Over the last ten years, We have used various Samsung phones. All of them are great when it’s new. However, Samsung phones start to slow down after a few months of usage, roughly 12-18 months.
Not only Samsung phones slow down dramatically, but Samsung phones hang a lot. There are numerous reasons why Samsung phones hang so much. We have described them below.
Samsung Uses Android OS
The number one problem is the Android mobile operating system (OS). Google used JAVA programming language to develop the Android OS. The problem with JAVA is that it is a very resource-intensive programming language.
JAVA requires a lot of processing power and RAM. So, Android OS requires almost double processing speed and RAM compared to windows mobile OS and Apple’s iOS to do the same work. If you are curious, Apple used the C programming language to develop iOS.
The second problem is related to how Android processes data. iOS prioritizes user interface data (UI). A user interface is those you see on your phone, such as buttons, windows, progress bars, graphs, etc.
However, Android does not prioritize user interface (UI) data. Instead, it processes the UI data and background data at the same time. So, if background data use more processing power, then there is little processing power left for UI data. It makes the UI laggy.
Related: One of the critical problems every Samsung phone has is that their phone gets very hot. It’s been a problem plaguing Samsung phones for many years, but still, Samsung has failed to fix it. This article discusses everything you need to know about why Samsung phones get hot.
To prevent this lag in Android phones, Samsung uses more RAM and CPU speed. However, a RAM and CPU loses their computational efficiency over time. So, when a new Samsung phone comes out, it runs smoothly. Yet, after 12-18 months later, those same Samsung phones struggle to run apps without lag.
An Apple phone can do more processing with 1GB of RAM than a Samsung Phone with 3GB RAM. These extra RAM and CPU speed in Samsung Phones are for the Android OS.
Without these extra RAM, Samsung phones can’t run smoothly. As we mentioned earlier, RAM and CPU loses their computational power over time and slows down the Samsung phone.
But there are occasions when an App or the OS needs more RAM than available on the phone. That time your Samsung phone would hang.
For example, if you have Facebook installed and used Google maps to navigate, Google Maps will hang and force-close due to lack of memory. It’s because Facebook uses too much RAM and processing power even when it is in the background.
Related: Samsung phones use Android OS. Even though Samsung has been one of the largest phone manufacturers in the world for over a decade, it still didn’t make its phone OS. This article discusses why Samsung failed to create its phone OS and can’t master its phone software like Apple.
Samsung Has Buggy TouchWiz UI
Samsung has compounded the problems of Android by implementing TouchWiz UI on their phone. TouchWiz UI is the skin of Android OS that distinguishes Samsung Phone from LG phones. Historically, TouchWiz is buggy and laggy. Samsung has refused to fix this issue for a long time.
We have interviewed several ex Samsung Research and Development (R&D) center employees in America. According to them, Samsung never removes old code even if any features are no longer used. Over time, these unused codes made a huge clutter with a performance hit on Samsung phone.
Lack of Code Optimization
Samsung is a hardware company, not a software company. Top executives lack the knowledge of the importance of Software. So, in the Samsung software development center, there is no culture of code optimization.
Samsung makes so many phones that counting them is impossible. At the same time, numerous projects are going on for several markets. Thus, Software engineers are always in pressure to deliver on time. To meet the deadline, they need to fix software bugs as soon as possible.
This quick fix of software bugs leads to a lack of code optimization. At Samsung, fixing an issue is a priority. They don’t care about software performance. It makes Samsung phones slow and laggy.
Samsung Intentionally Pre-Loads Bloatware
According to Google terms, any OEMs who want to use Android and want to get access to Google Play, need to ship with certain Google Apps such as Youtube, Google Maps, GMAIL, Drive, Google Assistant, Chrome, etc. But Samsung does some crazy things. They load duplicate apps that they develop, such as Samsung Email, Samsung Web-browser, Samsung App store, Samsung Assistant, Calendar, etc.
On top of this, they pre-install third-party sponsored apps, such as Facebook, Flipboard, etc. Yes, Facebook. To make it worse, Samsung does not allow to uninstall these apps.
All these bloatware not only consumes vast flash memory but also slow down Samsung’s phone. It’s because most of these apps — for example, Facebook — runs several background processes that consume a lot of RAM and CPU power. This Samsung bloatware is a curse for a Samsung phone.
Related: Samsung is infamous for cramming bloatware apps on their phones. This bloatware not only slows down phones, it’s also a security risk. This article discusses why Samsung pre-installs bloatware in their Galaxy phones and what you can do about it.
Lack of Update
Samsung abandons its phone after 12-18 months of release. They only care about their latest phones. So, an 18 months old Samsung Flagship phone will never receive any update in their life. Forget about the cheap Samsung phone.
When a new flagship phone comes out, Samsung pushes a few continuous updates to fix all bugs in the OS that they did not fix before the release. However, after fixing all the bugs, they move on to their next Samsung phone project. Samsung makes so many phones that even they can’t keep track of all of their phones.
They never optimize their code and push any update. Also, if there is a software bug, but a user can’t reproduce it, Samsung will never fix it, even if it slows down Samsung’s phone in the background.
Continuous software updates could have prevented it. In that case, software tester would test Samsung Android OS continuously to find a flaw and forcing the software engineers to fix the issues and improve the Samsung OS and thus make it faster.
Intentional Slowdown
A new Samsung phone has a new battery. But battery deteriorates over time. If your Samsung phone detects any deterioration of your battery, it will slow down the processor to protect your battery. It is called intentional slowdown.
As a Samsung phone user, you can’t do anything unless you change the battery for a new one. This deliberate slowdown of your phone makes it laggy. When Samsung slows down your phone too much, it will start to hang quite often.
Battery Temperature Too High
It’s a known issue that Samsung phones become too hot quite often. Even Samsung does not know how to fix it. Any processor-intensive apps such as games, video editing apps will make your Samsung phones very hot.
Samsung phones have an internal battery temperature sensor. If it senses that the battery is becoming too hot, it will reduce the CPU processing power to cool down the battery. In this scenario, the Samsung phone will become slow, lag, and hang.
Related: Not every Samsung phone is made equal. Depending on the region, Samsung uses different processors. In some phones, Samsung uses Exynos processors, and in others, they use Qualcomm processors. This article discusses what drives Samsung to use different types of processors in different regions.
Poor SD Memory Card Performance
SD memory card is the hard drive of your Samsung phone. Every SD memory card has a life cycle. As time goes by, this SD card becomes slow to read and write.
Android OS does millions of Reading and Writing operations per second. When the SD card becomes sluggish, it makes the OS laggy and throttles the OS performance.
Conclusion
In conclusion, there are many reasons why Samsung phone lags and hangs. However, everything is solvable. But our experience tells that Samsung lacks the will or capability to fix these issues.
So, for the foreseeable future, the Samsung phone will remain slow, laggy, and buggy. As a result, their phone will hang all the time.
Related: Over the years, Samsung has been trying to overtake Apple. But so far, it has failed. Even though Apple makes only a handful of phones yearly, Samsung still can’t beat Apple in the phone business. This article discusses the primary reasons why Samsung can’t beat Apple and why it has failed so far to overtake them.