From the day of its launch, android has been notorious for its battery life. While android 4.0 ICS brought huge improvements to battery life and then jelly bean optimized a lot, but not many of us use stock android OS. Companies add their own layer of custom UI over the stock. Apart from this, app development has been aggressive strategy of Google but has never paid much attention towards analyzing each app submitted by developers and certifying it after taking care of its consequences on phone’s battery life.
The droid users have only two options,
either carry a charger or have bigger battery backup. While it
both doesn’t justify the usage time of your phone.
So, Here are 5 tips to enhance the stand
by time and battery life of your Android while your phone is being used
or is in sleep mode.
1. Screen is the most Battery Draining Hardware on a Device.
Screen brightness can be a matter of
death or life on battery performance. While some say that SUPERAMOLED
saves more power than SUPERLCD and TFT, but I have seen all of them
draining the power in my droids.
Hence rather than using auto brightness,
toggle it to 5-10 % while indoor and again back to auto in outdoor
conditions. The reason why companies tweak auto brightness to 10 -15 %
brightness more than the requirement whether it is indoor or outdoor is
to show rich colours. You can download auto brightness switch from Google play.
Moreover don’t forget to un-check auto rotate. Also, screen auto off time should be reduced.
2. Phone Radio Hardware Check
Any hardware on the device whether it is
Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, mobile network radio, when used will drain the
battery, you must need to check whether any of them is ON even if you
don’t need.
Mobile data network or GPS have improved
a lot since ICS android 4.0, so if you keep them enabled, won’t affect
much because GPS turns ON only when used by app, but data network can
trigger apps to use them in case of background apps and lead to battery
drainage and even charging you cost.
You can use some great apps like battery doctor or juice defender and let them manage it automatically.
3. Personalize and Auto Synchronize Account Wisely
Too many options by too many custom UI
by too many companies overloading your phone’s battery. More you load
them by options like face unlock, skins, widgets, themes, the more they
will use the processor and ultimately more is the battery drain. Even
though most companies have customized and optimized a lot
to minimize such activities in standby mode, but when you unlock the
phone, the UI starts them.
Say NO to live wallpapers if you want better battery performance.
When it comes to auto sync, only do if
needed, or want important email accounts to notify you, social accounts
like Facebook should be sync manually because these accounts are the
real battery drainers. One or two G-Mail accounts won’t drain your
battery even in auto mode because Google has done a lot
on optimizing stock apps.
4. Apps uses Hardware, hence Battery
Most apps are notorious for running in
background even after exit, some remain in memory unless RAM is needed
for something else, some are eagerly waiting for data connection in
background during push you notifications, some start from the moment you
boot, don’t get to your notice, still draining battery.
One such app which can drain your
battery twice as fast as it drains regularly is Facebook, what can you
do if you need it and don’t want to un-install it, force stop it,
in case not needed and you will notice the change. The task killer in
most cases cannot help you much because it keeps on killing the apps and
the app starts again.
Manage background apps wisely and remember killing everything using task killer is not a solution.
5. A Few more Tips and Tweaks
- You can disable animations, tactile feedback to extend standby time to 20-30 minutes more. You can change sound profile to mute if it you wish to get more juice out of your battery.
- Try to use headset more rather than speakers of the phone because it will drain less battery.
- Use any battery saver app rather than task killer, a few options and one of my favourite are battery doctor and juice defender.
- Optimize your phone at least once in a week using cache, junk file cleaner and virus scan, one of my favourites are mobile care and clean master.
- Force stop games after playing because they might push notifications to you via internet in most cases the free ones.
- Restart your phone at least once in a week so that temporary files are cleaned automatically.
- Last but not the least, maintain healthy charge cycle i.e. 15 % to 99 % and at least charge from 5 % to 100% once in a month, avoid overcharging.
Image Courtesy: mobilife.com