Is my Driod dying?

billhansen

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I have an original Droid smartphone, not the Droid 2 or 3, not the Razr. It's probably 5 years old, maybe 6 years old. It has been giving acceptable service until the past month or so, when its response time has slowed almost to the point of uselessness. The supplier is Verizon, with excellent coverage in our area. Batteries fully charged, caches all cleared, but it may take 3 to 5 minutes for a phone call to go through, from a location where my wife's Samsung phone calls go through instantly. Same with web access. Accessing a site once would take several seconds. Now it takes minutes, and usually I never get through to the site - any site. The camera is the same - takes at least a minute or two before a photo can be taken.

Is there any way to bring the phone back to life, or am I stuck with the necessity of buying a new phone?

Thanks for any thoughts on this.

Bill Hansen
 

94lt1

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With a device that old.. I'd consider replacing it.. You can find good deals on newer phones on sites like swappable.. That's my opinion anyhow.
 

CJM

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FoxKat

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Why not just a standard FDR? It's not as though the electronic components "get slower with age", perhaps like a mechanical device might.

I have an OGD and it's just as snappy now as it was new. I've FDR'd it and it's good as new.

Sent from my Droid Turbo on Tapatalk.
 

cr6

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You've definitely gotten some great use out of this device and that's admirable, but like anything else, your typical smartphone won't last forever. If a factory data reset doesn't help, it may be time to retire the old girl. There are some great deals out there on newer but not brand new devices. As suggested, Swappa has some amazing deals on great used phones and you can trust them to be "clean" (as in not stolen) at a very reasonable price.
Good luck and let us know if you need a hand with anything, whichever route you take.

S5 tap'n
 

Jonny Kansas

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Why not just a standard FDR? It's not as though the electronic components "get slower with age", perhaps like a mechanical device might.

I have an OGD and it's just as snappy now as it was new. I've FDR'd it and it's good as new.

Sent from my Droid Turbo on Tapatalk.
An FDR will help for sure for some lag, but thought you're right that the electronic components don't get slower with age, the fact that phones these days have MUCH more RAM and processing power means that devs are creating apps that take up more of those limited system resources, so depending on use, the hardware may just not have the room in RAM or the processing power to efficiently run some apps, especially if you're allowing them to run in the background and/or switching quickly from app to app.

The OS is pretty good at freeing up memory when needed, but it can only free up so much and when it's got less to start with, that can become a problem.

The comparison of the wife's Samsung phone is really only fair if she's got a phone from the same era with comparable specs. If she's even on a Galaxy s2, I think that's higher spec'd and won't give you a very fair representation.

With all of that in mind, I would recommend starting with an FDR if you don't want an excuse to get a new phone. It'll get rid of a lot of junk that could easily be clogging things up a bit and make the phone a bit more fresh. If that doesn't help, then I'd start shopping if the lag is still bad enough that you can't bare it.
 

94lt1

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Though the device won't get slower with age... A lot of apps are getting more and more complex in what they try to do.. Games as well..

My Droid razr maxx(g1) is still operating fine.. It just takes a while longer than my Maxx or my turbo...

Hardware limitations.. Like being a single core.. With a small amount of ram..

But since we're talking about it. It is possible that the device can physically slow down.. Depending on the heat the device has been subjected too.. And vibrations.. This can stress any physical connection within the device.. Some can say that a micro fracture in solder won't make a difference.. I say that's not correct.. But this is putting things a tad bit out there... :)
 
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bill hansen

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Thanks to everyone who replied. A factory reset did help somewhat, but the phone (and other apps) are still quite sluggish at times. I'm going to try to nurse it along for a few months, and see what the spring crop of new phones brings. I'm convinced that I'll be happier if I upgrade. - Bill
 
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