Submitted by Equivalent-Junket887 t3_127qv9h in iphone

I have an iPhone XR that is extremely slow and gets horrible reception but my service providers map says I should have excellent coverage in my area. I work for my service provider and my co workers tell me to just get a new phone but I’d like to avoid being a slave to more cell phone payments as I’ve only had my XR for two years. I feel my phone should be able to last longer than this.

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Short_Guy1104 t1_jefts2p wrote

The XR is going on 5 years now. The battery likely has to be replaced.

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cheanerman t1_jefw7sn wrote

That's the tough part, buying the XR in 2021 might have seemed like a good deal at the time but OP still bought a 4 year old phone at the time...

The guts of the phone are the X, no? So the tech is approaching 6 years old.

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Short_Guy1104 t1_jefxewu wrote

The XR has the A12 chip so same as the XS. X had the A11. The battery being replaced could resolve most of the issues OP faces, could get another 2 if not more years out of the phone.

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valhellis t1_jefcmcy wrote

2 years ago the XR wasnt the newest device and it wasnt a pro model, newer devices have way better antennas, you could trade it in and pay a little extra

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cheanerman t1_jefv0a8 wrote

Yeah I remember my X was slowing down a lot a couple years back despite not being that old. The A11 is quite old at this point.

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bbartixoxo t1_jefh89b wrote

Do the backup and restore your phone in itunes, it will delete all cache and crap. Thats the first step. If its not working, then its a hardware issue. Let me know how it went!

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jw154j t1_jefq1ei wrote

You shouldn’t be having these issues with your XR. I have two family members using XRs and are on iOS 16.4 and they are running great. Carriers update their settings with each iOS update that makes sure your phone is connecting to their network properly with the most updated information. You don’t get these updates without updating the device’s iOS.

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cheanerman t1_jefup8o wrote

For someone who uses their phone a lot, I feel like my X was showing its age like 2 or 3 years ago, so I can't imagine using that now. The 11 at the time felt like a big jump and I am still using an 11PM today with no issues.

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jw154j t1_jefv0b9 wrote

Well I use an 8 as a backup and it runs fine on iOS 16.x. I imagine since iOS 16 for the 8/X is a slimmed down version with few extra features, this is why it functions so well.

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cheanerman t1_jefvlis wrote

Hm idk then, both my parents have 8's and seem to be happy with it too. For someone who uses their phone a lot though, can definitely see why a 5-6 year old phone at this point would be noticeably slow.

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cheanerman t1_jefwem1 wrote

What is your battery health?

Can you see if any friends with the same provider with a newer phone can join you in the area to test how they're doing?

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RedditAnoymous t1_jegf74n wrote

There may always be blind spots in coverage.. Ma’s house was one example.. 100m up or down the road and there was coverage.. or go to second floor and stand at west side at window to try erratic coverage. Reason.. tower pointed at her but house just below hill. Bro’s house (other place) has coverage but very bad.. reason.. tower one pointer at his direction too far away.. tower two was closed but seems to be pointed away from his house.

Their solutions? Ma moved into city.. Bro was just happy work couldn’t get a hold on him 😬

Worth mention.. different providers uses different bands.. and different bands has it’s + and -.. High freq bands = faster (more data) BUT towers needs to be closer. Great for cities. Lower freq bands = slower but reach longer.. great for outside cities.

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golamas1999 t1_jegkt0d wrote

I have found that my phone starts to feel real slow I do hard resets. If that doesn’t work then every few months I will plug my phone in my computer. I will put in dfu mode. Then I will restore and update. This will reinstall the whole OS and erase everything (back up data to the cloud). Then I will setup my phone as new and not restore from backup.

Another option would be to get a new battery as the device is anywhere between 3 and 5 years old and batteries degrade. Old batteries will slow performance down.

Service provider maps are also fairly misleading. Depending on what carrier you have service may vary. I’ve had times where one bar has been a very good rock solid connection and 5 bars be completely useless.

Lastly perhaps a newer phone. An iPhone 12 or newer. Apple replaced the intel modems with Qualcomm modems and they are much better. This ignores 5G. Sometimes it’s better other times not. I am on AT&T and 5G is less than half the speed of LTE(5GE). The only way to get access to all the bands on AT&T is to have an iPhone 14 series or S23 series.

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