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There are a few good basic tips for keeping your N95 running as fast as it can.
1. Update your Firmware to version 20 or 21 and Now 30!
The Nokia N95 firmware v.20 and subsequent v.21and v.30 have "On Demand Paging". Demand Paging is a more efficient way of loading data into RAM; Code that does need to be executed is not loaded into RAM" which means its faster and uses less Ram Memory.
Not only does it use less power to open applications it also uses less Ram memory in idle which leaves more free Ram making applications open quicker. For more details in upgrading see section 2.
Below is a chart showing the gain in free Ram after updating to the v.20 firmware based on results from my own N95 phone.
2. Remove unwanted Applications.
You can remove applications from your phone by using the Application Manager located Menu/ Tools/ App. Mgr. The N95 comes with a few pre-installed applications that can easily be removed, as well as any other applications you may have installed and stopped using. You can remove "Welcome" app., SRE demo game, Demo games, also i personally never use the "Search" app, which used to be removable but is not removable on later firmware.
3. Install applications onto the Internal Phone Memory.
This is important especially for Themes as the internal memory is faster than the SD external memory card. My Internal memory is 147.3MB and most applications range from 2MB down to only 20kb so there should be plenty of room.
4. Close Unwanted Open Applications
Don't leave applications running by accident, check by holding down Menu key, select the unwanted application then from the Options select Remove. My N95 has 48mb Ram and uses around 70% (with the old v.12 firmware) of that on N95 background processes all the time. Which leaves only 16mb free. The "Global Race" game running in the background (Not Playing) will use 7.6kb of The "MusicPlayer" running in the background (Not Playing) will around use 1.4kb of RAM. So close what you don't need.
5. Close applications that appear stopped and save 2-3Mb.
Well this may appear similar to the section above but it takes the principal further. There are a few system applications like 'Menu' that once opened stay open and wont appear in your phone Task Manager.
I have noticed that with firmware v.20 even the Gallery stays open. The screenshots below show that i only have two applications Standby and Screenshot (just to take this image).
But when we look at the tasks list using Active File, we can see Menu, Contacts, Log and Gallery all still open, although this is useful if you want to reopen them quickly (as they are still running) you can save around 2-3Mb by manually closing them. If you use the on-screen memory monitor you will see the increase in ram memory as you close each application.
6.Reboot to remove Memory leaks
My N95 has a 48Mb ram (memory power) and uses around 60-70% on background tasks (less with v20 firmware), but when using various applications (often 3rd party freeware) some ram is lost by applications not fully releasing back the ram when they are closed, this is known as "Memory leaks". The two screenshots below show a "before and after" rebooted phone with the same tasks running.
The first image shows 12.7Mb of free ram which means76% of my Ram is in use. The second image shows 20.2Mb free ram which means only 58% is being used!
The second image was taken after i rebooted my phone and shows i gained back 7.5Mb (around 18%) from memory leaks.
Considering the camera application uses 8.4Mb of ram,(See section 21 for more details) it would almost be like leaving your camera on all the time! (Not exactly but i'm sure you can see the point).
Therefore its well worth rebooting your phone from time to time, when is up to you but be sure, you will gain back valuable Ram which will speed up opening of applications and general internal processes.
There are a couple of good freeware Memory analysis programs around that can show you how much Ram you are using and how much specific programs are using (by testing). If you like technical stuff these programs are will help you waist countless hours.
I used this application a lot . You can run an On-screen Memory Monitor by selecting Options/ Tools/ Start memory monitor. This screenshot show background tasks running (except the top two) on my N95.
There are 8 application in this set but you ony really need Y-Tasks, Memory Status and Trace to analyse your memory.
7. Defrag your External SD Memory Card.
Although it is quicker to access data from the internal memory it is obviously not possible to store everything on it especially if like me you use your phone as a MP3 Musicplayer. I store all my music over 2gb on my external card. So i recommend periodically defragment your external card by putting your card into your computer and Defraging it as an external drive. Defragmenting your Drive re allocates the file chunks in a sequential order which improves read performance, even if you can't actually notice the difference. My defrag analysis showed it could achieve a 48% improvement on "Time to read fragmented files".
It depends on how much and how often your remove data but once every 3months should be adequate for defrag periods.
8. Turn off active standby,
I like a clean screen so i always turn off active standby, internal n95 functions dont use as much Ram as larger power hungry games etc. but turning off Active standby will gain you around 400kb of Ram, its not a lot but unless you use it a lot, i would get rid. To turn off Active Standby go to Tools/ Settings/ General/ standby Mode/ Active standby and select Off
9.Turn off the Media Background Video/ Animation that plays when you use the Media applications, press the Multi Media key once and select Options/ background images/ and select graphics and select theme. Also you can set Image effects, Menu sounds, Start-up animation all to OFF.
10. Set the Phone Log to 10 days.This is a simple way to reduce the number of call details the phone access. You will of course loose and caller details (dialled numbers/ missed calls/recieved calls) over the 10 day period. To change the Log go to Menu/ Applications/ Log/ Options/ Settings/ Log duration set to 10 days (default 30 days).
Note:
Turn up your screen brightness to Max. It does use more battery but for such a short time that you won't notice and it doesn't use more ram (not noticeably) and its improves really improves screen. To change settings Go to 'Tools/ Settings/ General/ Personalisation/ Display. Adjust to highest setting.
