Android: Bitmaps and Performance
<p>I have been reading a lot of posts here on SO about image loaders, bitmaps and asynctaks to download and display images. When dealing with a small amount of bitmaps, my image loader is fine, it downloads the image and display it to the user, but it also save a WeakReference in a HashMap that I use as a cache and also save the image in the SD card in case the user needs that image to be displayed later without having to download it again. So far this is fine, my apps were working totally ok.</p>

<p>Now I started working on a new apps where the number of images to be displayed in the same screen is greater than 50 (for example), in this case the screen does not scroll smoothly, and I also find the FPS lower than the usual, delivering a bad user experience. I am running out of ideas on what to do next. Does anyone have an advice?</p>

<p>Using WeakReference instead of WeakReference improve the memory usage and also the user experience? </p>

<p>I am no scaling the bitmaps as I download them since they are already thumbnails, should I be scaling them? The images can occupy a maximum of 50% of the width of the screen.</p>

<p>Right now my main concern is not related to the download time, my concern is regarding the number of bitmaps being displayed and how smooth the scroll should be. I am not using gridview, I am using masonry component from <a href="http://code.google.com/p/android-masonry" rel="nofollow">http://code.google.com/p/android-masonry</a></p>

<p>What kind of suggestions do you guys have to me? Where should I start be looking at? </p>

<p>Thanks
Thiago</p>
