Comedian Louis C.K. has a great bit about how insanely impatient people are with their smartphones. Although he’s probably right, and although we probably should try to focus on being amazed that our mobile devices are even capable of doing the many incredible things they do, it’s still extremely frustrating when a $700 device doesn’t perform at its advertised speed.

Speed Booster – Phone Cleaner is an app that even Louis could probably get behind. A free download in the Google Play Store, Speed Booster claims it can speed up your phone by up to 60 percent by killing unnecessary background tasks and clearing out all those weighty items on your phone’s cache. We decided to take it for a spin and test it out on a Samsung Galaxy S5.

Upon launching the app, you’re greeted with an interface that tells you, in both percentage and actual gigs, how your phone is currently performing. By tapping the “Boost Phone” button on the bottom of the screen, you launch the app’s search-and-destroy functionality, which then reports back with a tally on the number of gigs, megs, or kilobytes that were just freed up, and reflects back with a higher performance percentage.

A “Clean Tasks” tab brings up a list of all of the background tasks you’re currently running and automatically places a checkmark by the ones it deems the main culprits for your smartphone’s sluggish performance. It also tells you how much of your smartphone’s CPU performance is being eaten away, allowing you to either check or uncheck items prior to selecting the “Clean Tasks” option.

Beyond all that, Speed Booster is also an effective platform if you want to take a quick peek at how much internal memory you’ve got remaining without having to dive too deeply into your settings and folders. Just by tapping the “Info” tab, you can get precise details for both internal memory and external card memory. This info is also reported back to you via a percentage dial that shows you exactly how much memory you’ve got left.

Overall, Speed Booster works well. It’s a no-frills app that’s presented in a clean and intuitive interface that requires no explanation. Testing on the aforementioned Galaxy S5 appeared to add a bit of bounce to the device’s performance — but the presence of occasional pop-up ads trying to sell you silly time-killer games seems a bit counterintuitive. Still, the app makers have to make their money somehow.

Speed Booster — Phone Cleaner requires Android 2.2 and up and is available for free from Google Play.