S21 ultra expierence in 2025

[KylVie]

Hey,Right now I'm using s25 ultra, but recently I decided to use for some time my s21 ultra which I stopped using over 1 ago,and phone was just In the box switched off.

When I stopped using s21 ultra,phone was extremely fast with close to 0 lags or stutters at least I don't remember having any problems.

Once I switch on s21 ultra, I received tons of software updates,Like I had to do 3 or 4 until I received One Ui 7 update finally. 

After those updates I did factory reset just to refresh the phone and I have to say s21 ultra is now really stuttery and some animations are just out of fps.

My bet like with most of older phones, Those updates are pushed to slow your phone down so there is more chances that you will want to upgrade to newer phone,sure I don't have any proof apart of,my words,but like I mention over 1 ago phone was extremely fast and after that time I did not used it,just recently done updates and now phone is way ways more stuttery. 

It's just sad that,they specially slowing those phones down,Sure tell what's you want but if phone was working perfectly then after year of not using it slows down by big difference just doing updates which should improve your phone then yeah,It's just sad as its not how I remembered s21 ultra.

Sure phone is still really good like camera holds up,battery its all right but all of those things are working worse then before. 

[johnz237]

What I don't understand is the logic behind "the updates are made to slow down phones for future devices to be sold." Forget everything besides this fact: If you bought a phone that slowed down significantly, would you continue to buy their products, or would you go elsewhere? Exactly. Slowing down devices is a theory I don't understand—I know big corporations do have sneaky ways of selling devices; that's just business—but this is one I strongly disagree with being a reality, as it simply would lose more customers than it gains. What I believe happens is updates = new features—the more features, the harder it is to run. Hence, slapping Windows 11 on a PC from 15 years ago would be completely unusable. *extreme example*

[KylVie]

Well sure then how you explain when unused for year,used to work perfectly and after this time when I did updates is way slower ?I guess bad luck? 😂

[johnz237]

Things aren't always as they seem. Being that you haven't updated in so long, little things like other apps being behind, the phone taking time to calibrate to the huge change, etc., occur. Also! Phones do not react well to being unused for over a year—I'm surprised it booted, as the batteries really hate not being charged.

[KylVie]

Sure I'm not saying that you are wrong ,but imagine how companies would make money if they products would work all the time perfectly?for me phone situation is like cars,if they would not break how companies would make money

[johnz237]

Ah but no! As time goes on software and demands increase- so they just get eliminated automatically. Its like when people get upset their Intel Pentium is slow- 10 years ago they woudve costed like 2K...now theyre E waste still being sold- still the same power...just not compared to today. Again- extreme example. Also
*Thermal Degradation
*Moore's Law Limits

And a bunch more

[Star_girl]

Hi.
I don't believe this happens to slow down phones, the recent updates are quite heavy and the older phones are not hardware ready for some of the features. I notices the AI does some efficient optimisation and I believe if you use the phone regularly for a few weeks it will become better.

[JAMES4578]

@KylVie  As your S21 Ultra has not received any maintenance for such a long time I am not surprised you have run into issues.  Batteries do degrade over time and as mentioned can react adversely to not being charged  in this time frame.

The claim that Samsung deliberately slows older device down is not backed by evidence.  As hardware ages it may be less capable of running demanding apps, it depends also if your storage is managed efficiently and good maintenance such as clearng cache periodically is practiced.  

However the device is not that old, I have an S21 Ultra and that is still running pretty well.

[smiley]

I like to look at an analogy.

Consider your car in a garage. Runs great and fine beforehand.

You leave it locked away for a year or two. First start it doesnt work. Charge battery... it just about starts, but is stuttering because the fact it has sat around... and cars certainly dont like sitting around.

A few long journeys and a good run around and it will likely start running smoothly again.

Now I know a phone isnt a car... but this is the way I see a phone sitting around for ages. Missing 12 or more updates and then loading them all in one go... may have software consequences.

I believe if you use the s21u for a while... let it get back up to date with daily use... then perhaps it will improve back to being a well optimised phone.

You do also need to consider the s21 ultra is now a 4 year old model... and last year of support. Not typically a problem, but I also owned this fantastic phone and it was great.

Remember that app developers also update their own softwares... some apps become out of date.

This is all just my thoughts. I have no concerns that a large company such as samsung would make any deliberate slowdown to any of their phones. If things do happen like that... it is because the operating system needs to move with the times.

Consider a gaming PC of 5 years old. The newest games that are released have little or no chance of running... purely as specifications move forwards... as well as memory speeds and capacities.

Smiley

[Sonora]

I also have an S21 ultra that I haven't used for a year and a few months, but I regularly charge the battery and upgrade apps and software. I didn't do a factory reset after upgrading to OneUI 7. The S21 ultra is as fast as before, the only thing is that for a year now I've been getting a notification that the battery is very low and to visit the service, but since I don't use it, and it's losing software support soon, I don't bother with it, I have an S24 ultra, which is just as fast and looks beautiful with OneUI 7