Adventures & experiences in contemporary technology
Today, I was lured into upgrading my 2012 Google (ASUS) Nexus 7 to the final version of Android 5.0 (also known as Lollipop) by an icon in the device’s top panel. Initially, it felt as it was working OK but a certain sluggish could not be overlooked and there have been complaints about this with some questioning the sense of what Google have done. However, there would have been comments about grandfathering the device if they had not left us have the latest release of Android so there was no victory either way. We humans are fickle creatures and there is an example of exactly that in a well observed double-ended short story by the Irish writer Maura Laverty.
My impressions of how the upgrade had lumbered the tablet had me wondering about replacing the thing with either an Apple iPad Mini 2 or a Google (HTC) Nexus 9 but a much less expensive option came to mind: doing a full factory reset of the device using its recovery mode. That may sound drastic but much of what I had on there was in the cloud anyway so there was nothing to lose. So these are the instructions from Google themselves and I will leave you to use them at your own risk:
Note: If your tablet becomes unresponsive at any point during these steps, you can restart it by holding down the Power button for several seconds.
Once that was completed and the tablet restarted, the set-up routine began and took around an hour to reinstate the various apps that had been lost by the rest. Much of that was down to the time taken for re-installation rather than that taken by the actual downloads themselves over a wired broadband connection. The wait was worth it because the Nexus 7 feels more responsive again. While there times when little lags are noticeable, they are nothing next to the slowdown that I had witnessed before the rest. It might have been a better option than attempting to return to Android 4.4.4 using a factory image, which was another option that I was considering. So long as there is no deterioration in speed, the effort expended to do a reset will have been worthwhile.
It’s how the hardware manufacturers coax consumers to throw away thier existing devices and buy newer, faster ones. Apple is notorious for making iPhones and iPads increasingly slow with each iOS upgrade, to the point where their users just give up and buy a newer model – it’s called planned obsolesence. If you want to preserve the speed and responsiveness, DO NOT UPGRADE lest you fall victim to said computer industry conspiracy.
That certainly seems plausible. As it happens, I have been getting on OK with my Nexus 7 since so I see little reason to upgrade anyway with what I do with it. It may be slow to start up but that is small enough an irritation to overlook.