A common complaint of smartphone-users across the world is the frustratingly short battery life of most advanced handsets. Let us here focus on some tips that would help you to extend the battery life of your smartphone by a few hours, at least.
The average battery life of the high-end iphone 5S has been found to be better than that of most of the Samsung Galaxy handsets and even the highly popular Nexus 5 phone. Don’t, however, run away with the belief that – once charged, the battery of an iphone would last for a couple of days. According to research reports, the iphone 5S offers a battery backup period of a shade over ten hours – and you can well imagine how low the general battery life of smartphone models (other types) normally are. Even so, you can get just that bit more battery juice from your handset, by following these guidelines:
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Adjust the screen brightness – Unless you have a vision impairment, or are in a dark place – you will not require high brightness levels on your smartphone screen. Lower the brightness settings to a level that, whenever any notification comes along, extra pressure is not placed on the phone battery. Ideally, the screen should get slightly dimmed when not being used, to conserve battery.
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When outdoors, turn off wifi – Experts from iphone maintenance and mobile application development companies in India typically emphasize on this point. When you are outside, your smartphone keeps searching for available wireless networks in the neighborhood. This, in turn, causes battery drain – and connecting to an unknown network is not particularly advisable either. Before you step out of home, make sure that the wifi feature on your phone is turned off.
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Schedule app upgrades only when you are at home – This is basically derived from the earlier point. Sophisticated smartphone models come with the provision of downloading the latest versions/upgrades of mobile apps, as and when they become available. However, if you allow such downloads when you are not at home – wifi won’t be available, and too much strain would be placed on the mobile network, and consequently, the battery. Instead, set all app upgrades in your phone when the device is at home, and connected to a trusted wireless network.
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Avoid light-colored wallpapers and themes – In case your handset does not have an AMOLED display screen, you can probably ignore this piece of advice. However, most Android users can improve the battery life of their smartphone by at least a couple of hours, by setting up dark wallpapers and themes. If the background chosen is of a light color, more pixels would be required for it to be displayed properly.
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Consider the type of battery present in your handset – The charging requirements for phones with nickel-based batteries differ significantly from those with Li-ion (Lithium ion) ones. For devices with the former type of battery, charging should be done only when the phone is ‘almost dead’ (otherwise, the long-run battery performance might get affected). On the other hand, smartphones with Li-ion batteries can be charged practically anytime – and ‘overcharging’ is hardly ever a risk.
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Turn off unnecessary push notifications – The surge in Android, Blackberry and iphone app development in India has led to the creation of many interesting applications – but many of them have a common disturbing feature. They keep sending push-notifications to users, about a host of stuff (the bulk of which most users are not even interested in). Although slight, such notifications do eat away at the battery life of smartphone handsets. Apart from the apps for which you indeed require push-notifications (e.g., the email app for Blackberry), turn off this feature for all the other applications.
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Do not overuse your phone’s GPS – Neither should you use location-based mobile apps for too long. GPS applications consume battery in rather generous amounts, and overusing them might require you to charge your phone within a short span of time (in cases, even less than an hour!). Many people do not require GPS services on their phone either, and they need to adjust their phone settings accordingly. Use location services on your handset only when required.
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Do not make your handset a storehouse of apps – After buying a smartphone, the first thing you would probably do is download and install a lot of mobile applications. You won’t be using all of these apps regularly though, and the ones that are hardly ever used need to be removed from the handset. Even when smartphone apps are not being used, they can remain active in the background (check the Settings of your smartphone for that), and gradually exhaust the battery. Why bother keeping redundant stuff on your phone?
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Make sure that the screen time-out does not take too long – Does the screen of your phone remain lighted, even a full minute after you have stopped working on it? If yes, that might be one of the causes why you are having to charge your handset three times a day! Adjust the screen time-out period to around 15-20 seconds, and do not simply leave it at the default level. If required, you can always extend the time-out span by a few more seconds.
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Don’t use battery-extending apps – Because most of these smartphone apps are hardly of any use, and are nothing more than a further burden on handsets. Battery-handlers from practically every iphone application development company in India advise against installing any of the several ‘battery-life enhancing apps’ currently available. These apps are mostly free – but that’s about the only good point about them!
If you do not really require lightning-fast internet connectivity, switch off the 3G/4G connections (as applicable) on your phone, at least for some time everyday. Make sure that the mobile apps on your phone do not get auto-refreshed after every few hours. Avoid placing your smartphone in direct sunlight, which can cause the device to get excessively heated up. Following these tips won’t make the battery life of a smartphone last a week – but you will, at least, be able to do away with the need to charge it multiple times in a day!
Hussain Fakhruddin
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