Why Your Android Phone Gets Slower with Time

If you’ve had your phone for a while, you might start to notice a bit of a lag. Applications don’t load as fast as they used to, menus on your favourite food apps take forever to show up, some apps even stop working altogether! This, to be precise, is very normal.

This problem exists in all types of phones, no matter what operating system it uses, be it Android or iOS. The solution, however, can differ from device to device.

Why Your Phone Slows Down

Your phone keeps updating its software from time to time, which means it won’t run the same OS version it shipped with, after a relatively short period of time. Often times, the Android OS updates you receive are best compatible with the latest model of your phone, and are not optimised for earlier versions. This tends to affect the overall performance of your device. Other than that, phone manufacturers sometimes add bloatware apps in new updates, which run in the background, making your phone lag and eventually slowing it down.

At times, even app updates can be a reason for a slowdown. As developers get access to better hardware and faster phones, they update their apps accordingly. Hence, it becomes hard for your older device with lesser RAM and comparatively low storage, to run new versions of these apps.

Having too many apps on your phone can also be one of the reasons for subpar performance. They consume your CPU’s resources and run in the background causing it to lag. Similarly, having too many widgets and live wallpapers can affect your device’s performance negatively.

How to Fix Things:

How do you fix this? Well, you can’t make your device run like a just-released model, but here are some ways to help boost your phone’s late-life performance. Although there isn’t much you can do to reduce this, here are certain tips that might help you out.

In case your operating system is slow, you can install a custom ROM which won’t have any bloatware. Before doing this, make sure you have backed up all your files. Installing a custom ROM isn’t advisable to regular users. You should do it only if it is absolutely necessary to save your device. If done correctly, it will boost your phone’s performance and might even give it some extra life. Another thing you can do is switch to ‘lite’ versions of the apps you are already using.

If you’re like any of us, you have probably installed way too many apps on your phone which you no longer use. With more apps consuming more CPU resources and running in the background, your phone ends up lagging. It’s wise to uninstall these apps that consume your phone’s RAM and storage. Another culprit for low-storage space is bloatware apps. These apps come pre-installed in your device and are usually harmless. They use storage space on your device and your RAM too, adding unnecessary ‘bloat’ to your system. If there are pre-installed bloatware apps which can’t be uninstalled, you can disable them in your phone’s settings or root your device. This will lessen the burden on your phone and will make it run smoother.

Consumption of lots of storage space can slow your phone down even further, so it’s prudent to avoid saving too many multimedia files on your phone. Backup your photos or videos, or upload them to cloud storage to free up some space from your phone. Cache files also consume your phone’s storage, if left unchecked. Clearing your cache can help your phone perform better.

If you use live wallpaper or have a large number of widgets, it can also reduce your device’s performance as they too utilise CPU, graphics, and memory resources.

What to Avoid:

A lot of users install task killers, apps designed to ‘force stop’ other apps and free up RAM, to boost their phone without even checking their functionality. Task killers usually work on budget phones with lesser RAM and CPU resources. If your task killer is not trustworthy, they can cause further damage to your phone rather than improving its performance.

A lot of times, we mistreat our devices without even realising that we’re doing it. Avoiding certain actions and following the aforementioned tips, you can boost the performance of your phone, without doing anything extra.

Feel free to tell us what you do to make your phone run smoothly in the comments! ‘Till then, happy DeCoding!