Even hi-tech smartphones can last for days - as long as you follow a few basic procedures to keep the battery at full.
As smartphones have become more capable - for playing gaming, watching
movies and shooting video - battery performance has worsened and now
most modern smartphones won’t last a full a day before you need to reach
for a charger.
Phone manufacturers are working hard to improve
battery performance - Motorola in particular with their RAZR i and RAZR
MAXX - but if you buy most other smartphones, be ready to charge every
evening. Here are some tips to help conserve your mobile phones battery life:
Power-saving mode Modern
Android and Windows Phone smartphones include power or battery saving
modes typically located in the Settings menu. It is activated once the
battery reaches a certain level, forcing battery intensive features -
including push email, screen brightness and Facebook updates - to switch
off. Unfortunately Apple doesn’t include any such power or battery
saving features on its smartphones, although free apps like Battery Life
Pro help monitor performance and shut down applications.
Screen brightness The
biggest drain on a mobile phone battery is the screen and unfortunately
the bigger and brighter the screen, the more battery life it uses. Save
battery power by selecting ‘Automatic brightness’ and the screen will
adjust the brightness automatically depending on the lighting
conditions.
Alternatively, if the battery indicator is reaching
precarious levels turn the brightness down as low as is comfortable to
conserve as much power as possible.
Make sure auto lock is activated, so when your phone isn’t being used the screen shuts down saving power.
If
you’ve got a phone with an AMOLED screen (such as the Samsung Galaxy S3
or S2) using a dark wallpaper may also help save battery.
Don’t vibrate In
a working environment where loud ringtones are frowned upon, instead of
popping your mobile phone in vibrate mode, which uses your battery, use
silent mode instead.
Stop email sync Your
phone probably checks for emails every few minutes or if you’ve got a
smartphone that supports push email, constantly. Every time your phone
syncs or an email is ‘pushed’ though, it uses battery power. To change
the rate of email syncing or to switch it off, go into the Settings menu
of your smartphone and increase the interval your phone checks email,
it varies from phone to phone, but we would suggest setting it to check
every half hour, or to switch off sync completely. You can therefore
manually check your email as and when you choose and save a sizable
chunk of battery life in the process.
Reduce social networking updates Getting
Facebook and Twitter notifications delivered to your phone
automatically (like push email) uses your battery, so turn notifications
off. Most phones allow you to switch off all syncing with a simple
toggle.
Turn connections off WiFi, GPS and
Bluetooth are found on most modern phones. Forget to turn your WiFi off
when you leave the house and it will continually look for a WiFi
connection, using the battery. So make sure you turn any connections off
when you are not using them.
Shut down apps Even
if you are not using an application it may still be running in the
background using the battery, so close any apps you aren’t using. Do
this on an iPhone by double tapping the menu button, pressing the
program icon and click the minus button.
On older Android
smartphones, you may need a task manager to do this, however newer
handsets running Android 4.0+ allow you to pull up a task manager by
simply long pressing the home button. You can then thumb through your
open apps and swipe them off screen to close them. You can even see what
apps use the most battery in the settings of your Android smartphone.
Don’t download pictures Downloading
pictures when browsing or using email is something most of us do
without thinking, but every time you download a photo it uses both data
and power. So if you can live without pictures, turn them off in the
internet browser’s settings menu.
Flash off When
taking photographs using your smartphone, be conservative with your
flash use. In digital cameras the flash is a huge battery drain and the
same applies to phones, so instead of leaving it in automatic mode, turn
the flash off when taking photographs, only turning it on when
necessary.
Night time = downtime Night time
is the time most people charge their smartphones, but if you don’t have a
charger to hand make sure you turn your phone off at night.
Aeroplane mode Smartphones
are always trying to connect to a network, be it a cellular network, a
wireless network or a data network. The harder they try and connect, the
more battery they use. A great way to save your battery is to switch
on aeroplane mode when reception is poor or you’re underground. This
stops your phone searching for signal when there’s none to be found and
makes the best use of whatever battery you have left.
Accessorise If
you’ve followed the above tips and your phone battery still doesn’t
last very long, it’s time to consider a charging accessory. The Mophie
JuicePack Air (£40) fits over your smartphone, doubling the battery
life, alternatively if you don’t fancy changing the look of your phone
consider a portable battery charger like Proporta TurboCharger 7000
(£54).
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