Do Android Phones Experience "OS Rot"?

[Richard Feynman]

It seems to me that each of the Android phones I've purchased have experienced "OS rot", meaning when I first get them they are responsive and fast, yet by the time I replace them they have lag and are slow. I'm certain it's not my imagination, as an example when I first got my Galaxy S4 taking a picture was fast, by the time I just replaced it was so slow it'd take a couple seconds to launch the camera and a couple more for the pic to snap after pressing the button.

Now I own the Nexus 6P which is easily the fastest most responsive Android phone I've owned so far. Still, I wonder if in a year I'll notice more lag, more apps crashing and so on, same as I did with the S4. I also wonder how much installing and uninstalling different apps contributes. I guess the good news is it's pretty easy to do a factory reset on the phone and start over.

Just wonder what the experience of others is as far as Android phones slowing down? I may factory reset by S4 now just to experiment and see how fast it gets again.

Thanks

 

[AustinIllini]

Meh. Don't buy trouble for yourself. Enjoy your phone.

 

[ptkelly]

How many apps a day do you add?

 

[Richard Feynman]

How many apps a day do you add?

A day? Ha, I know some guys that are that bad, but I'm not an app addict, wild *** guess I average less than an app a week. Most of which happens because I try 5 similar apps and then delete all but one after I've seen which one I like best.

 

[mohit9206]

At first i would have said yes Android is the poster child of OS rot. It super fast and responsive on your shiny new Android phone but by the time you are ready for a new phone, it slow and laggy as hell. You wonder if its the same phone you bought last year.
I was expecting the same thing to happen with my Moto E 1st gen. But After 13 months of use, its shockingly just as fast and smooth as when it was new. So just maybe Android does not suffer from OS rot but its mostly due to the bloat that manufacturers like Samsung like to stuff in their phones. So the best thing is to buy a phone with as little bloat as possible.

 

[Golfdriver97]

I have noticed with KitKat it was much better than Gingerbread. Ice Cream Sandwich and Jelly Bean, I honestly can't recall. I am tempted to say that part of the under the hood changes that happened with one of the JB versions (I think 4.2 to be exact) helped deter OS rot, with each version getting slightly better at each release.