Playing Pokémon GO with a weak cell phone is not impossible. Even old devices from 2013 can run the game. Check out tips on how to play Pokémon GO on your weak cell phone without going through a lot of headache.
- Incompatible? Here's how to download the Pokémon GO APK and play it on any Android phone
Important: Remember that Pokémon GO requires at least a cell phone with Android 4.4. Lower versions of the system will not be supported, such as (Android 2.3, 4.1 or 4.2) [TUTORIAL ON HOW TO PLAY IN THESE VERSIONS SOON]. If the game appears as incompatible on Google Play, even if your phone has Android updated, you can download from APK Pure website. We also recommend downloading the app from the website, so that the Pokémon GO game is automatically updated.
Cell phones used in this tutorial: Motorola Moto G 2 2014 (Android 6.0) e Samsung Galaxy Core 2 (Android 4.4).
Initial considerations
Pokémon GO is a small game, but it demands a lot from your mobile. It's only 60 MB to download, but the game requires at least 200 MB of free RAM. One of the big problems with the game is that it checks all the requirements right after it starts. That is, it checks GPS, Wi-FI, Mobile Internet, RAM memory, camera, all in tenths of seconds.
For devices with low processing power, this can cause the game to close immediately. In some cases, even the cell phone restarts (our “pebinha” Samsung Galaxy Core 2, for example).
The idea of the tutorial is to minimize the load on the cell phone as much as possible and make the device as “light” as possible to support the game.
This tutorial does not need root
1 – Clear the RAM memory before running the game
When starting Pokémon GO on a weak cell phone, the ideal is to clean the RAM memory with an application for this purpose (it can be the CM Master Lite, with the option “Optimize Phone”). It is a good idea to restart your phone if your phone has less than 1GB of RAM.
Don't know what RAM memory is, see here. For now it is enough to say that it is volatile memory, it is nothing that involves files stored on the device such as photos, music, etc.
2 – DO NOT enable Battery Saver mode
It may seem contradictory, but on weak phones (especially from Samsung), activating the battery saving mode will make the Pokémon GO game very lag. Therefore, disable this mode to ensure smoother execution.
3 – Uninstall some apps
This is a radical alternative, but unfortunately, in some cases, the only alternative is to uninstall apps like Facebook e Messenger. Both are very heavy and as they can be used directly from the web browser, I prefer not to install them. If you are a "manjador", an alternative is to hibernate these apps through applications such as Greenify or the option to hibernate from the CM Master.
4 – Disable the camera while capturing pokemons
Pokémon GO is one of the games that most uses mobile resources. In addition to processing, he needs to use camera, GPS and internet. That's a lot for a small cell phone to handle. To lighten things up a bit, you can turn off the camera by tapping the “AR” icon while catching a pokemon. With the feature off, the battery even lasts longer.
5 – Fixing startup errors (mobile restarts by itself)
Patience is essential when playing Pokémon GO on very weak phones. Some Samsung devices like the Galaxy Core can even restart by themselves when opening the game. To correct these errors it is necessary to do some tests, because each case is a case.
Step 1. In our little experiment, the solution involves several factors, but it starts with disabling Location History (Settings >> Location).
Step 2. Disable location and then start the game.
Step 3. Log in with Google account and wait for the game to start (Don't mind the red message about the GPS error).
Step 4. Wait for the character to appear in the open world and wait about 15 seconds
Step 5. After this time, slide the notification bar and enable the GPS, and don't touch ANYTHING anymore!
Step 6. Wait another 15 seconds with the screen on. Touch the screen and swipe from side to side to see if the game has not crashed.
If all goes well the game will be running. In our tests, the device that gave the most work was the Galaxy Core 2. To play, we recommend not switching between apps and playing for a while and then closing the game completely. Oh, and the ideal is to leave the screen lock with a time of at least 5 minutes.
Questions, suggestions and tips, comment below.
