Friday, April 8, 2011

How to get peak performance out of the Samsung Intercept


If you've owned the Samsung Intercept for more than a couple of weeks you have probably seen it. Slow load times, apps freezing, missed calls because the screen didn't come up, and more. Well, I'm here to help make those problems a thing of the past.  Originally released back in July of 2010 for Sprint, the Samsung Intercept is definitely not the newest phone on the market.  Even at the time of release, it was considered a low end Android phone, but it's not done fighting yet.

Step 1 - Accept it for what it is

The Samsung Intercept is not a high end smart phone, it's not going to knock your socks off, have all the fancy 3D widgets, or play HD movies at 720p like the new HTC Thunderbolt.  But when it comes down to it at the end of the day, it will get the job done.  The Samsung Intercept is a low end Android Phone.  By accepting it for what it is, you will not demand more from it than it can handle.  

Step 2 - Assess your needs

Keeping step one in consideration, we move on to what you need it to do.  The following screen shot is my home screen.  That's right "home" screen, as in just one.  Other than one widget, it is simply icons, some would say boring, dare I say almost iOS like (may I reiterate the fact that this is a low end phone).  The apps located on my home screen are my daily use apps.  Anything beyond that I just open my tray.  Android must load in to memory any apps or widgets on the home screen.  This can take time and cause it to be slow returning to the screen.  By reducing the gadgets on the home screen, you will speed up the response time.


Step 3 - Strip it down

Now, as I said reducing your home screens down to just what you need will speed up overall responsiveness.   To do this I recommend a new launcher app called Launcher Pro.  This launcher is fully customizable and will really smooth things out.  For starters, it allows you to reduce the number of home screens.  In my case, I went to just one, but going down to just two will help as well.  It also has features like making the background image stick so it doesn't move when switching the home screens(iOS?).  The Samsung Intercept does not have a dedicated graphics chip so any fancy graphical move it does will slow it down.  So stick to the basics and your Intercept will treat you well.

Step 4 - Widgets

Widgets are what make Android great.  But widgets take memory, processor time, and most importantly battery life.  Widgets are there to save you time, so finding the ones that will show you what you need on a daily basis without having to open the app will be a big time saver.  This is a delicate balance between what widgets you need, and what you can live without.  Again, less is more in this case, so pick your widgets wisely.

Step 5 - Clean House

Now, moving on to your apps.  To get peak performance out of the Samsung Intercept, keeping an eye on what you have installed is very important.  Going to Settings>SD card & Phone Storage will show you how much space your phone has left.  As of this post the Virgin Mobile Samsung Intercept is running Android 2.1, so it doesn't have the ability to install apps to the SD card.  So sadly you must ignore that nice big GB number at the top.  Instead take a look at the "Internal Phone Storage".  This is the space allocated by your phone for app storage.  Any app installed on your phone will use this space as well as the cache for the app itself.  I have found if this fills up, bad things happen.  So I highly recommend keeping an eye on it and making sure it doesn't go below 20MB.  Uninstalling apps and clearing cache will keep this at bay.

Step 6 - Clearing your cache

As I stated in step 5, clearing your cache helps alleviate internal phone storage problems.  There are two ways you can go about doing this.  First is to clear one application at a time.  This of course will take a fair amount of time if you have many applications.  The other option is to download an app to do it for you.  One such application is called 1TapCacheCleaner.  It's simple, easy to use, and lives up to it's name, allowing one click to clear all application cache.


Step 7 - Memory boost

My final recommendation is an application called MemoryBooster, which is designed to tackle the difficult yet crucial problem of memory management.  MemoryBooster reclaims lost memory by defragmenting and recovering memory caused by leaks from poorly behaved applications. As shown in step two, I have the MemoryBooster widget on my home screen.  Anytime I find the phone acting sluggish, I just hit the button.      

Closing Thoughts

To get peak performance out of the Samsung Intercept requires a little care and maintenance, but by doing so the Intercept will serve you well.  Many of these steps can also be applied to other Android phones, so if you find yourself in the same boat as the Intercept, feel free to try it yourself.

13 comments :

  1. How did you take that screen shot?

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  2. How did you take that screen shot?

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    1. Screen shots on older versions of Android is tricky. You need the Android SDK installed on your computer and a data cable for your phone. Detailed instructions can be found at the link below.

      http://www.androidcentral.com/taking-screenshots-without-root

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  3. Sprint put out a new update for the Intercept a few months ago and it added/changed all kinds of app's that I will never and caused my available data to plummet so much that I get an error trying to do a 5K update on a different app. All of these new app's I will never use cannot be uninstalled or moved to the SD card...is there any kind of workaround for this? I had already done all of the tips above before I started hunting online for solutions.

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    1. And I really only have 5-6 self downloaded apps...I don't have pages and pages.

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    2. I must admit I hate the fact that they install apps that cannot be removed. Sadly, from what I understand the only way to actually get rid of those is to Root the phone.

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  4. I had an Intercept when it was released and returned it for the Epic, well I decided to do the Virgin Mobile thing and the Intercept was so cheap I got it as a temp until I could find something "suitable." It has been several months now and actually with a little bit of playing around I have found the Intercept to work just fantastic :) Of course I had to root (I always root all my Androids right away to remove bloatware and theme. It can get slow but for the price I paid and what I expected from this low end phone mine works pretty decent and I doubt I will replace it for at least a few more months (til Virgin gets something I feel is worth buying)

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    1. I still use the Intercept for my primary phone at this point, been looking at upgrading one of these days but so far what Virgin Mobile has in their lineup hasn't enticed me to spend the $200-$300 to upgrade plus loosing my grandfathered $25 a month plan(The new HTC EVO is tempting). On it's good days the Intercept is a great low end Android, on it's bad days(which I have yet to fully understand) it can be a pain in the ass. Another item I need to add to this post(or maybe make a new post) is regarding to running apps and services. Keeping them in check results in much better performance due to the slower processor of the Intercept. The official Facebook app is one of the worst offenders in my opinion, including a 13mb application plus up to about 4 services running in the background.

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  5. Many thanks to you. I've had the intercept for going on tow years now and I've tried numerous ways to improve it's performance. I'm not a big app person, I just want a reliable phone that doesn't freeze more often than not. Thanks again for your suggestions

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  7. Is there any possible way I can download music and take pictures with out a SD card? The reason why I ask is because my brothers wife gave me this phone and since this used to be her old phone she took the SD card and just gave me the phone to play games and go on the internet. I just want to know if its possible...

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  8. Is there any possible way I can download music and take pictures with out a SD card? The reason why I ask is because my brothers wife gave me this phone and since this used to be her old phone she took the SD card and just gave me the phone to play games and go on the internet. I just want to know if its possible...

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    1. As far as I know you need an SD card to take photos on the phone. Only other option I can think of is to pick up one of the Webcam apps and use your computer to take the photos.

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