Why is my phone slow? – Is your smartphone feeling a little sluggish? If it seems like apps are taking forever to load and menus are flying by at a snail’s pace, don’t worry—you’re not alone. Even with the most cutting-edge tech, phones can begin to slow down after a while due to data buildup, old apps, and ageing batteries.
A Phone slowing down is an unfortunate but natural part of its lifespan, and cannot be avoided in the long term. Sometimes, the best thing to do is just trade in your old device for an upgrade or some cash – you’ll very quickly notice how slow your old device was when you pick up a new one.
If you want to keep your smartphone running for a little while longer, there are a few ways you can speed up your device in the short term. These solutions work for both slow-running iPhones and Android phones, but the method may be a little different.
Perform a Soft Reset
A soft reset is usually the first and most common solution to any issue with a Smartphone, especially when they become slow. A soft reset involves essentially turning your slow phone on and off again to clear out your RAM (RAM is just your phone’s memory, helping open and run several applications at a time). A device’s RAM can become very cluttered and full after a lot of usage, so clearing it up is a good way to speed up your phone.
How to Soft Reset an iPhone
Soft Resetting an iPhone depends on which model you have.
If you have a newer model that DOESN’T have a home button, Hold down both the power button and volume button and keep them held. The device should turn off completely and you should eventually see the Apple logo appear on the screen – you can let go of the buttons at this point.
If you have an iPhone that DOES have a home button, simply press and hold both the home and power buttons at the same time and keep them held. Your phone will turn off, and then an Apple logo should appear, you can let go of the buttons at this point.
How to Soft Reset an Android Phone
For an older Android device with a removable battery, turn off your device fully and simply open the back of your phone, remove the battery, and then place it back in after a few seconds.
If you have an Android Phone without a removable battery, press and hold the power and volume buttons at the same time until you reach the boot-up screen.
After cleaning up your RAM, you should see an immediate improvement in your device’s performance. If it starts to slow down again, simply try soft resetting once more.
After extensive use, you’ll notice that soft resetting your device won’t result in the same performance improvements as before; this is most likely due to an ageing battery.
Check your Battery Health
Your smartphone becoming slow and your battery health usually has a direct correlation. A brand-new phone with a fresh battery can run much faster than a 3-year-old phone. With lithium-ion batteries (found in the majority of devices), 3 years is ancient.
Lithium-ion batteries degrade over time and become less capable of holding a charge. The speed at which a battery degrades can be affected by a multitude of different things, such as temperature, how often it is charged, how often your phone dies (i.e 0% battery)
The more a battery degrades, the harder it is to efficiently manage each different function of your phone, so it needs to slow processes down to compensate.
You can find out your phone’s “Battery Health” on both iPhone and Android models.
How to Check Battery Health on iPhone
If you have any iPhone models after and including the iPhone 6 (with at LEAST iOS 11.3), you can easily find your battery health in the settings. Open your settings app and look for “Battery”, you should see “Battery Health”. Here, you can see your battery’s “Maximum Capacity” which is shown as a percentage. Apple recommends replacing your battery when the percentage goes under 80%.
You can also turn on Optimised Battery Charging here, which helps slow down the ageing of your device’s battery.
How to Check Battery Health on Android
With Android devices, you won’t be able to get a specific number or percentage of your battery health. Instead, you can see how long your battery is expected to last on a full charge. If your device is fully charged, but only shows a few hours left, you likely need to consider replacing it.
To get a better understanding of your battery health on Android phones, you can download an app called “AccuBattery” on Google Play. This is a trusted app and won’t have any effect on your device. This lets you monitor the health of your battery and give you real-time and historical insights into your battery usage.
If your battery is on the way out, it’s best just to get it replaced. You can contact us at SIM3 with any device that needs its battery replaced. We only use manufacturer-certified replacement batteries so you won’t have any issues. We also replace batteries at a much lower cost than official Apple or Android stores.
Our battery replacement service is included in our No Fix, No Fee policy. If we can’t repair your device, we won’t charge you. It’s as simple as that.
Free Up Some Storage Space
After a few years of taking photos, downloading apps and playing games, your phone storage is likely pretty full. If you’re getting that annoying “your storage is almost full” notification constantly, then it’s time to clean it out.
Our phone storage can consume critical resources from the central processing unit (CPU), slowly filling up RAM and eventually leading to a slowed device. So cleaning up some of your unused apps and files on a regular basis can help keep your phone feeling fast.
Try some of these tips to free up some space in your phone.
Cleaning Up Your Storage on an iPhone
Head to your settings and open “General” then “iPhone Storage.” From here, you can see all your applications and what exactly takes up the most space on your device. You may also be given some tips about how to free up space by tweaking your messages and applications.
Take a look through your storage and be honest with yourself, it can be difficult to delete anything off your phone in case “you might need it later” but you can always reinstall anything you need.
Once you’ve cleaned house, try a soft reset to clear your RAM. You should notice a substantial improvement in performance.
Cleaning Up Your Storage on an Android
Cleaning up your storage on an Android device is simple. You can go straight into your device’s settings and look for “Storage” and click the “Free Up Space” button right at the top.
A list of your items should appear, detailing your downloaded files, videos and photos as well as your “infrequently used apps”. These are the applications you haven’t used much recently and might want to look into deleting them.
For both devices, keep on top of your photo albums and your messages. These are two big storage fillers that many people tend to ignore. Some messaging applications save any images sent to you to your photos, which can take up a lot of space over the years.
Why is my Phone Slow? – Revive an Old, Slow Phone with SIM3
If you find yourself wondering “Why is my phone slow?” why not bring it to the professionals here at SIM3? We have experience working with all types of devices and phones and can make a few changes to your device to improve performance.
We replace batteries with Manufacturer Certified replacements (no second-hand, cheap options here!) and can work on software repairs to correct anything taking up CPU power.
If you’re having issues with your mobile phone being slow, why not bring it to our shop in Preston? Give us a call or message and tell us about the issues your phone is having and we can help find a solution.