We heavily depend on phones (and smartphones) to function normally in our day to day lives. Needless to say, they have assumed paramount importance in our lives and a slight hiccup with your phone has the potential to send you in a tizzy. With so much at risk, here are some very common signs and symptoms of an ailing phone that you should not ignore.
Flickering screen or random appearance of bands on the screen.
The screen, your primary interface with your phone, is also one of the most delicate and sensitive parts of the phone. Screen banding or flickering indicates issue with the panel or the data cable that feeds the panel. Such issues won’t get resolved over time and will only get worse. You should immediately take it to a service center and the earlier you diagnose, the lesser the damage and expense to repair.
Excessive heating and slowing down
Modern day phones pack a lot of fire power (read multiple cores running at super-fast speeds), and they do tend to heat up quite a bit after prolonged usage. But, there are times when your phone may be heating up abnormally more than usual without any activity, such heating isn’t normal and could be a sure shot sign of a major issue that can potentially cause the device to conk off any time. Do not take excessive heating lightly, we recommend you get the phone checked at even the slightest sign of excessive heating. You must have read about exploding phones…
Apps and OS crashing, causing reboots
Apps and OS crashing, random reboots are normally associated with either a new OS update that isn’t stable for your phone or a new app install that is causing things to mess up the system. If you haven’t installed a new app lately and haven’t been through a new OS update either, sudden and regular app crashing or the OS rebooting isn’t a good sign. It could have something to do with the flash memory going bad (RAM or ROM). We advise you to first back-up your phone and do a complete restore. And if that doesn’t solve the issue, it's time to visit the service center.
Random reboots and sudden shut down
A common issue, generally ignored by users. Such behavior is most likely an issue with the battery. Either the battery is on its last legs, needing immediate replacement or the battery has developed a serious issue. This problem can be particularly painful when your device uses a battery that can't be easily replaced.
Buttons not responding.
Yes, in this touch driven world where most things happen via a swipe or a slide, physical buttons still do play an important role of powering on and activating your phone. And while a faulty button does not indicate a dead phone, if the power/wake-up button starts acting up and stops responding eventually, you may end-up with a phone that won’t power-on or won’t wake up. So, if you do encounter frequent tussles with the power button, you better take it seriously and get it fixed before it stops responding to your inputs permanently!