10 tips for speeding up a slow phone or tablet

The modern smartphone

These days, many smartphones and tablets are capable of performing demanding tasks like providing high quality photo, audio and video features with rich displays at high resolutions. They are equipped with big, speedy on-board storage, expandable storage capabilities, advanced connectivity features with good multi-tasking and even the ability to play some graphically intensive 3D games.

They provide these desirable functionalities to their users with very good efficiency at fast speeds. It comes as no surprise then that to keep up with such challenging performance in a small package, they need to be very multifaceted devices that make use of advanced software to drive innovative modern hardware. Basically they are full mini computers in the palms of our hands. As a result they suffer from many of the same challenges as their larger counterparts and should be maintained in a similar fashion as with our laptop or desktop PCs we use at home and at our workplaces.

"OnePlus One vs LG G3 vs Apple iPhone 6 Plus vs Samsung Galaxy Note 4" by pestoverde under CC BY 2.0.

 What creates the onscreen magic when they’re powered on?

As you know, paying all that money for a phone we expect aesthetics, speed, good build quality and superb features else what’s the point right? Well even if your phone is not a top of the line model, it still has software that runs the hardware. This is the actual operating system (Android or iOS.) and apps that make the magic happen on an otherwise black shiny screen. This is the part which over time, changes through over the air (OTA) updates and user preferences and is responsible for the responsiveness and operation of the device.

Your smartphone isn't working as fast as it used to?

It's frustrating when you are late for work or hustling or just busy and on the move and need to use you phone to check something only to realize it's taking too much time! There are a few things which you can do to alleviate this problem if you are experiencing a delay when using your phone or tablet for scrolling webpages, opening apps, photos or videos, checking emails and checking social media feeds. Keep in mind that these tips are general to iOS and Android phones and tablets. Both operating systems have similar device setting options. Regardless below are some tips worth trying that should help.

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1. Checking your phone's battery health
2. Using your phones built in device care or optimizer
3. Removing unused apps and disabling background tasks
4. Cleaning the browser cache
5. Backing up old files to external storage
6. Allow the device to cool down
7. Update apps
8. Get rid of widgets you don’t need
9. Disable power saving features
10. Restarting the device

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Android Settings menu on left and iOS settings menu on right with Apps Store highlighted

Checking your phone's battery health

Yeah, as silly at it may sound a deteriorating battery can cause this. All batteries are consumables even new rechargeable ones and over time, lose their ability to hold their rated capacity due to chemical degradation. As such the device may not get the full power to perform at its best. Both Android and iOS have battery management options in their 'Settings' menu you can monitor.

Using your phones built in device care or optimizer

This can vary under Android and iOS but will be found under a similar name in either the main settings menu or a sub menu in there. Find it and run all the little checks like memory, storage, battery, unused apps etc. This is usually the quickest way to free up resources after extensive use.

Removing unused apps and disabling background tasks

We’re all guilty of downloading apps to try sometimes only to forget about them later on. Visit the apps menu in settings and decide which ones you can do without because they take up valuable resources if left to run in the background. While at this, many apps run in the background when closed for easy updating the next time they are launched. Disable the ones you hardly use from running in the background to free up memory.

Cleaning the browser cache

Start Safari on an iPhone or Chrome on and Android phone or whichever browser you use or even all installed browsers. Go to the ‘settings’ or ‘more’ menu within the browser and locate something to the effect “Clear history /cache/ website/ browsing data”. Clear it all for best results.

Backing up old files to external storage

Over time we use the camera on our phones, we copy our song libraries, some videos, we download pics and videos or eBooks and podcasts. Stuff like that accumulate and fill up limited internal storage which can affect the efficiency with which apps perform due to lack of cache space. Check your storage settings to move old items to SD card or transfer them to PC via USB.

Allow the device to cool down

When the phone sits in a hot car or in direct sunlight for extended periods or simply used extensively the OS will throttle the CPU and memory speeds to allow it to cool. You can aid this process by giving the phone a little rest as there isn’t much that can be done here otherwise.

Update apps

Go the Apps Store on an iPhone or Google Play on Android, visit the page for the app that you find unresponsive and update if needed. Usually notifications tell you when an app needs updating and depending on OS settings, may update automatically but a manual check is good in this case as old versions can cause slowdowns.

Get rid of widgets you don’t need

Widgets are small graphical elements on the home screen that show updates on weather, news, alarms etc. at a glance and these need to be constantly updated via the internet They need access to resources like memory, network and graphics processor in the phone. Remove unnecessary ones.

Disable power saving features

When the battery is low the OS will initialize a power saving mode automatically or it can also be done by the user manually. Check to see if it is accidentally on as this will cause the chips to run slower and also disable some features to save power. If your battery is worn out this mode can be engaged much faster than normal in that case you may need to replace the battery.

Restarting the device

This one should be on top but anyway it’s the natural thing anyone would try. Sometimes OS processes suffer from memory leaks over time being on 24/7 or apps get stuck or any other unseen core functions that run in the OS to make the phone work. Sometimes you may notice the phone unusually hot without much usage. Restarting might solve these issues as the OS reboots and flushes memory totally restarting the processor.

For what it’s worth

Not everyone will need to do all of these before they experience some improvement but at the same time trying all may not alleviate the situation much. Hopefully these 10 tips or some of them at least, should get your phone working faster. If you aren’t seeing much improvement maybe it’s time to upgrade because with every new version of the OS and new versions of apps, it takes a little away from the efficiency of the device since the newer OS and apps add more features that ultimately use more resources and the hardware isn’t changing. If you’re a heavy user of many apps this may be your only viable alternative.