Not everybody is a mobile phone enthusiast, and majority of the people out there can only afford to buy a new phone only once every couple of years. So, by the end of the first 12 or 18 months, the phone that was so blazing fast when you first got it, might just start crawling.

There can be thousands of reasons why an Android device slows down over a period of life, including poorly coded apps, less free RAM etc. However, majority of the times, the slowness can be fixed by following a few simple tips and tricks.

One of the key advantages to Android’s openness is the ability to customise the look of the OS to your liking. With third party launchers, widgets and themes, you can give your Android device a beautiful new look with just a few taps. No wonder third party launchers like Nova, Apex, and GoLauncher are among the most popular apps on the Play Store.

These launchers also support icon packs, allowing that extra level of customization. If you’re bored with the stock icons of your Android device, you can use icon packs to give your device a brand new look within minutes. Considering that there is no shortage of beautiful icon packs in the Play Store, we’ve chosen ten of the best to get you started.

Android Beam can be used to share content between NFC equipped Android devices with just a simple tap. At present, Android Beam allows for sharing of YouTube videos, Google Maps locations, sharing of images and videos and more.

The problem with Android Beam is that it uses Bluetooth, and not Wi-Fi Direct to transfer files, which is comparatively much slower. Worse, Android Beam only supports for sharing of pictures and videos, thus limiting the use of the feature. SuperBeam fixes all the gripes with Android Beam, and allows for sharing of any kind of files over Wi-Fi Direct via NFC.

Here’s how to use it.

NFC (Near Field Communication) may have taken its sweet time to become a common feature in Android phones, but it is finally here. Nearly every Android device released in the last year has NFC as a standard feature. It is much more useful than you think and it is made to be.

NFC is generally associated with transferring files between Android devices and for making payments at any shop by just a simple tap or bump of your phone, at least in the United States. However, with the help of NFC tags, you can automate a lot of tasks that you do daily on your phone.

Here is how you can have some fun with NFC tags and your NFC equipped Android device.

Google Now and the enhanced Google Voice Actions are, without doubt, a highlight of Jelly Bean. Google Now can display relevant information, depending on your location and time, with access to some of your data. Voice Actions make Google Now smarter by allowing you to speak into your phone to initiate a Google search, or set an alarm, or a reminder.

The enhanced Voice Actions in Jelly Bean also allow you to directly call someone by simply saying “Call example name.” Here is a small tip to make voice dialing via Google Now/Voice Actions easier.