Originally Posted by Kal_El:
“Decided for now to try a proper factory reset. I've done them before but always selected to restore from previous. This time I'm going to go for a completely clean start and manually restore my stuff bit by bit. I've never done this before and so far it's a pain, but at least I'll be able to say I tried it!”
Two weeks now since complete factory reset on my Nexus 7 (2012). This time, instead of selecting to restore from previous I decided to set it up as a new device and reinstall all my stuff manually. This was a bit of a drag, but so far the difference has been huge. Before when restoring from previous backup I could see no difference at all in performance. The tablet would start off OK but soon sink into the slowdown and lagginess that you're all familiar with.
However, while I can't say boot up is much quicker, once it's on the tablet is much better. Much more responsive, much more convincing in general use. Even the missus noticed it as she often steals it off me.
The big test was - would it still be good after a couple of weeks? The answer so far has to be yes. I have had one or two hiccups - Chrome is still much less convincing than Firefox imho. Much slower, but I put a lot of that down to the lack of an Adblocker. I have had maybe two instances of what appears to be a memory leak possibly, as the tablet would just slow down (was using Newsstand at the time) and take a moment to regain itself. Sometimes icons would disappear during this. However it passed quicker than before and wasn't a big issue. I've had one instance of "process system is not responding" (or somesuch) at boot up also. This is one I really hate to see as boot isn't especially quick anyway on these things.
I'm generally finding if something does go awry that it's mostly Newsstand or another Google app causing it. I do like to use Newsstand but boy can it slow a tablet down. Generally though, I am happy if this tablet continues to function in the way it has been. It's been generally very quick, smooth and a pleasure to use, and I'm no longer considering KitKat as an option.
Well, not unless something dramatic happens...