advanced task killer

[geetarspaz]

i've done some extensive research on the advanced task killer app

and i hear many, many, goods, and many bads about it.

i havent had it for a while and honeslty my battery is doing better than it did before with it...

not sure what everyone else thinks but im not sure if i should get it again or not. also, i hear it creates a lot of problems too on phones, i had it on my old droid and my old droid have many problems and issues technically with it and ended up having to get a new one. im not sure what the problem was but im not trying to risk it again.

 

[jsh1120]

If you're inclined to have a task killer available, I'd recommend "SystemPanel." Although it can function as a task killer, its real value lies in giving you some insight into the way the phone operates. (Read the Help.) You'll find, I think, that your instinct is correct; a task killer does nothing to help either performance or battery life.

 

[geetarspaz]

thanks man. i really havent had much a difference or rather i've had better battery life. i think for all the times people open the task killer application and quit it and open it and etc it is rather equal to just leave them running. plus if there is a problem with space, the phone does it itself

 

[jsh1120]

thanks man. i really havent had much a difference or rather i've had better battery life. i think for all the times people open the task killer application and quit it and open it and etc it is rather equal to just leave them running. plus if there is a problem with space, the phone does it itself

Yup. It's sometimes useful to have a task killer available if you have a rogue application chewing up cpu cycles, but rebooting is typically as effective (or more effective) than killing the app, anyway.

If you turn on system monitoring with SystemPanel you'll soon learn the difference between an app that is actually running, an app that is in memory but not currently running, and an app that is in cache and has absolutely no impact one way or the other on your phone's performance or battery drain.

Frankly, I think about 95% of people's experience with rapidly draining batteries and belief in task killers is related to synching operations of various apps. My own experience is that if gmail gets out of whack or you change the synch options, the phone can drain rather quickly.

Otherwise, I don't think people understand how big a drain downloading and updating apps can be. I was able to drain my wife's droid completely in less than two hours by downloading 35 apps, for example.

Finally, system performance is heavily influenced by the data dragged into memory by apps. Cleaning out data and cache, especially from email and messaging apps, will generally result in a performance improvement and a decrease in battery use.

I have approximately 150 apps on my phone with 15-20 in memory at any one time. I do almost no messaging, use the phone a half dozen times a day, and receive/send about 50 emails over the course of a day. I check news and use a browser about 5-10 times a day and have seven home screens with 5-15 widgets and apps on each screen. My battery typically drains completely in about 30 hours whether I "kill" tasks or not.

 

[geetarspaz]

i agree...thanks for the info!

 

[pyro6128]

yup, task killers are fine if you use it properly to kill rogue apps and apps youre done using. If youre ocd killing apps and autokilling apps that are starting up anyway, then you're doing more harm than good

 

[OldguyMark]

thanks man. i really havent had much a difference or rather i've had better battery life. i think for all the times people open the task killer application and quit it and open it and etc it is rather equal to just leave them running. plus if there is a problem with space, the phone does it itself

Yup. It's sometimes useful to have a task killer available if you have a rogue application chewing up cpu cycles, but rebooting is typically as effective (or more effective) than killing the app, anyway.

If you turn on system monitoring with SystemPanel you'll soon learn the difference between an app that is actually running, an app that is in memory but not currently running, and an app that is in cache and has absolutely no impact one way or the other on your phone's performance or battery drain.

Frankly, I think about 95% of people's experience with rapidly draining batteries and belief in task killers is related to synching operations of various apps. My own experience is that if gmail gets out of whack or you change the synch options, the phone can drain rather quickly.

Otherwise, I don't think people understand how big a drain downloading and updating apps can be. I was able to drain my wife's droid completely in less than two hours by downloading 35 apps, for example.

Finally, system performance is heavily influenced by the data dragged into memory by apps. Cleaning out data and cache, especially from email and messaging apps, will generally result in a performance improvement and a decrease in battery use.

I have approximately 150 apps on my phone with 15-20 in memory at any one time. I do almost no messaging, use the phone a half dozen times a day, and receive/send about 50 emails over the course of a day. I check news and use a browser about 5-10 times a day and have seven home screens with 5-15 widgets and apps on each screen. My battery typically drains completely in about 30 hours whether I "kill" tasks or not.

Excellent post - I have no task killers/monitors except what's built into Astro, which seems pretty good ... really don't care about task killers, but the system panel sounds cool, just to know whats going on; is it any better or more useful than what's in Astro?

Also, I assume you can turn off the task killer part of system panel and just use the monitor part (?)

Thanks