This seems odd to me

[splmonster]

So I just started using task killer by Apollo Software, and so far it works fantastic. I used it mostly to speed up the device, which it in fact did. Now my question is, I have my ignored list, and then my checked list. It seems though little by little the free memory drops even though its killing apps. Like when I first started up my phone this morning, it was at 245mb free after killing, now its down to about 220mb and the checked list is empty. Any ideas? Or is other apps using more memory and therefore it's going down?

 

[splmonster]

Anyone?

 

[ZimLanfire]

I noticed the same thing on all of my smartphones. I believe it has to do with apps that are running caching data; thus running your memory down throughout the day.

I too start with well over 200MB and after 2 days I'm around 50MB. I just restart my phone every couple days.

I've never had it actually affect my Evo's performance. It seems to be just as quick at 50MB as it is at 195MB, or whatever.

 

[Kedar]

I heard somewhere it doesn't matter too much about how much free memory the task killer reports.

Yeah, mine says 50M free... been 2 days since I restarted my Evo.
I could restart it, but it's running fine, lol.

 

[Jerzyiroc]

Linux. I asked the same question before and the answer I got, and verified online was how Linux manages it's memory usage and of course Android is based off Linux. Linux can manage programs and apps very well on its own. It will kill apps and programs on its own if its not being used. It will also free up space as it's needed. So even though it may only say 50MB, it'll almost always find a way to free up space to do what's needed. I've had the MBS as low as 20 and it still ran smooth as hell. About 10 minutes later is was showing almost 200mbs without me killing any apps. I actually don't use ATK anymore after doing the research on this subject. It's really not needed. Maybe once in a while but for the most part it's not.

 

[splmonster]

I just noticed with Task Killer apps and everything loads so much faster for me.

 

[ArkAngel06]

The phone gets soooo laggy without a task killer, or without restarting your phone every other day or so.

It's absolutely normal.

 

[eagle63]

The phone gets soooo laggy without a task killer, or without restarting your phone every other day or so.

It's absolutely normal.

Wow, not for me. I'm on week 3 of my Evo and decided from the beginning that I was not going to install a task killer. (both because I philosophically disagree with needing to manage my own memory on a phone, and also because I wanted to see how well Android would handle it on its own)

I've not rebooted my Evo once, nor manually killed any tasks and it still runs just as fast as the day I got it.

OP: Also keep in mind that the memory usage you're seeing is partially because that's how Java works. If you were to look at a graph of memory usage on any Java app (Android or otherwise), you would see what looks like sawteeth: a line gradually moving up followed by periods where it drops straight down. Then it slowly goes back up for a while, then gets chopped down again. It slowly uses memory then the garbage collector kicks in and knocks it down. This is all normal.