Everything slows down with age. As humans age, their ability to work declines and their movement becomes slow. Old cars run slower than new cars. Therefore, it is pretty clear that age and regular usage makes a thing slow or work less efficiently. Our mobile phones are no exception to this.
It is foolish and unreasonable to expect a phone to run as smoothly as the first day after 3 or 4 years. However, devices nowadays have greater life expectancy so you can expect them to work fine for around 5 years. Also, the company stops pushing updates for your device which makes the phone slower.
You may start seeing signs of slowdowns such as frozen screens, slow-loading apps, and undelivered text messages as soon as a year later after you purchase the phone. There are many reasons old phones get sluggish but the main reason is the old hardware that is unable to keep up with the features and weight of the new software. Apps are also updated from time to time so that they can take benefit of the latest hardware capabilities.
The new app is somewhat optimized for old phones but there will be a slight downfall in the performance of the old phone running the same application. Also, if you stick to the old phone for a longer period of time, the app might not support your device anymore.
The speed of phones decreases slowly and steadily as you continue to use it. Here are some reasons why old phones slow down:
- LOTS OF APPS: New phones come pre-installed with a bunch of apps which we hardly use. Since the new phone has good speed, users are very tempted to install every other app they see. After some time, when you stop using the app because you are bored with it, you should promptly delete it. The unused application not only eats up space but also keeps on accumulating useless data. A bunch of unused apps can slow down the phone big time.
- BACKGROUND APPS: With so many apps, it is common for people to leave some apps running in the background. This not only drains the battery quicker but also slows down the CPU. Close an app as soon as you are done using it. Also, you can manually go into the settings and turn of background data usage by certain apps.
- LACK OF STORAGE SPACE: The phone memory is just like our brain. If we have a limited number of tasks to accomplish, our brain can remember each task. If we overload our brain with more than what it can handle, it will malfunction. Same happens with the phone storage. Apps, photos, videos, music, and documents are the primary storage eaters. Phones can handle tasks with 70% of the storage filled. The phone starts to stutter when 80% or more of the storage is full. Delete photos, videos, and music which you don’t need to keep old phones in working condition.
- CELLULAR NETWORK UPDATES: Network providers tweak their networks to provide increased speed. The best example of this is 4G phones won’t be able to use 5G speed. This would make it appear like the 4G device is slower.
- SLOW ANIMATION SPEEDS: Animation speed is nothing but the visual effect you see when opening or closing an app. You can increase animation speeds or turn of animations completely. This doesn’t actually help but makes your old phone perform a bit snappier.
These were some reasons why old phones slow down. Try clearing app caches, uninstalling unused apps, clearing the home screen, reducing animation speeds, and cleaning storage to increase the old phone’s speed. If nothing works, you can hard reset the phone. This will clear everything and you will have a brand new phone.
