When your phone starts getting a bit slow, you’re likely to get pretty frustrated with it.
Apps are lagging and taking ages to load up. Your screen inputs seem to jar and freeze, and take a good few seconds to actually register. Even if you just want to unlock your phone first thing in the morning, it just doesn’t seem to want to respond to you!
All of these things are warning signs. And they can be a major red flag, especially if your phone gets too hot to hold at times too.
It also doesn’t matter whether your phone is brand new, a few years’ old, or a refurbished model you bought secondhand. If it’s slow, laggy, and seems to have difficulty responding, double check the battery is OK, and even take it down to a phone repair to check for any viruses.
However, don’t let yourself panic about your phone just yet! GThose things are worse case scenarios. But in fact, most of the time, speed issues are a sign of a pretty simple problem.
So, let’s go through those problems below and finally get your phone working as quickly as you need it to!
Background App Refresh
How many apps do you have open in the background? You can check right now by swiping upward on your device. And whatever you see there, go through one by one and shut them down.
You don’t need them to be open 24/7 like this! And it’s always the first thing to do to test what’s making your phone slower than usual.
We’d say that 80% of the time, this will speed up your phone’s response time by at least a second or two. That’s some pretty good progress. But seeing as you’re still experiencing the lag, we need to move onto step two.
Photo Storage is Full
Your phone doesn’t have separate pockets for storage, but we say photo storage because this is most likely what’s taking up so much room.
Phones lag when they don’t have the memory they need to get things done. And seeing as you’re likely to snap plenty of pics, and then forget they’re in your phone, your photo album is probably hogging all of the space here!
So, what can we do to fix things? You don’t necessarily need to buy new storage – although Apple devices in particular will remind you of the option to do so time and time again.
Instead, you simply need to offload the photos you’ve saved onto another device, meaning you can then delete them from your phone’s memory bank.
So plug your phone into a computer or laptop (or use phone link), transfer the photos you want to keep but don’t want to keep storing, and then pop them all in an easy-access folder on the computer instead. Then unplug/unlink and delete as many photos off your phone as you like.
Too Many Apps!
The amount of apps downloaded onto your phone is going to have a big impact on performance. Of course, most modern phones can hold 20+ apps without a problem, as you’re not using every single one 24/7.
But sometimes, the amount of apps you’ve got installed can become an issue, and especially if you’re already running low on storage space.
Gaming apps in particular are troublesome for this reason. They tend to take up more space than any functional or organisational apps, and the background refresh rate of a game tends to run higher as well.
So instead, try to delete off a few gaming apps that you don’t use very often, and then turn to using mobile-friendly online games instead. A few quick rounds of hearts is pretty easy for your phone to cope with, as the site you’re accessing is made to be used no matter the device.
That way you can keep the games you do like to play, and have a long history with, and can remove any impulse downloads you’ve touched here and there, but are otherwise just taking up space.
Your Phone is on the Way Out
Yes, we do actually have to consider this. If you’ve tried all of the above and your phone is still slow and laggy, you might just need to buy a new one.
It’ll likely be cheaper than trying to get this one repaired, and that’s if the phone can even have an issue diagnosed and fixed in the first place.
It’s an annoying expense you’ll have to face, and it might come at the worst of times, but it could be essential to buy a new one ASAP.
The more you try to work with a phone that just won’t do what you need it to, the harder you’re going to find trying to stay on top of your day to day.
Messages might not come through, or the notifications for them might simply drop off. And if the NFC reader in your phone breaks down, you’re not even going to be able to use it to pay whenever you need to shop.
Really, if the phone is slow and seems to not improve at all, these issues can quickly and easily come next.
Fix Your Slow Phone Today
A slow phone is an inefficient one. It’s not the kind of phone you can rely on, especially if you’re dealing with an emergency situation. And because of that, it’s best to get speed issues seen to ASAP.
Fixing a slow phone can be as simple as clearing the cache and deleting a few photos or videos off of it. However, it can also be the sign of a bigger issue that needs some proper care and repair. And sometimes, you may even just need to buy a new phone altogether.
Long story short, clear the storage as much as you can (including all those idle gaming apps you’ve downloaded!), make sure there’s no background refreshing going on, and double check your system settings.