of those options and tools actually helped with the device’s performance. So I was back to square one, and I knew that this time I didn’t have the time to bother changing the operating system and losing my warranty, so I thought to look even deeper into the matter.
After searching for solutions, I found a Redditor on r/Android saying that changing from “Standard” to “At most 4 processes” in the “Background process limit” in the developer’s options would actually help increase the performance. That gave my device a little boost, making things a bit faster and smoother overall. Another Redditor was also kind enough to provide some more insight tips for the features that you get when you enable the developer’s options on your Android device, such as looking at the memory and running services that use most of your device’s resources.
In a matter of seconds, I saw two issues; Bitwarden, an app that I am using to keep all my passwords saved and synced on all of my devices, and Grammarly, a beautiful grammar tool that helps you write better in English by correcting you and suggesting you alternative ways of writing more professionally. Those two apps seemed to be running all the time as they were both crucial to what they were doing. Uninstalling both of the apps actually made my device a whole lot smoother and faster.
Unfortunately, the cost of keeping my Android device smooth and fast by not using some of my favorite applications is a big drawback for me. I don’t have the same performance issues with the same apps on other different Android phones, so why do my Galaxy A52s suffer? Looks like even after a few days of having none of those two apps installed and active, the phone still lagged. So I went ahead and re-installed them, as I had nothing more to lose.
It’s not just you, other people are reporting the same issues
Having a Samsung Galaxy phone that is as slow as it can be? Well, it seems that you’re not the only one “special” here, as I found lots of people having performance-related issues with their Galaxy devices.
“I was satisfied with the [Galaxy A52s] device for the first two months, then the lagging started. After a while, every time someone called me, the phone froze and I had to reset it. In the end, I just replaced it. Worst purchase I’ve made in years,” a guy told me about his Galaxy device, and I pretty much felt his pain.
There is a plethora of articles, guides, and reporting on social media platforms and well-known forums such as Reddit, with people complaining their Samsung devices are being slow and laggy, and many times experiencing shuttering problems. Q&A websites are also full of users reporting performance issues with their devices, just take a look at Quora’s search results and you’ll be amazed by the number.
Unfortunately, there’s not even one answer on how to actually make a Samsung Galaxy phone perform as it should, based on its technical specs.
But common users aren’t the only ones who report that their devices are slowing down over time. Among many other content creators, South Korean YouTuber “Square Dream” confirmed that just by changing the “3D Mark” benchmarking app to “Genshin Impact” would result in a significant dip in scores. South Korean forum “Clien” also renamed “Geekbench” as “Genshin Impact” and found a nearly 50% drop in single-threaded performance. Other users did the same only to see the same results. That was back in 2022, and I still see performance issues everywhere.
Conclusion: Should you get a Samsung Galaxy phone in 2024?
While there are many people not reporting performance issues with their Galaxy phones, my experience with Samsung’s devices wasn’t that great over the years.
My latest purchase, the Samsung Galaxy A52s with 6GB of RAM and Snapdragon 778G 5G, a mid-range device that should run perfectly smooth for what it offers, lacks both in speed and smoothness, and it cost me around 350€ to get it. The Galaxy S3 cost me around 700€ and even their high-end smartphone started lagging after a while.
So why would I trust them and spend my money on another of their devices? Looks like there are many other great alternatives out there that provide beautiful phones with similar or even higher specs than most Samsung devices, depending on the price and model range that you’re looking at.
If you’re happy with your Samsung Galaxy phone and you’re looking at purchasing the newest model, then go ahead and grab one. But if you’re like me, and you’ve spent hours searching for performance solutions, you may be better off choosing something else. Nonetheless, I had better experience with Xiaomi and Nokia, both of which look pretty strong options for 2024.
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