Well , my old Samsung phone has now slowed down so much it`s almost useless ( Am I being cynical , or is this a way manufacturers are building in obsolescence to make us buy new phones ? ) . I checked out a few options and the Galaxy A 04 s and A13 / 14 fit the bill and seem quite a bit cheaper here than in the UK .

So , is there any down side to buying here - I need an english keyboard and use it in the UK linked to the laptop as a modem , or should I wait `till i`m back in the UK ?

The keyboard language can be changed in your settings.

My Thai phone works perfectly in UK, or Dubai, so why not vice versa.

My Huawei Y9 2018 is used daily and is as efficient as the day I bought it.

Op... after you have exhaust all options such as clearing the cache etc...  Try completely resetting the phone to factory settings (backup first, then update from the backup) - see if that helps. 

The problem if you buy it here might be the warranty. You need an international warranty. 

 

Regarding old phones. Not so much the speed is the problem for me but that more and more applications don't work anymore. 

2 hours ago, persimmon said:

my old Samsung phone has now slowed down so much it`s almost useless

Operational system and applications are getting bigger, some new updates are not compatible with the old phone - while the chip is rather weak if it's budget phone-so, it works slower with time. 

And when getting a new phone it is probably better to get minimum 4 GB RAM. 

 

 

2 hours ago, Mickeymaus said:

 

Regarding old phones. Not so much the speed is the problem for me but that more and more applications don't work anymore. 

You can try downloading older versions of the app.

21 minutes ago, JimmyJ said:

You can try downloading older versions of the app.

They are blocked, don't work anymore or are not available for older Android versions.

 

Take LINE. They simply blocked it. Before there was Line Lite at least. Gone. WhatsApp is still available. I wouldn't use LINE a minute if my friends don't force me somehow to use it. Just the fact that you can use only 1 account linked to a device/phone number drives me crazy. Before you could use Line Lite to be able to use the same account on several mobile devices. Now you can play around with the Kiwi browser and the Line extension there... 

 

Take banking apps. Impossible. Try to install something like Grab. Not available for older Android versions. And many more that you can't use anymore. K9-Mail also gone and... 

9 hours ago, persimmon said:

Well , my old Samsung phone has now slowed down so much it`s almost useless ( Am I being cynical , or is this a way manufacturers are building in obsolescence to make us buy new phones ? )

The most common reasons for the slowdown are, in order of importance; too little free space, you usually need 5 Gb to 10 Gb, too many unnecessary apps, apps that install junk, and often (but less often) an OS update that requires too much CPU time.

 

My sister-in-law had a mobile device that was virtually impossible to use as even the startup time was measured in minutes and to launch the app that was important to her took about another 5 minutes. After removing apps that were redundant, archiving and then deleting photos, leaving 50% free space the time from restarting the device to having finished launching the app was less than 60 seconds.

 

The takeaway is clean up cruft, delete junk, free up 50% of the space and your device will almost certainly be quite useful.

However I make no guarantee about the planned obsolescence designed into android devices.

8 hours ago, Mickeymaus said:

They are blocked, don't work anymore or are not available for older Android versions.

 

Take LINE. They simply blocked it. Before there was Line Lite at least. Gone. WhatsApp is still available. I wouldn't use LINE a minute if my friends don't force me somehow to use it. Just the fact that you can use only 1 account linked to a device/phone number drives me crazy. Before you could use Line Lite to be able to use the same account on several mobile devices. Now you can play around with the Kiwi browser and the Line extension there... 

 

Take banking apps. Impossible. Try to install something like Grab. Not available for older Android versions. And many more that you can't use anymore. K9-Mail also gone and... 

https://en.uptodown.com/android

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