What causes an Android Phone to Freeze you might wonder, this is the question we are here to answer.
Almost 3/10 of the universe uses an Android phone. The problems of Android phones usually cause its slowness and ineffectiveness, and like for all other phones, they come from hardware and software breaches. Do you have a slow android device, or is your android phone freezing? Looking for a way to fix it? In this guide, we shall take you through the different reasons why your android phone is freezing and How to fix it in the easiest way possible.
Contents
Reason 1: Filling up of memory space.
[Source: Internet]
This is one of the reasons that cause an Android Phone Freeze. It is your phone, and you can download all the movies and applications you want – but at some point when your android phone memory is filled up with a lot of content, the phone shall have freezing and lagging tendencies.
When the phone memory is full, the phone has no breathing space and the RAM does too much work to sustain the small existing space for the phone and its functionalities to operate. During this struggle to retain and sustain your phone’s disk space, the phone doesn’t function as swiftly as it normally should.
Solution (i): Delete unwanted applications
It still is your phone, and you feel you need to retain your movies, social media applications, and Snapchat videos/selfies – but not everything must necessarily be on your phone.
You can back up some heavy files on an external storage device like your PC, and free your phone space. Another backup option for android users is the cloud. Google Photos is a trusted product of Google where they give you FREE 15GB storage space.
Sometimes it could be the applications that are taking up more space, the best way is to make a priority for those which are more relevant and frequently used.
Go to settings -> Storage & Memory -> Apps (Select the application to be deleted) -> Uninstall
Solution (ii): Move application from Phone to SD-Card
[Source: Internet]
In case your phone memory is full and you have a memory card that still has quite some space, moving an application from your Phone memory to SD-Card can help free your phone of memory.
Go to settings -> Storage & Memory -> Apps – and move your desired application.
NOTE: This doesn’t work for every phone, due to Android OS differences and Phone functionality differences.
Solution (iii): Clear app cache
Whenever any application is running, it stores some files and data which it uses to load faster in case a session is ended. These files are called cache data.
Every application on your android phone stores cache data, and this can take up some amount of your phone memory since it is helpful at some point. In case your phone is almost full to the brim, you may clear the app cache of your applications.
To find where the app cache is:
Go to Settings -> Storage & Memory -> Apps (Then Click on any application) -> Clear app cache
The quickest way to clear all the cache from your phone at once is getting an android cache cleaner app like Clean master from Google Play Store (More space being eaten up, right?).
Reason 2: Overloading the phone with unnecessary applications from unknown sources
These days we have application transfer software on our android phones which makes it so easy to transfer any application from one phone to another.
Through WhatsApp, we can send APK files in document form, change their extension and transform them into applications that can run on our android phones.
Some applications that are recommended by our friends cannot be found on Google Play Store, and the only source where they can be found are online websites – which we are most times not sure of their authenticity.
All these above techniques and more of acquiring applications put an android phone at risk, here is why: some of these applications are buggy, others are not well-fashioned to function with certain phones and other applications use up a lot of our phone RAM during their operations – stressing right?
All along it has been that app that was forwarded in a WhatsApp group that is slowing down your phone. But worry not, we have a solution for you.
Solution (i): Delete apps from unknown sources
As simple as it sounds, it may be a hard thing to do if you feel that has been your go-to application. But for the better of your android phone, delete the application.
Solution (ii): Block apps from unknown sources
If you are a die-hard Android user, you know that you can set your android phone not to allow applications from unknown sources in settings. Some latest phones on Android Oreo can also block certain browsers or applications from installing unknown apps.
In as much as Google Play Store is a trusted source for applications, many applications on Google Play tend to be buggy. Before downloading and using that application on your android device, check in the ratings, reviews, and comments of the other users, this shall give you a clear picture of whether the application is user-friendly and suitable for your phone model. For low ratings and poor reviews, that application may not be the best to install.
Reason 3: Too many programs running at the same time
Using more than one application, switching from one to the other can slow down your phone.
This is because your phone RAM maybe too occupied that it lacks an easy way to play around with all these 6 or 10 applications at once.
Solution: Clear the background applications
You should occasionally check any running background applications and clear them from your android phone memory in case you are not using them. This can help your phone operate faster.
Reason 4: Outdated phone Software
If you haven’t updated your software from the existing old version to the new current version, your Android phone might slow down a bit.
Developers of your android phone software usually publish new phone Operating system software suitable for your device after discovering bugs and algorithmic inequalities in the old version. These existing bugs in the outdated operating system could be the reason your phone is lagging behind.
Solution: Update your Operating system
You should check once in a while if your android phone Operating system has been updated, and take the opportunity to advance from an old to a new software version with less bugs.
Go to Settings -> System updates (Click on check for updates) -> Update
NOTE: Before updating, you should check the official website of your android phone type to see if the updated was announced. (Hackers tend to infiltrate people’s phones but looping in updates)
You should also first wait for a week or two after the update has been officially published and read the reviews on its effectiveness from the earlier users, some updates tend to be more buggy and others burden the phone’s RAM.
Reason 5: Old phone hardware
As the saying goes, “The old broom knows all the corners”, But as it sweeps it withers out – so does a phone which has had quite a number of years in performance.
The moment that android phone starts to operate from its manufactory stage, up to the end of its lifetime, it gets old slowly by slowly. Many times we blame the RAM but sometimes the phone hardware is just old.
During the course of its use, the motherboard may have accumulated dust on its sensitive parts, the micro-chips may be overworked and they can’t operate as effectively or it could be the battery that can’t sustain you all day long.
Solution (i): New phone hardware
It is very easy to get hardware for an android phone, so you can talk to your phone repairs guy and see what he can do for you – BUT YouTube has some of those tutorials on how to replace what (that is if you are your own phone repairs guy)
In my opinion, I wouldn’t encourage one to go through this hustle.
Solution (ii): BUY A NEW PHONE
Here the power lies in your wallet, but in my opinion, buying a brand new phone is the best solution to old phone hardware.
You can upgrade to the latest version in that line of Android, get another kind of android or even cross over to the world of Apple. This may be expensive BUT as I said earlier, the power lies in your wallet.
Reason 6: Virus infections
It is very common for a phone to be affected by viruses, not with these many unsolicited pop-up adverts with gaming software, winning data bundles, or even social media files. Clearly, by virtue of the fact that your A
Other times, it may be from an infected computer that your android phone gets a virus from.
When a phone has been infected by a virus:
- It occasionally blacks out
- Applications randomly crash
- It randomly shows a black screen
- Unexplained pop up adds
- Extreme battery usage
Solution: Get the best antivirus software
There
Check out this list of best antivirus software for android phones curated by the good people at TechRadar.
Reason 7: Running heavy applications
The gamers can highly relate to this one. When it comes to running heavy applications like Gaming software, phones tend to slow down and operate at a very slow rate causing an Android Phone Freeze. This is because these heavy applications consume a lot of RAM during their operation and it gets worse when there are other applications running in the background.
Solution: The more the RAM, the better
There is no concrete solution to this problem, and I cannot in a way tell gamers or other people running heavy applications to delete them. The safest way to stick with your heavy application is if your android phone has enough RAM (4GB and above), in this way you will not have a lot of freezes as for the people with Android phones that have less RAM.
You should also make sure that no other application is running during the same time as that heavy application.
Reason 8: Cracked screen
I know you might be wondering how really a cracked screen causes an android phone to freeze because maybe your cracked screen android phone has not frozen yet that much of the lag in its operation is not that significant.
Here is how cracking your screen can lead to freezing and lags.
Cracking your screen exposes your android phone’s inner sensitive parts to direct heat and dust, which affects its speed.
Solution (i): Screen repair
Let us all agree that cracked screens are really suckish to look at, even more so – why would you want to be that guy on the crew who has a cracked screen?
Take your screen to your phone repair guy, and protect your dignity and most importantly your phone’s inner hardware from getting old faster.
NOTE: Some screens are delicate to replace; therefore, users are given a condition of replacement at the owner’s risk – which takes us to the next two solutions.
Solution (ii): Screen protector
They say prevention is better than cure, and this works for phones too. Why would you wait for your screen to break when you would rather prevent it from happening?
There exist 2D and 3D screen protectors for android phones at quite affordable prices on Jumia in Uganda, Amazon, and other e-shops.
Solution (iii): BUY A NEW PHONE
For some phones, the screen damage can be too intense that the option of buying a new phone is better.
Some screen replacements can be very expensive for example; OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) and screens – in which case you would rather buy a new phone.
Reason 9: Dropping the phone in water
Yes, there are multiple ways in which you can fix a water-damaged phone but most of the time, a phone might not be as robustly functional as it was before such an incident.
This is simply because the phone wasn’t originally waterproof.
You can suck out water but some hardware/microchips which were not meant to be exposed to water get affected.
Solution: Prevention is better than cure
It might work after sucking out the water, BUT not as fast as before – so how about you get waterproof?
You might as well buy a new android handset if all is well.
Conclusion
I hope this piece has been helpful.
One last pro-tip is, if your phone freezes longer than usual, remove its battery (if it is removable), reboot it or reset it.