Slow Phone? Here’s What Can Help

Old Phones Getting Slow

Bought a new phone? Don’t forget to take care of the old one as well.

It is a familiar situation: when you buy a new smartphone, it seems to be “flying”, but after a year or two, everything is noticeably slower than before. Worn the processor? Resting RAM or battery?

So why are phones used for several years slower? There are at least a few reasons and in many cases, action can be taken to address them or at least mitigate the effects:

Operating system

Every time a new or updated version of Android or iOS is released, it includes new features, capabilities, patch fixes, or other enhancements. Because the old code is usually left behind, the operating system becomes “heavier” and may require more resources. If the difference is not very noticeable after one update, the accumulation of updates over several years may already have a greater impact.

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Gadgets. The situation is similar with the apps you use: various applications and games are constantly updated and improved to include new features and capabilities, so their needs are growing. Again, updates to individual apps may not have a bigger impact, but there are dozens of them on your phone and they’re all getting more demanding.

Like operating systems, gadget updates are required. On the other hand, it is always a good idea to take the time to review the apps installed on your phone and to give up those that take up space unnecessarily.

Phone Usage

Lack of memory

As long as your phone has at least a few dozen free gigabytes, this problem shouldn’t be an issue, but if you have less than 10 GB of permanent memory left, you may want to worry about freeing it up, such as deleting or moving the most space-consuming files, archive photos, and more to the cloud. This is because the phone can use the available non-volatile memory to speed up its work by storing temporary files or compensating for the lack of working memory.

Personal settings

Controls are displayed on the main screen, constantly synchronizing e-mails. Mail, calendar, social networks, and other accounts, Wi-Fi networks remembered by your phone, Bluetooth devices, settings for individual apps, and many other little things that your smartphone constantly checks and updates also have a small effect on its performance.

Malware

If your phone speed has slowed significantly in a matter of days or, moreover, hours, it could be caused by malware. In this case, you may want to install a reliable antivirus program if you haven’t already, and perform a full smart scan.

If your phone is running really slow and the above steps didn’t work, you can try a full system restore by backing up your files (of course, after backing up your phone files). In this case, the phone should work as it did when you purchased it. Otherwise, it may be a sign of a malfunction.

By the way, if the phone and apps themselves are running fast, but often hang or shut down for no reason, it also signals a malfunction.