How to Speed up Galaxy S3 for Maximum Performance [2018]

Literally, I’ve been a big fan of the Samsung Galaxy S3 since the launch. Released in the year 2012, it had a Super AMOLED display screen, which we still won’t find on most of the smartphones. But as for now, its hardware specs are outdated. And you might be facing low-performance issues. In this tutorial, we’ll help you to speed up performance on Samsung Galaxy S3 with most ethical methods. Post applying these tips, you should be able to remove lags, the bugs, the app crashes and other performance related to issues. That should bring the best performance out of this handset.

Speeding up performance is not a tough task. And we do not require any sort of third-party app or root access to optimize the performance. With just a few touch-ups and settings, you could improve the performance of your Samsung Galaxy S3. And there is no need to achieve root either. Though, you can do a lot with root access. If you’re having a root access, then it would be better as you can use root applications to speed up your phone. Otherwise, it won’t need it. We have some tested-working methods, those are completely ethical in nature. They won’t hurt your phone in any manner. And they don’t void the official support and warranty on the phone.

To speed up the Samsung Galaxy S3, we will some inbuilt options. These options include the Developer Options, recovery mode and a few more. The Galaxy S3 runs on the Android 4.3 operating system, that offers limited maintenance features. Will make sure to use the available resources for the best outcome. There could be many reasons that your phone is running low on the performance. Mostly it happens due to the clutter/junk files. If we keep using our phone for a long time, the clutter memory keeps on growing and eventually impact the performance.

It doesn’t impact the performance only, it also impacts the normal functions. You might experience lags, freezes, unusual reboots, app crashes, and so on. If that happens, you need to calibrate your phone. This calibration includes different methods. Like clearing the cache memory, perform a factory reset, setting up Animations, make use of light applications and a few more. We will discuss these methods below to speed up performance on Samsung Galaxy S3. There are plenty of troubleshooting things that could help in improving the performance.

Best ways to increase performance on Samsung Galaxy S3

1. Clear app cache

If you’ve been using your phone for a long time, most probably, the clutter data could be causing lags, freezes, the app crashes and other similar issues.

Basically, as we use our smartphone, the cache memory keeps on accumulating and becomes so big that it starts impacting the performance. Thus, it becomes important to keep our device as clean as possible.

Applications like Facebook, Instagram, etc., gather a huge amount of cache data within a small span. For example, if you frequently use the Facebook application on your phone, it can gather more 400MB of cache memory within a week.

And that’s a huge number. Therefore, we recommend clearing cache once a month. That will keep your Samsung Galaxy S3 running smoothly all the time.

Also see:

• Best Apps for Samsung Galaxy S3
• Enable Developer Options on Samsung Galaxy phones

There two ways, either you can clear cache memory of apps individually, or clear it all at once. We have mentioned both the method.

Clear Individual App Cache

It is helpful when you know exactly which apps are accumulating clutter. Mostly, social applications like Facebook, Instagram, and similar ones are on the top.

Try clearing the cache of these applications and see if it removes lags, freezes, and other existing performance issues.

—How to

1. Open the Settings menu.
2. Tap on the Application manager.
3. Now tap on the appropriate application from the All tab.
4. Then tap on CLEAR CACHE.

Repeat the same for other applications that you think creating more and more junk files. If you want to remove all the cache data associated with installed applications, follow the below instructions:

Clear All Cached Data

1. Open the Settings.
2. Now open the Storage menu.
3. Tap on Cached Data and press OK to confirm.

It clears off all the cached data and cleans the devices thoroughly. Now, you should get lag-free performance on your Galaxy S3

Remember, clearing the cache data will reset the progressed data in games and wipe the login details of most of the applications. Make sure to backup apps with data to avoid it.

2. Custom Animations

Since we have calibrated the performance by wiping the cache data, now we can perform some performance optimization tips. The very first is reducing the extent and duration of the Animations.

While we use our phone, we observe animations appearance. In order to render animations, the phone uses the GPU and CPU units. If we reduce down the extent and duration of animations, we could save some of the processing power.

That means, least amount of processing power would be used while rendering low extent and duration animations. That’s how we get better performance.

While we reduce down the Animations, it becomes important to maintain the user experience. In that regards, we will reduce down the extent and duration of animations to a certain value.

In order to access the animation settings, we have to get access to the Developer Options first. That is not a big deal. Just follow the below steps to enable the Developer Options on your phone.

Enable Developer Options Samsung Galaxy S3

1. Open the Settings menu on your phone.
2. Now, tap on About phone entity.
3. Locate Build Number and tap seven times on it.
4. This will switch on the Developer Options on your phone.

You can access the Developer Options from Settings:

Now, you’re ready to move further. Follow the below instructions to customize the animations and speed your Samsung Galaxy S3.

—How to

1. Open the Settings
2. Then, tap on the Developer Options.
3. Now, locate “Windows Animation Scale”, “Transition Animation scale” and “Animator duration scale”.
4. Change the default value of each to 0.5x.
5. Exit the menu and restart your phone.

You should see an immediate impact. This will make things quicker. You’ll notice that your requests are processed quickly.

Since we have reduced the extent and duration to the half of its default value, now your phone would use less amount of processing power to render animations.

That outcomes better performance while the user experience remains intact.

3. Use the lite-version of apps

Most all social media applications keep running in the background. That is to keep the content and notifications updated. Though it sounds very good. But, this process impacts the performance and battery life very deep down the core.

Applications like Facebook and Instagram can consume about 200MB RAM while running the background. That’s surely a big number. If you really do care about performance, then you must replace them with alternatives.

To make everything easier for you, we suggest using the Hermit, the lite apps browsers. This application replaces your apps with small, and fast web apps. They are almost identical to the originals.

They don’t run in the background, so they won’t consume any sort of processing power. That certainly saves a huge amount of processing power.

Thus, you get more RAM and CPU power for other processes. That boosts the overall performance of the Samsung Galaxy S3. We highly recommend this application. This will keep your lite as possible and keep it running smooth.

And most importantly, these lite-version apps won’t create a huge amount of cache memory. Therefore, you don’t have to worry about it.

4. Limit Background processes

Now, we will move forward to what we have done so far. Above, we discuss replacing apps with their lite-versions. That way, they won’t run in the background.

In this tip, we will deal with other processes. Though the Android OS doesn’t give an option to control the background processes, but it does offer an option to put a limit on it.

The Developer Options is blessed with such option. Using it, we can limit the number of background processes. That keeps processor free from some apps/services/processes. That outcomes better performance. And the same should happen with the Samsung Galaxy S3.

However, it does have one disadvantage. While we put a limit on the background processes, it can deliberately close other applications you’re using side-by-side.

For example, if you’re playing a game and then instantly switch to the Phone application, then it might possibly that game gets closed when you switch back.

Keep this thing in your mind and then proceed ahead. The below instructions will guide you.

—How to

1. Tap on the Developer Options.
2. Now, look for “Background process limit” entity and tap on it.
3. Choose “At most 4 processes” and exit the Settings.

This should add smoothness to your phone. Since a limited number of processes are running in the background, you get better performance all day long.

That’s one more way you can speed up performance on your Samsung Galaxy S3.

5. Turn off Auto-Sync feature

The auto-sync feature is blissful, but it consumes a lot of processing power, internet data, and battery life. While you sleep or do other things, it silently syncs your data to your Google account and other similar services.

It keeps on running in the background and checking for new updates. All day long, it keeps using your internet data, and power.

Though this sync process keeps your data safe and saved, but it can be muted for most of the time. Instead of keeping it ON all the time, you could simply turn it OFF and use it manually.

You can turn ON this feature while you sleep, or after two-three days. That would enough for it to sync your data.

And in return, you would save battery life and processing power. That is what we are seeking. Overall, you’ll get improved performance on your Samsung Galaxy S3.

—How to

1. Tap on the Settings menu.
2. Now, tap on Accounts (or Data usage).
3. Under this menu, select the Google account and then uncheck the Auto Sync data.
4. Exit the Settings.

Turn it ON once in 3-4 days. In that way, you can keep your data synced while you experience the best performance.

It impacts the battery life most. You’ll get better battery life posting applying this trick.

6. Remove/Disable unused applications

Since ever the Samsung has brought us smartphones, one has remained common. They all have been bloated very well. You might have noticed that there are many applications that are unused so far.

On the other hand, some of these applications might be running in the background. I’ve seen many such applications on my OnePlus 5 (third-party apps). No matter, whether you use them or not, they keep grasping some amount of power resources.

So, getting rid of unnecessary apps would bring out some free space and better performance. Moreover, it keeps your smartphone free from junk apps and clutter. However, most of the pre-built apps can’t be removed.

Instead, could disable it. If you get the option to disable them, just do it. It is recommended that you uninstall/disable apps that you don’t intend to use or think as a trash on your phone.

This will surely impact the performance of Samsung Galaxy S3 positively.

7. Use Nova Launcher Instead

Using a performance driven launcher could bring a huge improvement. The Samsung TouchWiz UI launcher is bit heavy and has very limited customization features. Whereas, the Nova Launcher offers you both.

Along with faster performance, you’ll get plenty of customization options. This will help you personalize your phone. For better user experience, we suggest you switch to the Nova Launcher application.

This launcher application is free to download and use. You can download this application from Google Play store from below link:

Download link: Google Playstore

Further, to get most of this launcher, we have fetched the best settings for Nova Launcher for high performance. Configure the Nova launcher using below guide:

—How to

1. Download and install the launcher on your device.
2. Now long press on the Desktop and then select Settings
3. Now Select Desktop and put following settings:
   1. Icon layout -> Icon size 100%, Label -> On , Font -> Condensed , Shadow-Single line ->On
   2. Persistent search bar -> Lollipop
   3. Scroll effect -> Simple
   4. Add icon to Home screen -> Off
4. App & widget drawers, put following settings:
   1. Scroll effect ->Simple
   2. Infinite scroll -> Off
5. Dock settings:
   1. Dock icons -> 5
   2. Icon layout -> Icon size 100%, Label -> On , Font -> Condensed , Shadow-Single line ->On
6. Folders settings:
   1. Folder preview -> Grid
   2. Folder background -> Circle(gray icon)
   3. Transition animation -> Zoom
   4. Icon layout -> Icon size 100%, Label -> On , Font -> Condensed , Shadow-Single line ->On, Color -> Black
7. Look & Feel
   1. Icon theme -> Lollipop
   2. Scroll speed -> Nova
   3. Animation speed -> Fast

This should give a boost to the user interface part. Now, you should experience a better performance of your phone.

8. Switch to custom-firmware

We are certain that Samsung has discontinued the support for Galaxy S3 a long ago. If you’re looking to update your phone, only custom ROMs can help you. And Of course, they worth their values. While you update your phone to newer Android version, it brings performance upgrades in different aspects.

Since Galaxy S3 is one of the most popular handset released so far, the developers have created so much useful stuff for it, and some are still working. For Samsung Galaxy S3 users, an official build of LineageOS is available that helps to update this device to Android 7.1 Nougat operating system. That’s pretty cool, I would say.

As it is official, you can expect bug-less performance and user experience. Moreover, it brings chunks of new Android features and applications. Most importantly, it should bring some performance improvements as well.

With LineageOS on your Galaxy S3, you can expect better performance, stability, usefulness and of course, fun. We recommend this custom ROM to Galaxy S3 users. Follow the below link to know more about LineageOS and other custom ROMs available for this smartphone:

• List of best custom ROMs for Galaxy S3

We gather some of best ROMs which have been updated recently to newer version.

That ends our list of performance tips here. We hope that our readers would use them to speed up their Samsung Galaxy S3. We will be updating this shortly. Stay connected with us.