This may be stupid, what makes a phone slow down?

**CollegePartyBoy** · 10-12-2012, 01:11 PM

Not what kills battery life. I know live wallpapers can make it sluggish, slow to move between panels. Is there anything else?

**Paul627g** · 10-12-2012, 01:20 PM

Widgets (homescreen widgets example, weather updates, stocks, traffic, etc.)

The obvious, too many programs running...

Certain launchers although tempting to use and offer cool features can lag a device down.

Another tip many of us don't like to power down and reboot the device too often, this builds up garbage in the system.. You should do at least a once a day shut down/reboot.

If rooted, clear dalvik cache and cache partition every couple days to clear things out.. This will help clear up a slow device.

**Lactose The Intolerant** · 10-12-2012, 01:32 PM

Apps running "rogue" in the background can use up system resources and slow you down...

OS Monitor (free & paid) in the ~~Market~~ Play Store show you what is running.

**doctorg23** · 10-13-2012, 11:05 AM

You know, I have always wondered why a phone becomes so unbelievably sluggish after about 18 months...
I wonder if a full factory reset every few months would make any sense to get rid of anything that may have gone "rogue" or areas of memory that are consumed and not being freed up...

Anyone think this would be reasonable or is this just a waste of time?

By the way, I am a thunderbolt owner, but a rezound is in the mail from Verizon to replace it. My TB that has served me well for 18 months, but now refuses to hold on to a data signal...

**NoYankees44** · 10-13-2012, 05:42 PM

Another thing is cluttered file system. In other words lots of files all over the place that you don't need. You phone has to go threw all of this every time it accesses files(all the time).

A good thing to do is go through ad delete files from old apps or things you know you don't need on both internal and external memory

Sent from my ADR6425LVW

**TBolt** · 10-14-2012, 07:30 PM

Originally Posted by doctorg23

Anyone think this would be reasonable or is this just a waste of time?

Welcome to the Rez family.

I reformat & reload the OS on my PCs every 12-18 months or so. Since these phones are computers, I think it sounds reasonable to reset it ... IF it starts to lag.

Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Tapatalk 2

**MrSmith317** · 10-19-2012, 09:41 AM

Originally Posted by doctorg23

You know, I have always wondered why a phone becomes so unbelievably sluggish after about 18 months...
I wonder if a full factory reset every few months would make any sense to get rid of anything that may have gone "rogue" or areas of memory that are consumed and not being freed up...

Anyone think this would be reasonable or is this just a waste of time?

By the way, I am a thunderbolt owner, but a rezound is in the mail from Verizon to replace it. My TB that has served me well for 18 months, but now refuses to hold on to a data signal...

Usually just clearing your cache will help. This is a problem most don't understand. Over time the cache partition fills up and certain apps will take up more and more space in the cache the more you use them. So as time goes on you accumulate a rolling pile of garbage that only exists to get bigger. Now most people would imagine that the cache would be cleaned up on a reboot. They'd be wrong. Some apps will delete the junk in cache when they exit, however some will not. Those are the ones that cause you an issue down the stretch. Clearing your cache will wipe out that data but it will also make some apps think that you've never used them before so it's certainly subjective as to whether or not this does more good or harm.

Off topic, if you were wondering this same thing happens to Windows, but unfortunately the only way to clean the junk out is to do a complete fresh install of windows. Anything less(like the "make my PC faster" software you see on TV) is useless.

**doctorg23** · 10-25-2012, 07:27 PM

Originally Posted by MrSmith317

Usually just clearing your cache will help. This is a problem most don't understand. Over time the cache partition fills up and certain apps will take up more and more space in the cache the more you use them. So as time goes on you accumulate a rolling pile of garbage that only exists to get bigger. Now most people would imagine that the cache would be cleaned up on a reboot. They'd be wrong. Some apps will delete the junk in cache when they exit, however some will not. Those are the ones that cause you an issue down the stretch. Clearing your cache will wipe out that data but it will also make some apps think that you've never used them before so it's certainly subjective as to whether or not this does more good or harm.

Off topic, if you were wondering this same thing happens to Windows, but unfortunately the only way to clean the junk out is to do a complete fresh install of windows. Anything less(like the "make my PC faster" software you see on TV) is useless.

Thanks for the responses. Guess I will do a factory reset when the phone gets sluggish....painful, but would definitely prolong the life of the phone for me.