These applications ‘Light’ from Google developed for basic devices are lighter than normal ones, and are completely official.
The mobile market in Spain has quite a variety of options to choose from. Some are characterized by being very powerful, however, the most basic ones can work somewhat poorly when it comes to performance. However, there are some Google apps ideal for this type of phones.
And the company has a series of alternative versions of platforms such as Maps, the search engine or even Google Photos that, in exchange for cutting some functions, They achieve greater speed and take up less space in internal storage.
In principle, these types of applications are created to work on mobile phones with Android Go, a light version of the operating system created for basic devices. However, some of them They also work on mobile phones with the full version of Android and can help it run faster.
Lower consumption
Along with the launch of the Go versions of the operating system, Google developed some native apps to adapt to the humble features of these devices, so if something characterizes these apps, it is their lightness. To get it, they lose some functions along the way.
When available resources are scarce, you have to prioritize the functions you want to maintain. However, the most important functions of each app are maintained, so, unless you are looking to use a complementary feature, there is no problem when using them. In addition, you can save space by uninstalling or disabling its conventional version.
 The size of these apps is striking. The conventional version of Google weighs 201 MB, while Google Go drops to 25 MB, and it even has a higher score in the app store. In the case of Maps Go, it weighs just over 200 Kb, so it is not even an app as such, but rather an adapted version of the web interface, and it works very well.
These changes make them capable of offering greater speed, regardless of the device they are used on, since although they are designed for the most basic users, the apps can also be downloaded on high-end mobile phones. Just compare them to see the increase in speed, although they are a step behind in terms of design.
Several options
It must be taken into account that there are certain things that change compared to the normal version of each one, both in the interface and in the features it includes. In the case of Google Go, for example, the search bar is now at the bottom, accompanied by the history. Some smart functions that are normally included in the search application are also eliminated, making it a somewhat lighter operation.
Google Maps is the most obvious case, since it changes the colors of the map interface and even turns the notification bar blue. Information sheets about businesses and places of interest remain the same, and within them you can access the same sections. Of course, other options such as seeing the news near you or accessing the contributions profile do not appear completely.
It has a series of quick options with which the app allows you to choose the means with which you want to draw a route and even specify the type of public transport you want to use. It does not have a navigation function for the car, but simply calculates and shows routes in the means of transport that each user indicates. To use this function it is necessary to download another application from Google Play called Navigation for Google Maps Go.
Although Google Photos is an exceptional service, it is true that there are many people who may not use the app’s synchronization, which now has a capacity limit of 15 GB. That’s why Google launched Gallery, a very similar app, but which does not have synchronization functions. At the time, it was launched under the name Gallery Go, so it is another of these applications that was created for less powerful mobile phones.
This app does not require neither Google account nor connection, since it has no functions beyond those it offers offline. It is capable of managing images, organizing folders with multimedia content and even editing photos. It is simple, clean and highly recommended if you do not want to use the smart functions of Google Photos.
YouTube Go was another alternative that the brand launched for humble devices, but it was closed last 2022, because it was considered not necessary. On the other hand, Gmail Go was removed from the store, but is still present on devices that have the light version of Android.
