10 tips to extend your smartphone's battery life

One of the most common issues troubling most smartphone users is poor battery life of their smartphones. Although with each passing year, smartphone batteries are getting better, users are not seeing much benefit due due to a number of battery-draining apps and other factors.

However, using some simple tips, apps and accessories in your daily routine can help maximise the battery back-up of your device.

Here are ten tips to boost the battery life of your smartphones and tablets.

1. Reduce the display brightness

You may already know this one, and it applies to your phone as well as laptop. Most smartphones have an auto-brightness feature, but it may help to manually adjust the brightness if you want to make your phone’s battery last longer.

2. Use a dark background

If you use a phone with an AMOLED screen, using a black or dark wallpaper can save the battery. This is because such screens light up only the colored pixels while black pixels remain unaffected. The more dark or black pixels you have on your screen, the less power your phone will need to illuminate them.

3. Enable low-power mode

If your phone features Android 5.0 or later versions, it will have a low power mode that turns on automatically when your phone battery goes down to 15%.

On Android Marshmallow, there is a new feature called Doze, which puts your phone in hibernation mode whenever it lies unused for long durations of time.

4. Use lock screen notifications

Another one of the simple solutions, enabling lock screen notifications can extend your phone’s battery life as you can read your notifications without having to unlock and light up the whole screen.

5. Turn off location tracking on apps where it is not needed

There are several apps on your phone that constantly track your location, but not all may actually need to use this information. In order to save your phone’s battery, disable the location tracking in apps that you don’t need. After all, GPS tracking does use a lot of power on your smartphone.

6. Schedule your app updates only over a Wi-Fi connection

If you want to extend the battery life on your smartphone, it is better to install apps or schedule updates over Wi-Fi as being on bandwidth means that your phone will consume a considerable amount of power while updating apps.

You can also schedule these updates at times when you are plugged in, given that the phone you use supports it.

7. Make use of the Do Not disturb and airplane mode

When you put your phone on flight/airplane mode, it disables all wireless features. Enabling this mode when in areas where cellular or Wi-Fi coverage is not strong can help in controlling the fast drainage of power from your smartphone battery.

8. Opt for original batteries only

So you need to replace the battery on your smartphone but are debating whether it is worth paying for an original product? The answer is - yes. You may save some money on battery purchases if you go for second-rate batteries, but remember that such products will also deliver a sub-standard performance. Moreover, why risk damaging your expensive smartphone by using a battery that is not original?

These tips and tricks can help you make your smartphone battery last a little longer than usual between recharges. However, if you find that your phone does not make it through the day even after following these tips, it may be time to get your battery checked.

9. Deactivate vibration and haptic feedback

Having the phone on ringer and on vibration can absorb a good amount of juice out of your phone. So you might want to put off vibration unless you want that as an additional awareness. Another way to preserve battery is by turning of the haptic feedback.

10. Shorter timeout

All Android smartphones allow you to customise the display timeout time. You might want to reduce it to a more practical level like 30 seconds, which will help you increase the battery efficiency of your smartphone.