Many devices start slowing sluggishness after a few years of use. If you’re not ready to get rid of your device just yet but it’s slow and losing battery life, there are measures you can take to revive it. Some mobile phone providers do offer the option for an upgrade if you take back your old phone and pay extra. But this option isn’t available for everyone.
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1. Restart your phone regularly
A restart helps free up memory, stops background apps, and processes, and disables any apps that are hanging. Clearing your cache using the phone’s inbuilt memory app can also help but it doesn’t always stop apps that are stuck. Clearing your cache doesn’t purge whatever is holding up your RAM but a reboot does. Try rebooting your phone at least thrice a day.
2. Update your phone
If your phone isn’t always on WiFi, it may not always scan for updates. Change your settings to notify you of system updates on WiFi. Enable this setting if you have a mobile data package that can download heavy files. This helps your phone maintain the latest software to run seamlessly.
3. Get rid of unnecessary apps
Some phones notify you when you have rarely used apps that you can purge. Having games, social media, extra browsers or editing apps can fill up your phone. As you continue using the phone, each app keeps getting upgrades that also take up space. Eliminate apps that you don’t use a lot. You can also look at the apps you frequently use such as WhatsApp, and delete the data you no longer need, such as photos and videos. If you have an email account, it comes with limited cloud storage. You can move old photos and videos there.
4. Move large files
If you have large documents, videos, or photos, store them in a removable drive or a cloud. You can also use a music-playing app subscription service to listen to music instead of storing music files on your phone. Some phones have a slot for microSD cards. Getting one with a large storage space can help you relieve your phone from overdue stress on its memory.
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5. Change your display
You can extend the phone’s battery life and performance by changing your display. Your phone’s theme store can have low-performance display options. In addition, you can remove multiple widgets that you don’t need such as sports scores. Some phones also come with app vaults that constantly run as a display. Since they can’t be removed, you can disable it. Avoid using live wallpapers or a carousel.
6. Use dark mode
Light modes use more power for the display. If you struggle to see text in dark mode, you can enable dark mode for certain hours such as evenings or nights when you don’t use it often. You can also reduce the display brightness or use the phone’s recommended settings to increase battery life. You can also switch off the Always-On display setting, and have your phone go to sleep mode after a few minutes of no use.
7. Use lite apps
Many social media apps and browsers are heavy performance drainers. To increase the phone’s life, you can use the lite versions of the social media apps and browsers that you use the most. This helps your phone stop using too much battery and performance to load web pages or feeds. If you use Chrome, you can use the settings on the app to change to Lite mode. This helps you move between tabs and upload pages with less data. Video streams may need full app modes but the rest of the time you can use Lite modes. Alternatively, you can rely on your computer for streaming instead of your phone.
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8. Disable the phone assistant
Phone AI assistants are constantly monitoring your phone use and habits. They also have to be alert when you need to send a voice command. This drains the phone’s processing power and battery life. Disabling the assistant also prevents further tracking of your habits and reduces background activity.
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9. Factory reset
This helps restore your phone to its original release status. This removes all updates and additional apps and files on the phone giving you a clean slate. However, it’s important to back up all your important messages and files because they will be deleted in the reset. You can use your phone’s inbuilt cloud to back up all your information and use external drives to store it.
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