We've been impressed with the speed increases that rooting and moving apps to SD cards can bring to sometimes sluggish Android phones. If you're not about to crack your phone's firmware, the AndroidGuys blog suggests a few optimization tips.
For one thing, they suggest grabbing a decent task-killing program to knock down the background processes you leave running when you quickly open and close applications. TasKiller Free and Advanced Task Killer both do a decent job. From personal experience, I find TasKiller's widgets, either as a single-icon, kill-all function or a horizontal "Task Bar," to be helpful enough to keep on a side screen for quick access.
Then again, another of AndroidGuys' recommendations is to keep your home screen as uncluttered as possible, as your phone has to re-draw icons, picture frames, and re-update widgets from multiple streams every time you dash back home. Finding a good, discretionary balance between helpfulness and speed will be a personal matter, but we can vouch for the helpfulness of skipping, for example, the music player widget. More tips and suggestions, including basic settings changes, are offered at the full post.
What's been the biggest non-root-related speed benefit you've seen on your Android phone? Tell us your tips in the comments.
Newbtorial: How to Keep the Zip in Your Android [AndroidGuys]