Old, slow, Android tablet - why?

[Condi]

I have an old Lenovo Tab 2 which has recently (last couple of years!) started to slow down to the point it is almost unusable. It requires a degree of patience which would impress Gandhi. Firstly, why has it slowed down? There are no longer any updates to the OS (Android 4!!), so can't be that. Secondly, would a reset to factory settings and re-install all apps improve things, or is there a more fundamental hardware issue? If not what can be done to restore the same performance it had when new?

[rpguk]

A factory reset should get it back to how it was when you bought it - https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Lenovo-Android-based-...

However you might find that websites and apps are designed for more powerful devices so it'll still struggle. It's admirable to keep an old device going but at that age it's quite possibly got some unpatched security bugs and you'll probably find a new device gives a much nicer experience for not a huge sum.

[Road2Ruin]

With Android 4, I will be amazed if it will run any new apps. Most are designed for 5 onwards.

[the-norseman]

You will probably find once you factory reset it that you cant easily reinstall stuff as them versions of apps are no longer available.

[Condi]

All the apps are updated regularly, and it runs the latest versions of Netflix, iPlayer, TNT Sports etc. I've never had an issue with installing new apps or updating existing ones.

EDIT - Just had a look, its actually running Android 6, not 4.

Edited by Condi on Tuesday 5th March 20:10

[outnumbered]

Condi said:

All the apps are updated regularly, and it runs the latest versions of Netflix, iPlayer, TNT Sports etc. I've never had an issue with installing new apps or updating existing ones.

EDIT - Just had a look, its actually running Android 6, not 4.

Edited by Condi on Tuesday 5th March 20:10

Might be because the latest versions of the Apps consume lots of memory that your old device doesn't have. So you'll get lower performance and painfully slow switches between apps.

[the-norseman]

Condi said:

All the apps are updated regularly, and it runs the latest versions of Netflix, iPlayer, TNT Sports etc. I've never had an issue with installing new apps or updating existing ones.

EDIT - Just had a look, its actually running Android 6, not 4.

Edited by Condi on Tuesday 5th March 20:10

The latest version available to Android 6, I bet they aren't 100% up to date compared to Android 14.

[Condi]

the-norseman said:

The latest version available to Android 6, I bet they aren't 100% up to date compared to Android 14.

Not sure, they do update fairly regularly, and I'd be surprised if anyone is updating apps for a version of the OS which is about 6 or 8 years old.

[Shiv_P]

This is a tablet launched in 2015, IMO expecting it to work well now is a bit of a stretch

[Griffith4ever]

Prob the operating memory overfilled. I'd do a factory rest to start, then add apps back one by one. Unless you are broke, a brand new one is going to cost not much over £100 and be a lot faster.

[vikingaero]

I bought a new iPad Air for my Dad to replace his elderly iPad Air 1 16Gb as he was losing functionality - fewer and fewer apps working etc.

Did the reset and frankly it's a brick. Will only update to a certain iOS and hardly any apps work with it. The only thing I can think of using it for is as a radio streamer in the kitchen and link it up to provide CCTV to see who is at the front door.

[Griffith4ever]

vikingaero said:

I bought a new iPad Air for my Dad to replace his elderly iPad Air 1 16Gb as he was losing functionality - fewer and fewer apps working etc.

Did the reset and frankly it's a brick. Will only update to a certain iOS and hardly any apps work with it. The only thing I can think of using it for is as a radio streamer in the kitchen and link it up to provide CCTV to see who is at the front door.

Its a bit different with Android - the app creators, and android, have a lot of support for older tabs and OS versions. They don't brick old gear for the sake of it. I have several older Android tabs (they are so cheap so I just replace when something new comes out!). One is on the wall acting as a Home Assistant remote, one is on the wall in the workshop for monitoring emails and updating stock levels real-time through google sheets. Still runs gmail, imap email, google sheets etc etc. and one is running very specific industry software. None of them havs ceased to get app updates. I certainly make sure as little is installed as possible as ram requirements have gone up a lot over the years. Some of the older tabs are only happy with a handful of apps installed before there are issues, but they manage just fine and none are "slow" - I'd bin them if they were.

I even had an old Tesco Hudl doing pro-work until recently (sold the gear it was running) - I just had to be very strict on the number of apps installed, again. Too many and it fell to its knees, but keep it under the limit, and it was perfectly fine.

[Condi]

Shiv_P said:

This is a tablet launched in 2015, IMO expecting it to work well now is a bit of a stretch

I don't see why, the hardware is presumably still fine. Not as if the chips wear out or anything.


Anyway, last night I did a factory reset and it is much much faster and snappier. However, it appears that it is now stuck on an "old" configuration of app store, which doesn't have anywhere near as many apps as the later versions of Android. This would make sense, and is likely why previously it was going a bit slow and why it had all the latest versions of the apps, if somehow it was running a later version and was keeping everything up to date. It's not a massive problem as it's only used for watching the MotoGP and F1 at work, plus some Netflix when travelling.

I am surprised so many people are happy with the attitude of "just buy another", surely better to keep older tech going than simply replace it with new. Besides, despite being 7 years old the battery life is still better than the newer replacement!