If it's still under warranty or if you have insurance you should contact your provider. I am on Verizon and any phone I have had through them came with a 1yr manufacturers warranty. My son had a phone die at 8 months through no fault of his and they replaced it free of charge. What make and model of phone do you have and how old is it? This site has forums for just about every make and model of phone and have been very helpful to me with my smart phone so you might find info if this is a known issue with your model. One of the first things I try is a factory reset and go from there. Mary

Here is a link that might be useful: android forums

Maybe an update applied a power saving shutdown?

Oh goodness. I forgot to say the phone is a Sprint HTC EVO 4g a bit over 5 years old. So it is not under warranty. I tend to use cell phones until they are no longer usable; in other words, I am frugal.

The tablet is an ASUS transformer about 3 years old and not under warranty.

No insurance on either one.

@acraftylady: Thank you for that link. I have saved it for future reference.

@pkpoonder: I believe the last update was about 2 years ago.

The phone is well past its expected useful life. Both sound like their batteries are shot. Do they work when connected to a charger?

A google search suggests the phone's battery is replaceable for $10 or less, If it's important to you, I'd take a flyer on doing that. As far as the tablet, I have no suggestions unless your model similarly has a replaceable battery.

I would try a factory reset then if that doesn't work a new battery in the phone. Maybe you have some app causing it so you could try disabling or uninstalling apps one by one to see. Mary

Hold the phone (sorry for the pun), I forgot the obvious.

Most cell carriers offer users free phones (using less in-demand and less expensive models), and allow free replacement every 2 years. Doesn't yours?

In such circumstances, if you have an ongoing subscription and have had for the last 5 years, you're saving no money by deferring a device upgrade. You could be on your third phone in 5 years, rather than the first. But maybe your plan is different.

Both of those are Android, correct? I need to power on my Transformer and update it, but I just had an update to Android version 4.2.2 on my HTC phone..

I would just check your power options, possibly toggle or change the setting and then change it back to what you prefer.

Or replace the phone, whichever sounds better to you :-)

I just got a new smart phone in August and there were no free phones that I saw for signing a contract, not on verizon . There was a 50% off sale so my samsung S5 was $99 for signing the contract and my husbands dumb phone was $50. My son hates touch screen phones so we found him an LG stratosphere smart phone at best buy with a physical keyboard on clearance for all of 99 cents with a 2yr contract and he loves it. My phone has had 4.4.4 for quite a while now. I just checked and I have another update for something. Mary

I thought Verizon always had free phones available - i just looked now, and there are like 8 free Android phones and a free iphone. Maybe August was a bad time, in between promotions.

Next time, and for others, Costco always has better prices for Verizon phones than Verizon does. For the other carriers, i don't know. But what I've often seen is $200 phones from Verizon are $100 at Costco, and $100 phones from Verizon can be $30 or less. You use your Verizon upgrade allowance just the same as if you were in a Verizon store. For other carriers, I have no personal experience.

Walnut Creek - If the phone doesn't shut down when plugged in, then it's likely the battery. If not, then it's likely an app. You can try a factory reset (make sure you back up your data) or uninstall all your apps and add them back one at a time until you find the offending one.

If you are happy with your carrier and don't mind a contract then, as Snidely pointed out, there's little sense in not upgrading every couple of years. There are plenty of decent phones out there for free or at a pretty reasonable price. Shopping around helps too. You don't have to go to the carrier's store to get a phone and you may get a better deal. Going to another store or buying one online is just like going to the carrier's store. You'll have the same service, phone number, etc.

I did replace the battery about 1 year ago, because the old battery did die. The new battery was not an original HTC EVO battery, but a recommended replacement which was not costly.

The phone does not close down when plugged in, but it does do some weird things - like the camera coming on, changing to the Google screen, etc.

I have started looking at phone and do like the LG G3 and the Galaxy 5S, but I have been told that the 6S will be coming out fairly soon. I am not sure my phone will last that long.

What phones do you all like?

My 5 year old Samsung Galaxy started similarly misbehaving earlier this year. I suspect that a factory reset would have improved the performance, but I figured I'd gotten my money's worth out of it and it was time for something new. I decided to bite the bullet and switch to the phone my kids have all been nagging me to get: an iPhone. After 2 months with my iPhone 6, I have to admit they were right. As they told me: " It just works!"

Android has a lot going for it, but Apple has got it beat, both from a technology and a software standpoint, in my humble opinion. I also have to say that, the one time I couldn't figure out something, Apple's tech support was far superior to what I experienced with Samsung.

I have always had excellent support with my android phones. I am on Verizon and any time I need help with something an authorized Verizon store is 5min from my house and they solve it for me or I use the Verizon forums on their website or the android forums online for my phone model. For me tech support is not a big issue with android since there is so much help all over just like apple. I had 2 LG smart phones before this Samsung S5 and all were great phones. Only draw back with apple for me is no memory card slot and I store a lot of photos and crochet patterns on my phone and tablet so I really need the memory card feature. Mary

Forgot to say the LG G3 is a great phone. I wanted to try something different and I do like this S5 but think I like LG a bit better so I think I am going to get the G3 and keep this one for a back up. We don't have a home phone so this is our main phone. Mary

acraftylady-
How much memory do you need? You can get up to 128GB built-in to an iPhone.

Well with android all my photos and PDF files stay on the card not the phone so that works better for me. I am a happy adroid and PC person. Its what I like. Mary

You are aware that you can easily transfer/copy files from either an Android or iPhone to a more secure location, like your pc? Otherwise, if you lose your phone, what happens to those files? Also, an iPhone comes with 5 GB of secure cloud storage for free, and the phone can be set to automatically backup your files. I understand you like and are used to what you are doing, but that doesn't mean it can't be improved and/or made more secure.

Oh yes. My files are stored on Verizon cloud, Google and I back up to my PC with Samsung kleis. All my photos and PDF crochet files are also backed up on memory stick and DVD. Over kill I guess. Mary

No, that's not overkill...that's just good practice. It sounds like you are way ahead of most folks in terms of safeguarding your files. I'm impressed!

"Android has a lot going for it, but Apple has got it beat, both from a technology and a software standpoint"

kudzu, you've drunk too much Kool-Aid. As the family tech support person with a population of multiple iphones and Androids (and an Android user myself), my view is:

1) Hardware - clear lead to Android, the competition because of multiple producers has pushed innovation. Apple was still struggling with one active app at a time when Android phones already had multi-core processors and multitasking.

2) Software - Apple got a head start on Android (for being around first) that it's losing or already lost. Android in aggregate now outsells Iphones by more than 4 to 1, smart developers look to Android as the much larger market opportunity

And beyond that, for the average user, they're mostly the same. I find Android phones much easier to set up, use and adjust, while trying to do anything on an iphone makes me crazy. If I were buying a phone for a technophobic older person, I'd probably suggest an iphone and show them the two or three buttons they need to use. For anyone else, an Android phone is my choice, for having more flexibility and adaptability.

craftylady, I vote for overkill.

My view about backups is that you need them as protection from hardware failure (a certainty, not a possibility) and physical catastrophe.

For media failure, you need a second copy. For physical risk, you need a third copy (second backup) in a different location.

Anything more than that, and unless you are very diligent about updating all backups at the same time or following a rigid schedule, at any one point in time, you really can't know if a given backup is up-dated or not. I trust myself more than clouds, so my important backups (which are only of files I want to have and can't otherwise easily replace) go on several external drives, one of which is kept in a bank vault at all times.

I suppose like every one else I learned a lesson the hard way but only once.

snidely-
Sorry, but we're not going to agree on this. We've gone through three different Android phones in our household before I reluctantly decided to get an iPhone. I also have an Android tablet and two iPads. And I'm still a PC person when it comes to my desktop, my laptop, and my netbook. So I'm pretty open to trying different things. I use my devices interchangeably depending on the task and where I am. I originally fell in love with Android because of the open source, the App store, and the configurability. However, I find that, for what I want to do on a phone, the iPhone gets things done faster, easier, more reliably, and more simply. And it's less buggy than Android. I'm not saying Android is horribly deficient. I'm just saying that I find using the iPhone to be a more satisfying experience. My children and their partners all work in highly connected tech jobs where they typically have their choice of what computer and phone technology they use, and they are all Apple proponents. When they serve the Koolaid, I'm inclined to drink it.

"My children and their partners all work in highly connected tech jobs where they typically have their choice of what computer and phone technology they use, and they are all Apple proponents"

Sorry, kudzu, but that's a silly comment. I'm in Silicon Valley. Both Apple and Google (Android) are based here. No one here thinks of one as being more advanced than the other, and other than the large number of Apple employees who obviously don't use Android phones, I don't see iphones having an overwhelming market share among the very highly educated and innovative population of tech engineers and leaders.

Apple products aren't more advanced than competitors - their user interfaces are simplified. And they put more emphasis on marketing how "cool" they are. Nothing more. Especially with phones, try to convince a teenage girl to take an Android phone when all her friends have iphones. That's where the market is.

We don't have to agree, I'm ok with that.

Not sure what's silly. it's simply what I've observed with my kids...who also work in Silicon Valley.

I'm not trying to win a pissing contest; just giving an opinion without trying to denigrate yours. I appreciate your thoughts, though.

None of my android devices are buggy and I can do things very simply so hasn't been a problem for me. I do like playing with this stuff and good,at figuring out gadgets though. I will say I have a lot of patience to learn and googling for info helps. All my smart phones I was,able to find a ton of Yootube videos for anything I needed to know.

I am 51 and when I was a child remember playing with the commodore 64 on display at the store and I wanted it so bad but we didn't have money for stuff like that and I thought someday. I guess I got what I wanted with all the gadgets I have. Mary

What I thought were silly comments were:

-calling Android "buggy", a false and preposterous allegation

-suggesting that tasks could be done on an iphone faster and more reliably

-suggesting that IOS or the hardware were in some way technologically ahead

If you like your iphone better, that's great. Like you I've used both systems pretty extensively, but perhaps unlike you I've done so dispassionately. Other than the UI, I find the two to be much more similar than different.

There's no denying that Apple is the undisputed champion of creating market buzz for all of their products. I don't think any other company comes close. However, I have to tell you that my family's experiences with perhaps a half dozen Apple products (PCs and mobile devices) would suggest that they've had ongoing quality problems. One iphone died in 6 months, 3 PCs didn't last 3 years. Motherboard problems, battery problems, hard drive problems, and on and on. Their products command premium prices but (in our experience) don't deliver premium quality.

snidely-
You're right. How could I not have seen it? I've said silly, false, and preposterous things. I just get so passionate about my phone that I lose control. What came over me? Thank you for putting me back on the path of righteousness. I'll sin no more.

Kudzu, my experience with my grandchildren and their SOs is very different from yours. They are all Apple IPhone users and have been for several years. However, when I discussed getting a new phone for myself, they all advised me that I should get an Android. They said that the IPhones are pretty quirky to use in lots of respects. All of these young adults work in an industry that heavily uses the IPhones so they have to have IPhones, but their personal preferences would be to use Android phones.