Why is Gallery so slow?

A. The theory behind the Gallery application on most Series 60 smartphones is a good one, and being able to browse through (possibly hundreds) of photo thumbnails makes it easy to find the image you're looking for. But how many times have you gone to Gallery and seen that the thumbnails for all your most recent photos are blank? Perhaps you've stared at the screen for a while and started to see some of the thumbnails appearing... slowly. It's all a bit frustrating. But it pays to work with Gallery rather than just complain about it. Gallery can only construct thumbnail images, saving them to its database, while it's actually running. So opening Gallery, moaning because the thumbnails aren't all there and then closing it again really won't help matters.

Instead, open Gallery when you've got a moment and then leave it (in its thumbnail view) running while you get on with your life for a minute or two. When you switch back, you'll see all the thumbnails neatly constructed and in place. And, importantly, even if you close Gallery down and then re-open it, the thumbnails will still all be there, instantly, because they'll have been saved to your smartphone's internal disk.

Having picked up a reputation as being a very slow application, Gallery is actually quite speedy once you've let it build the thumbnails. Opening and decoding many megapixel images isn't a trvial task and your smartphone's processor needs all the help it can get - in this case, your patience.