Various Android noob questions..please help if you can! Anyone?

[JLP]

Various Android noob questions...please help if you can!

Hello. I'm a certified Android noob. I just purchased a Samsung Galaxy Tab A (7-inch) [this one here: http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/galaxy-tab/SM-T280NZKAXAR] as an entry level tablet to start "playing around" with the Android OS. My goal is to gain some familiarity and for basic usage like social media apps, email, kindle/reading, etc. (nothing hardcore). I have several questions and hoping this community can help:

- Apps are installed on the internal storage by default, but I can't find a way to change the default to the SD card. Is there a way to do this?

- I know how to move individual apps to the SD card using the Application Manager, but there is some sort of "split" where part of the app is stored on the internal storage. What's the deal here?

- What tips & tricks are there to optimize performance? Is there a quick reference for this somewhere? As an "entry-level" tablet, I didn't expect too much, but it really seems slow to respond to me. Are there any core OS features or "apps" that I can disable or get rid of (as seen in the Application Manager"?), that may not be necessary and would help speed up things? (and also free up some storage).

Thanks in advance for any help or insight.

-JLP

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! No, you generally can't make the SD card the default installation location. Apps always have to download and install to Internal Storage. On devices that support it, you can move certain apps to the SD using the App Manager, but it's always just a portion of the app that can be moved--you can't move the whole app.

This guide might be useful: http://forums.androidcentral.com/ge...ng-started-android-updated-2015-lollipop.html

 

[JLP]

Thanks for the info and the link to the guide. I'll check it out!

 

[Brew Swayne]

Pretty much all of the stock apps that came installed on your tablet are there to stay and there's no way to remove them without rooting. You can disable some of the apps and prevent them from installing future updates, which will at least save you some storage space in the future. You can also hide unwanted apps in your app drawer to help eliminate clutter.

As for improving performance, there's probably not much that can be done for your tablet considering that it's not the most powerful tablet to begin with. It should be just fine for web browsing, simple games, and video streaming, but chances are it'll always be a little on the slow side when it comes to responsiveness. You can try installing a custom launcher (I recommend Nova Prime) and you might see some minor improvements. I definitely recommend not bogging it down with a lot of apps that run in the background - ie: social media. Facebook, for example, is a big time battery and resources suck even on more powerful devices, and it can be downright crippling on "weaker" devices like the Tab A. I uninstalled it from all of my devices and battery life and overall performance improved immediately. I just use FB's mobile website through Chrome. All the same function, none of the intrusion on my device.