Android-Hudl performance for dummies

[mattc]

After maybe 18 months of happy ownership, our Hudl seems to be creaking towards a halt. We get increasing numbers of these sort of messages:

<Chrome/angrybirds/mail/explorer/etc> isnt responding
- do you want to Wait-Close-Report?

Are there tools I can use to get a simple view on what the cause is?
(I'm thinking of something like the Task Manager thingy in Windows, which tells you if all/most of your memory is used up, and which programs to kill/restart to cure this)

[Kim]

I don't know the Hudl specifically, but this generally applies to Android devices:

If you haven't already, enable the 'Developer options' settings menu by going to the About page and clicking on the build number 7 times.

There's an option in there that allows you to enable an overlay showing running processes (a bit like like top, or task manager), as well as some things for tweaking the number of background processes that may be helpful.

Free memory isn't particularly meaningful in Android, as by design it tries to keep it as full as possible, to speed up task switching, and processes are only killed when it's needed for something else.

(There's also a useful 'show touches' option in there which really ought to be in the accessibility options, as I find it greatly improves the accuracy of the touch screen by providing visual feedback.)

[mattc]

Thanks. I'm not really any nearer diagnosing this, but the "Show Touches" feature is v useful

(and I feel clueless but powerful)