Verizon slowing phone down?

[bill hansen]

My 2014 Samsung S5 galaxy phone, purchased from Verizon, has worked as expected until the last couple of weeks, when its response to any "request" began to slow down greatly. The battery can be fully charged, 100%, and the phone will show only a blank white screen for as much as 2-3 minutes. This does not depend on location - different places indoors, different buildings, outside, etc, are all the same. A "wide area network" of WiFi is available to me, and when the phone is on the WAN (WiFi) it shows the same slow-down. Once I get the sign-in screen, it may take from one to fives minutes after I press the Home button to access the main screen. Once the Home screen is available, it may take even longer - 5 to 10 minutes - before I can access email, or Maps, or any other app on the phone.

My guess has been that the phone is somehow wearing out. But I know that some phone suppliers have slowed down older phones, to encourage customers to "upgrade" to newer models. Does anyone know of Verizon doing this?

 

[ironass]

My 2014 Samsung S5 galaxy phone, purchased from Verizon, has worked as expected until the last couple of weeks, when its response to any "request" began to slow down greatly. The battery can be fully charged, 100%, and the phone will show only a blank white screen for as much as 2-3 minutes. This does not depend on location - different places indoors, different buildings, outside, etc, are all the same. A "wide area network" of WiFi is available to me, and when the phone is on the WAN (WiFi) it shows the same slow-down. Once I get the sign-in screen, it may take from one to fives minutes after I press the Home button to access the main screen. Once the Home screen is available, it may take even longer - 5 to 10 minutes - before I can access email, or Maps, or any other app on the phone.

My guess has been that the phone is somehow wearing out. But I know that some phone suppliers have slowed down older phones, to encourage customers to "upgrade" to newer models. Does anyone know of Verizon doing this?

My Samsung Galaxy S5 global model, like yours, is now over 5 years old and whilst, when I purchased it, 2GB of RAM was a top spec, these days it is well below average. For instance, I now have a phone with 12GB of RAM. This is because, over the years, apps have become more demanding in their usage of both RAM and CPU and this can slow down lower spec'd phones. You could, if you are reasonably competent and willing to do a little reading and research, flash a stripped down custom ROM such as Lineage which is updated regularly with the latest Android Security patches and is optimised for the S5.

 

[ocnbrze]

and just to add from ironass's post older phones will always slow down no matter what as well as the battery life. 5 years is a pretty long run for a device like that. most phones these days last 3-4 years before showing signs of aging. it might be time for an upgrade.