It’s no secret that there are a handful of smartphones out there that don’t exactly have the greatest of battery life. Even with moderate use, a phone could be on the verge of shutting down by the late afternoon without any mid-day charge put into it. The seemingly endless battery life that most people enjoyed with those older phones is a luxury given up with the incredible capabilities of today’s smartphones.
There is hope though, or at least a handful of things you can do to extend the battery life of your phone each day. With smartphones coming prepared for running just about any application to its fullest, knowing how to enable and disable certain features to be used only as they’re needed can make hours of difference in your battery’s life each day. With the help of a complete guide from over at HowToGeek.com, here’s a list of things you can do to give yourself those extra hours free from the charger.
Use the battery usage screen
Knowledge is power, and all Android phones come built-in with a feature that breaks down which aspects of the phone are consuming the most battery. Whether it’s a particular application, the usage of the screen display or actual phone calls, this feature will break down the battery usage so you can better understand what other measures you need to take on the most.
Turn down the backlight
One of the biggest culprits of rapid battery loss is the usage of the phone’s screen display, and nothing aids in draining the battery quicker than when that brightness is cranked up. Often times the phone’s screen is still easily visible indoors on the lowest setting, and can be easily changed for situations where more backlight is needed.
Turn off WiFi when not in use
When WiFi is enabled, yet no WiFi signals are available, your phone will still be searching for a signal to grab. The victim of that search is your battery.
Disable Bluetooth if you don’t use it
Much like WiFi, Bluetooth is an additional drain on the battery when it is activated, whether or not it is in use. Whenever you aren’t using any kind of Bluetooth add-on, turning off Bluetooth from your phone will help your battery.
Change sync settings of your applications
Certain applications are constantly trying to sync, and in turn, draining your battery. Setting individual applications to sync much less often than their default setting can go a long way for your battery’s life. Applications such as e-mail or Facebook are some of the most notorious offenders of syncing too often. The downside to this fix is having to go into each individual app and change the settings, but it shouldn’t take long at all.
Disable the GPS feature
While it might take a minute for your phone’s GPS to pinpoint your location when turned back on, disabling GPS can be another big boost for your battery life. It’s not just navigation apps that use GPS, so disabling others from working to access location info can be a big life saver.
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To read more on a few other battery-saving strategies, check out this complete guide to Android battery life, here: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/25319/complete-guide-to-maximizing-your-android-phones-battery-life/
