Everything on the internet is moving fast, so why is my phone slow? If you have this question, this article is for you. The reason why my phone is slow has to do with many factors with the phone. This complaint could come up when you have to deal with app freezes, slow loading of internet pages, keyboard app freezing, and experiencing lags when sending a message.
You are wondering why is my phone lagging. You have to worry if your phone keeps taking a couple of minutes to execute tasks that should have been done in seconds. Here are some reasons why your phone is slow, and how to make your phone faster.
Phone has virus
If you mistakenly download and view or install any malicious app or viruses in media form, you will end up asking ‘Why is my phone so slow, even though the RAM and ROM are big enough? You could also be having to deal with annoying pop-ups as well as frequent app crashes, and experiencing freezes when you want to open an app.
To get rid of the virus;
- Go to Settings > Applications > Tap See all apps
- This will give you a list of all applications on your phone.
- Tap on any of the apps you want to uninstall > Select Uninstall
- If you get a prompt to delete junk files related to the app, select okay
- Go to your file manager > select downloads > delete any media of questionable origin
This should get rid of it. If you have any malicious app that does not uninstall or any media that does not delete, you should back up and your valuable data on the cloud or your Google Drive. Then, do a factory data reset or reset to factory settings.
Hardware phone specs are low (RAM and ROM)
Every phone comes with a predefined hardware spec in terms of RAM and ROM. These are the limited resources that have to bear the brunt of every task the phone will perform. If your phone is running slow, there is a high chance that you have occupied a large part of the RAM and ROM. Try these tips.
- The ROM is the internal storage so you can free up some space on it by mounting an SD card on your device and moving some media and apps to the memory card.
- If you go through your file manager, you may find a lot of media files you do not need on your phone > Save them to your Google Drive or Cloud> then delete them from your phone.
- You cannot expand the RAM, however, but you can use your device manager to get rid of junk files and other background apps.
Heavy phone software
If you are giving your simple smartphone some really heavy software to deal with, this could stretch your Operating system, RAM, and ROM, causing your phone to become so slow. Since the time you purchased your phone, a lot of apps have been launched on Google Play. Your device does not have the resources to deal with this new and demanding software.
- The one tip you need is to only download the lite version of apps when you need to, as they take less space
Cache data
Storage data and Cache data on some of your regularly used applications can slow down your phone, especially when you are using the app in question. To clear cache;
- Go to Settings > Applications > Tap See all apps
- This will give you a list of all applications on your phone.
- Tap on one of them > Select storage > Clear storage and then Clear Cache
- Do these for all your heavy files.
- Restart the phone.
Increased Animations
Animations are a beautiful feature of smartphones but they can be the reason you are asking ‘Why is my phone slow’. Yes, animations take a lot of the phone’s processing resources trying to make the UI look fluid, and this slows down the processing speed for other things. You have to disable animations to save some processing power for the more important task.
- Go to Settings >select About Phone or My Phone
- Navigate downwards and Tap Build number till you see a pop-up saying that you are now a Developer. You may have to tap it up to 4 times or more.
- Go back to Settings page > Tap on systems > Select Developer options > navigate downward to Windows animation scale > Tap Animations off.
- Tap on Transition animation scale > Tap Animations off
- Tap on Animator duration scale > Click Animation off
Unused apps
There are some apps you have on your device and have not used in over 90 days. These are the apps your phone classifies as an unused app, and they
- Tap on your menu button to see all your phone apps
- Locate the ones you do not use.
- Tap and hold on the app > A dropdown will appear, select Uninstall
- Do these for all the apps. If you do not see the uninstall option, it means it is a system application and cannot be uninstalled from your device.
- After uninstalling an app, you may get a prompt asking to delete junk files or app files. Accept it.
Uninstalling unused apps frees up space on your phone memory since the app files also get deleted. This will help reduce the lag on your phone.
Some heavy apps
Some apps take up a lot of space on your phone. If you have heavy apps that you only use sparingly, you could decide to uninstall them to make your phone work faster. Follow the steps in the solution above to uninstall the ones you wish to uninstall or you can also clear cache on regularly used apps.
Using live wallpapers
Using live wallpapers can result in the phone running slow, as it takes up several CPU cycles just like the animations. You can instead use a still photo as wallpaper.
- Go to Settings > Select Display > Select Wallpaper
- You can use a still image from your gallery or choose from the internal wallpapers. Those are static and do not take up processing power.
Some phone parts are damaged
If some phone parts are damaged, it could result in an unsatisfactory user experience and you would be left wondering, ‘My phone is slow?’
The only tip here is to fix the damaged phone part. Once this is done, this will boost your mobile phone from its performance.
System version outdated
Why is my phone lagging? Well, if your phone model is old, then the Operating system version could be outdated. It is a reason for down phone performance. You can update your operating system version.
- Ensure that your battery is well charged (at least above 50%), and your device is connected to a Wi-Fi connection as the update cannot be done over a cellular connection.
- Open Settings > Tap on System (on some phones, you can find Software updates here, and you can tap on it.
- Select System update > Click Online update > If the system prompts you, follow the prompt, enter your password, and start the update. You may need to confirm the update again before it starts installing.
- Give it a while to finish updating and then restart your device.
Third-party applications
In a bid to optimize my phone, I downloaded some third-party applications and now my phone is lagging. Yes, they could be a great help in making sense of your numerous apps and media files, but they do take some processing space especially when you have several of them.
Try to figure out those third-party applications you can do without, and delete them. If you must, you could opt for the lite versions of the apps.
Conclusion
A slow mobile phone is not the end of the world even if it feels like it sometimes. Try out the solutions above and you will quit asking ‘Why is my phone slow’.
