This Hidden Setting Sped Up My Android Phone

The speed of your Android phone does not only concern the equipment. Software optimizations and features and animations play a big role in responsiveness. Fortunately, there is a simple animation tip that works essentially on all Android devices.

What the parameter does

The magic parameter that will accelerate your phone is called “animation scale”. In fact, these are three distinct parameters – “window animation scale”, “transitional animation scale” and “animator’s duration scale” – all serve the same objective of adjusting different system animations. Although the word “scale” may make you think that it affects the size of the animations, it actually controls their speed throughout the operating system.

“Window animation scale” adjusts at what speed the windows open and close, “the transition animation scale” controls the speed of switching between windows, and “the scale of animation duration” affects many other animations, such as menu movements and button animations.

By default, most Android phones use a 1x animation scale for the three parameters, which seems too fast or too slow. By passing them to 0.5x, transitions and animations occur more quickly, which makes your phone significantly more snapp.

Credit: Patrick Campanale / Geek.

For example, the animation or default window opening transition takes approximately 300 milliseconds. The adjustment of the animation speed to 0.5x reduces this to around 150 milliseconds, which can ensure that the phone feels about twice as quickly. You can even completely deactivate the animations, in which case Windows will simply appear instantly instead of sliding in sight.

This can make your phone feel a little natural, and on older devices, you may notice a slight choppiness because the applications are loaded, something normally hidden by animations. This is why it is better to deactivate animations if you really prefer the raw speed to the smoking animations.

It should also be noted that accelerating the animation scale is not a magic solution that makes your phone more quickly. The applications still take time to load, and a more powerful phone will always open them more quickly. This tip works better on more recent phones, although it will make just any faster device by reducing the time you have to wait between the actions.

I use this tip from my very first smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy Ace Plus, which was running on a slow 1 GHz SOC. Even if it was seriously undernourished, even according to 2012 standards, flashing a ROM of the Android Cyanogenmod Android jelly and adjusting the transition speed to 0.5x made it significantly faster.

Credit: Kharis Ardi / Shutterstock

How to activate it on your phone

To configure the settings of the animation scale, you will have to activate the developer options on your phone – do not worry, despite the intimidating name, it is neither complex nor which takes time. Developer options are just a simple menu with a lot of additional parameters, mainly intended for users who like to tinker with the internal options of their Android.

On most Android phones, you can activate it by going in Settings> About the phone> software information (or a similar option). Find the construction number and press seven times until a message appears at the bottom of your screen saying: “You are now a developer!” Or “the developer mode has been activated”.

Your phone may require slightly different steps, so if you encounter difficulties, look for a YouTube video showing how to activate developer options on your specific device.

Once you have successfully completed the activated development options, return to the settings menu on your phone and locate the new option. On my wife’s Samsung, developer options appeared in the list of main parameters, but on my phone, they were under “additional options”. To find them quickly, you can use the search bar instead.

Scroll through the developer’s options until you find “the window animation scale”, “transitional animation scale” and “length scale of the animator” and define the three to 0.5x to do the animations twice as quickly. You can certainly deactivate them and see what it does, but I think most people will prefer to have a few Animations.

Unfortunately, double speed is as fast as it is by default. But if you appreciate the additional speed of 0.5 × (half the duration by default) and you want to go even faster to 0.25 × (75% faster than by default), you can use your computer and your BAD to accelerate animations.

It could be the reason why your phone is slow

Credit: Bertel King / Geek.

Since the animation speed is essentially the same in most Android phones, your new phone may not feel faster than your old one, despite a much faster processor. This is why accelerating animations is one of the best tips to really test the limits of a phone.

Before starting to write this article, the Samsung Galaxy S23 + of my wife actually felt slower than my Realme X2 Pro Aging because her animation scale was defined at 1 ×, even if his phone was much more recent and had a 120 Hz screen compared to 90 Hz of my phone.

As I changed his animation scale at 0.5 ×, his phone felt quickly, leaving my phone in the dust. It really highlights how much a phone can feel faster and more fluid with this tip.

Accelerating animations on your Android phone is a cost that has a surprisingly significant impact on your overall Android experience. The best part is that it does not require third -party tools or complicated steps, so you should really give it a chance to see what I am talking about.

Although most geeks are already aware of this tip, it’s always a good idea to quickly check your settings to make sure you’ve accelerated animations on your last phone. Also, don’t forget to help your friends and family also accelerate animations on their phones. They will love it!