Context
I have a FP3 since september 2019.
It’s been slowing down ever since, and we’re now getting to the point where it takes 10-20 seconds to open spotify, 8-10 seconds to open settings, 10-12 seconds to open whattsapp…
Those are just examples of opening apps, I’m seeing slow behavior everywhere (while using outlook, frames are dropped when streaming videos on youtube, I simply cannot play games that have a timer anymore as I’ll just lose, etc…)
Question
Is there a way to recover the initial speed I had ? (or even better, to go faster ?)
I’m looking either at software and hardware options.
Software : Is it worth it to do a full reset ? If yes, how ?
Hardware : Is it worth it to completely disassemble it and remove any dust ?
Hardware : Is there any way to replace/upgrade a component (ex : core, ram, … I don’t know)
Other ?
I would recommend first that you just check how full your storage is: Settings > Storage
There is no exact number, but I would try to stay around the 80% (or less) mark.
If you find it hard to stay within that (vague) limit, you might want to use a microSDXC card in your FP3 to make room (especially videos, photos and music take a lot of space and can be stored on the card). Make sure to format the card as “portable storage” (and not as “phone storage” – notorious for causing issues).
If @urs_lesse’s advice doesn’t improve the situation enough already, then yes.
Not to remedy overall software slowness I guess. This would be really more suitable to address some hardware failure.
However, SIM cards are increasingly prone to randomly obstruct phone operation the older they get, so it’s always worth a try to reseat those (take them out and put them in again) or, if no other logical issue can be found, to just get new ones to eliminate them as a source for issues.
The phone is designed and built so that you can replace components, but again this would be more suitable to address some hardware failure.
If you have more than 6GB of memory left, then try clearing the cache of some apps and also try a safe mode start which disables any custom apps you installed.
More precisely:
Disassembling the Fairphone into its separate modules will not void the warranty.
Disassembling the modules into parts will void the warranty.