Why do old phones slow down?

nokia photo

Question from Beatrice Reed

The software is the main reason your old phone slows down as it ages. Your old phone’s hardware may remain the same as it gets older but the software you use changes a lot. Over time, as you install new apps and services your old phone has to do more than when it was new, so it takes longer to do things. The operating system and apps will have been automatically updated to newer versions, too, but these are designed for new, higher specification phones and won’t run as well on less powerful older models. After a while, there’s little choice but to upgrade.


Answered by Tom Lean for Brain Dump in How It Works issue 103 

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