I'm just wondering if anyone here maybe has some ideas. My phone is an LG G6 running Android that is like 5 years old. For almost 2 years, the battery has been getting steadily worse to where it's now at the point that I either have to keep the phone plugged into an outlet or on an external battery or it will be dead within 10 minutes. I fucking hate planned obsolescence so I've kept going with this piece of shit phone as much out of spite as due to the fact that I'm broke, unemployed, and can't afford a new one anyway. But the battery isn't even my problem now (I know there are ways of replacing a battery, it's just not easy or "recommended").

My issue now is that all of a sudden it got so laggy that it's essentially useless. Like one minute it was working normally, the next it was so lagged that swiping down to see the menu or whatever takes 5 whole seconds. I can't type a text message because even after the keyboard finally shows up, there is like 4 seconds of delay after I hit a key before it registers. Everything is slow and jerky.

I've of course checked around the web as best as possible but the most common advice is "simply get a new phone!" Yeah, fuck off, I can't afford that. The other advice I've found and tried hasn't helped, such as obvious things like deleting unused apps and old files to free up space. Also going into developer mode so I can see what services are using up RAM or if one of them is hogging it all. None of that works. I tried booting into safe mode, but not only did that not solve the problem, I realized that even the start up animation with the LG logo and then the carrier logo is stuttering and lagging even before it boots into safe mode, so the problem must be pretty fundamental.

I doubt anyone can help because it's no accident that there's nothing to be done but somehow find a way to buy an all new brain-rotting, soul-sucking, attention-sapping, spying, tracking device. I'm still posting here on the off chance that someone might have a solution, but also just because I needed to rant somewhere and this is one of the only places where people get it about this kind of shit. It is yet another one of the countless situations where they have us all over a barrel, making us pay them exorbitant amounts for tech that's made via gross exploitation of humanity while simultaneously helping destroy the habitability of the planet, tech that they've forced into being necessary to even function in this demented ass fucked up hyper capitalist society (same thing with cars and everything involving them too!)

So tldr, does anyone possibly know a way to fix a lagging android phone?

Edit: Thanks for the responses everyone. I guess I'll see if I'm able to buy and install a new battery and hope that really is the root of the problem.

  • silent_water [she/her]
    ·
    2 years ago

    dumb questions -- have you restarted it since it started happening? have you tried a factory reset? some app may be misbehaving and/or you picked up some malware.

    • NothingButACommodity [it/its]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I've restarted it many times, put it in safe mode, etc. It made no difference. But I haven't done a factory reset yet. I also deleted nearly all the apps that didn't come preinstalled, but yeah, maybe one of those are causing it. Safe mode is supposed to help with that by turning off all non-essential apps, but like I said, the problem is no different in safe mode.

      • silent_water [she/her]
        ·
        2 years ago

        yeah that's why I suspect malware. try wiping it so there can't be malware hiding anywhere. the other possibility is that it's a broken update from the manufacture, possibly to try and get you to buy a new phone. highly recommend a custom rom if the factory wipe doesn't solve it.

        • NothingButACommodity [it/its]
          ·
          2 years ago

          a broken update from the manufacture, possibly to try and get you to buy a new phone.

          I was worried I was being too conspiracy brained, but honestly, that has been one of my main suspicions about all the problems I've been having with this pos phone. I have no experience with custom roms or jailbreaking a phone, etc. but maybe it's time to try. Not like I have much to lose at this point.

          I may end up just getting a new fucking phone, but if so, I need to do a ton of research on what my options are. Huawei phone? Mint carrier service? I don't know. That would be a completely separate post though.

          • silent_water [she/her]
            ·
            2 years ago

            I got a cheap pixel on sale cause it let me put Graphene on it. it's a security focused ROM that's locked down hard and it sandboxes all the google shit so it can't spy on you (except when you allow it to, obviously).