Top Mobile Phone Problems and Solutions

Dec 2, 2019

For better or worse, we are all glued to our smartphones. A phone that's not working correctly can be a major inconvenience, especially if you need it for work or school. Read on for solutions to four of the most common smartphone problems.

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Your Phone's Slower Than 90's Internet

If your phone has gotten slower over time, chances are that it's bogged down with apps and files. To solve this problem, start by taking a look at your files and deleting things you don't need. Consider moving media files like photos to an external hard drive or a cloud service. If you have apps, you aren't using anymore uninstall them.

Next, check to see which apps are running in the background. Anything that sends you push notifications is suspect. Do you really need twenty news updates a day? If not, go into the app's settings and turn off push alerts.

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Your Battery Dies Before Noon

Short battery life is one of the most common cell phone problems. Batteries do wear out over time, and if your phone is more than two years old, you should consider getting it replaced. If your phone is newer or you aren't ready to take that step yet, there are some things you can try first.

Many smartphones will tell you which apps are sucking the life out of your battery. Go to settings and find the "battery" section. This will be labeled slightly differently depending on your device. Once you've found it, look to see which apps are using the most battery. If you see apps listed that you haven't used recently, it means they are running in the background. Again, push notifications are a common culprit, so consider navigating to those apps and turning push alerts off.

If you don't see any obvious problems with apps, you can try changing some other settings. Turning your "location" function off and lowering your screen's brightness can help save power. You can also shorten your phone's screen timeout setting so it will fall asleep sooner when not in use. If none of these changes help, it's probably time to take your device to a phone repair shop and get a new battery.

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Your Screen Keeps Freezing

This is another problem that is usually caused by an overloaded device. Start by clearing your phone's cache and getting rid of unneeded files and apps. If your phone's storage space is still almost full after doing that, move some things to outside storage, like your PC or a cloud service. Screen freezing is sometimes caused by a malware infection, so after taking the steps above install an antivirus program and run a scan.

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Your Whole Phone Shuts Off or Freezes

You're in the middle of checking your email, and your phone goes black and won't wake up. Don't panic! You should be able to restart it. On most devices holding the power button and the home button down at the same time for several seconds will force a restart on a crashed or frozen phone. If that doesn't work, it means something serious has gone wrong, and you'll need to get the professionals involved. If the phone restarts, you may be able to fix the problem yourself.

Crashing phones can be caused by several things. Start by checking to see if your phone is overloaded with apps and files ( yes there is a reoccuring theme here). After you've removed stuff you don't need and cleared your cache, run a virus scan. Ideally, you will do this with an app that can both find and remove viruses.

If your phone is squeaky clean, then software might be to blame. It's pretty common for operating system updates to cause problems, so if you've recently updated something, you might need to reset the phone to factory settings. If you have tried all the above steps and your phone is still crashing, don't hesitate to take it into a repair shop.