The mobile market in Europe offers a wide variety of options. Some are characterized by being very powerful, however, the most basic ones can perform a little poorly in terms of performance. However, there exists some Google applications ideal for this type of phones.
And the company has a series of alternative versions of platforms such as Maps, the search engine or even Google Photos which, in exchange for the removal of certain functions, They achieve greater speed and take up less space in internal storage.
In principle, these types of applications are created to run on mobile phones equipped with Android Go, a lite version of the operating system created for basic devices. However, some of them They also work on mobile phones with the full version of Androidand can help it run faster.
Reduced consumption
Alongside the launch of the Go versions of the operating system, Google has developed native applications to adapt to the modest functionality of these devices, so if anything characterizes these applications it is their lightness. To get it, they lose some functions along the way
When available resources are scarce, you must prioritize the functions you want to maintain. However, the most important functions of each application are preserved, so unless you are looking to use an add-on feature, there is no problem using them. Additionally, you can save space by uninstalling or disabling its conventional version.
The size of these applications is striking. The conventional version of Google weighs 201 MB, while Google Go drops to 25 MB, and it even has a higher score in the App Store. In the case of Maps Go, it weighs just over 200 KB, so it’s not even an application as such, but rather an adapted version of the web interface, and it works very well.
These changes make them capable of offering greater speed, regardless of the device they are used on, because although they are designed for the most basic users, the applications can also be downloaded to high-end mobile phones. Just compare them to see the increase in speed, even if they are behind in terms of design.
Several options
It must be taken into account that there are some things that change compared to the normal version of each, both in the interface and in the functionalities it includes. In the case of Google Go, for example, the search bar is now at the bottom
Google Maps is the most obvious case, since it changes the colors of the map interface and even makes the notification bar blue. Information sheets on shops and places of interest remain the same, and inside them you can access the same sections. Of course, other options such as seeing the news near you or accessing the contributions profile do not appear completely.
It has a series of quick options with which the application allows you to choose the means with which you want to trace a route and even specify the type of public transport you want to use. It does not have a navigation function for the car, but simply calculates and displays routes in the means of transport indicated by each user. To use this function it is necessary to download another application from Google Play called Navigation for Google Maps Go.
Although Google Photos is an exceptional service, it is true that many people cannot use the application’s synchronization, whose capacity is now limited to 15 GB. This is why Google launched Gallery, an application very similar, but does not have sync functions. At the time it was launched under the name Gallery Go, so it was another one of those apps that was created for less powerful mobile phones.
This application does not require no Google account or login, since it does not have functions beyond those it offers offline. It is capable of managing images, organizing folders with multimedia content and even editing photos. It’s simple, clean, and highly recommended if you don’t want to use the smart features of Google Photos.
YouTube Go was another alternative that the brand launched for modest devices, but it was shut down in 2022 because it was not considered necessary. On the other hand, Gmail Go has been removed from the store, but is still present on devices with the light version of Android.
This may interest you
Follow topics that interest you