Part of my job is testing and reviewing smartphones, 95% of which are Android devices.
As usual, I’ve picked up a number of shortcuts, tips and tricks when it comes to setting up my headphones, allowing me to tweak them to perform as well as possible when judgment calls.
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One tip I always give to family members, friends, and passers-by when they ask me, “How can I make my phone faster?” is simple, but usually hidden: Adjusting the animation speed.
The method for this is fast, simple and completely free. And as a bonus, you’ll feel like the “computer guy” from every action movie.
Just follow the steps below.
How to change animation speed
What you will need: Android device and your lock screen password/pin/pattern to enable developer options.
To access the animation speed settings, you must first enable developer options. Developer options contain a list of performance and UI-specific settings that are usually hidden by default because they are intended, drumdevelopers!
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To enable this, open your settings > scroll down to About the phone > touch Software information > and then tap your Build a number seven times. If this is your first time doing this, your phone should display a ticker telling you how many more times you need to tap the text.
If it executes successfully, the developer options will now be enabled, which you can access by returning to the default settings page and scrolling to the bottom of the list.
Now that you’ve cracked the code to get into developer options, you’ll be presented with a long list of settings, toggles, and switches. Don’t panic; we are here for one thing only and that is the “Drawing” section. Scroll down the list until you find it.
From there, you’ll see three animation scale settings:
- Window animation scale: speed of applications and pop-ups.
- Transition animation scale: The speed of movement between home screen panels and within apps.
- Animator Duration Scale: The speed of general UI animations, such as opening and closing apps, unlocking the phone, etc.
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Tap each one and change the scale rating from 1x (default) to 0.5x. The lower the number, the faster the time it takes to run the animation.
If you don’t want any animations on your phone at all, you can also set the value to “off”.
At this point, swipe around the phone, do your usual activities and see if you notice a change in speed. If you follow the steps above, your phone should be faster and more responsive; none of this is placebo.