No, it’s not you, and
there’s nothing wrong with your perpetually about-to-run-out-of-juice
Android phone. It’s just that your trusty handset is a battery hog,
plain and simple.
The slim technological wonder in your pocket is doing
dozens of things at once, everything from pinpointing your position and
uploading snapshots to downloading app updates and checking for
email—and each and every one of those tasks demands power.
Dedicated Android users have dozens of options at their
disposal to conserve their phone batteries, assuming they have the time
and inclination. For example, you can stop random apps that are running
in the background, manually sync your Google, Facebook and other
accounts, and even disable automatic app updates.
But those battery-saving chores demand a fair amount of effort and attention—and let’s face it, we’re busy people here.
Instead, I’m going to focus on five set-'em-and-forget-'em
settings that’ll help keep your Android phone up and running from
daybreak to lights-out.
Note: The following tips are for Android devices running on Lollipop, the latest version of Google’s Android operating system.
Read on for five easy ways to boost your Android phone’s battery life, starting with...
Tweak your screen brightness settings
The longer your phone’s jumbo touchscreen display glows,
the more juice it’ll consume—and more often than not, it tops the list
of battery-hogging features on your handset. Luckily, there are a couple
of key settings that can keep your display’s appetite for power in
check.
First, check the brightness slider for your screen. If it’s
cranked up much further than halfway or so, you’re probably draining
your battery a lot faster than you need to. Just swipe down from the top
edge of the screen with two fingertips to reveal the brightness slider,
and dial it down to 50 percent or less (or as low as your eyes can
stand).
If you’re worried that you won’t be able to see your newly
dim screen in bright sunlight, just turn on your phone’s auto-brightness
feature—or “adaptive brightness,” as Google calls it. Tap Settings > Display, then toggle on the “Adaptive brightness” setting.
Finally, consider turning on a setting that’ll keep your
sleeping phone’s screen from lighting up every time a new notification
pops up. Yes, you may miss out on a Facebook update or two, but that
might be preferable (not to mention less distracting) to the added drain
on your phone. Tap Settings > Display, then make sure the “Ambient display” setting is switched off.
Set “Battery Saver” mode to switch on automatically
Even when it’s sitting quietly in your pocket, your Android
phone is constantly checking your email, syncing your Google account
data, and juggling the activity of all your various background apps.
That’s a lot of gears turning every minute of every day, and it all
consumes battery power—or at least, it does whenever your handset isn’t
plugged into a charger.
That’s why I’m a fan of
Lollipop’s “Battery Saver” mode, which puts your Android phone into a
low-power state whenever you need to wring a little extra juice out of
your handset’s battery. When Battery Saver mode is on, your phone will
stop its obsessive email checking, cease all its vibrating, and keep
background data use at an absolute minimum. Your device will feel
awfully sluggish whenever Battery Saver mode is on, but at least it
won’t be as dead as a doornail.
You can turn on Battery Saver mode any time you want, but
there’s also a setting that’ll switch it on automatically if your
phone’s battery is about to flatline.
Tap Settings > Battery, tap the three-dot menu button in the top-right corner of the screen, then tap Battery saver. Leave the main "Battery saver” toggle in the off position, tap Turn on automatically, then pick a setting: either “at 5% battery” or “at 15% percent battery.”
Set location data to power-saving mode
Sure, you can set your Android phone to work
triple-time—using GPS, Wi-Fi and cellular all at once—to determine its
exact location, but you’ll pay a premium in terms of battery life.
Unless you really need
pinpoint location accuracy, you can probably get away with turning off
your phone’s power-hogging GPS sensor and relying on just cellular and
nearby Wi-Fi networks to triangulate where you are.
To do so, tap Settings > Location > Mode, then tap Battery saving.
Back up your Google Photos only while your handset is charging
One of the first things the new Google Photos app will ask you is whether you’d like your snapshots to be automatically backed up online. Tap OK,
and Google Photos will start backing up your pictures in the
background—and by default, it’ll only do so while you’re connected to a
Wi-Fi network.
The “Wi-Fi only” setting
is a prudent one, especially for those with cellular data caps, and
it’ll also spare your battery from grinding that much harder to upload
hefty images over a 3G or LTE connection.
But unless you’re dead-set on backing up your snapshots the
very moment you connect to Wi-Fi, there’s an even more power-conscious
setting for Google Photos’ auto-backup feature.
Open the app, tap the menu button in the top-left side of the screen, tap Settings > Back up & sync, then enable the “While charging only” setting.
Pick a static wallpaper image
I’m a sucker for “live” wallpaper—that is, animated
wallpaper images that pulse, shimmy, and otherwise dance across your
home and/or lock screen.
Unfortunately, those
eye-popping live wallpaper images put additional—and unnecessary—strain
on your handset’s already maxed-out battery.
Tap Settings > Display > Wallpaper, and pick a static background image instead. Boring, yes, but your phone’s battery willThank You.
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