With every passing week, a plethora of new applications come out for smartphones, each one more advanced than the last, and whilst these applications are often fun and handy, some can drain a battery in under an hour. Games, GPS, listening to music, watching video, these are all ways to guarantee your battery will need recharging regularly.
However, there are steps you can take to ensure you’re getting as much battery life out of your phone as possible, so that it doesn’t always run out of battery just at the wrong time. Here are a few of the best ways of prolonging your battery whilst still enjoying the range of services and applications that your phone has.
- The first step is to check the type of battery you have in your phone. More and more are now being built with lithium-ion batteries and if this is the case, you won’t want to let it discharge fully. Older phones often recommend that you discharge your battery fully at least once a week. This is not the case with lithium batteries;as soon as your battery gets low on charge, plug it in and juice it up as often as you can.
- Keep your background data switched off whenever possible. If you have your phone programmed to sync with Facebook or Twitter, this will drain your battery substantially. If it is essential to keep this on during the day, try and remember to switch it off when you’re not using it, or in an area with no signal.
- Wi-Fi and GPS also drain the battery, so you will want to turn these functions off whenever possible. Bluetooth is renowned for being a real battery sucker, so always leave it switched off unless you are using it.
- If you are the type of phone user that gets a lot of messages and notifications, then keep the vibrate function switched off as this will drain your battery a lot quicker. You may also want to keep your volume down low whenever possible, as this too can increase the length of your battery life.
- Whilst it can be fun to have cool screen savers and animated backgrounds, these have a big effect on battery life. If there is a chance you are not going to be able to charge your phone for some time then it’s a good idea to disable all of these functions, as they drain your battery whilst serving no purpose beyond the aesthetic.
Check to see if your phone has a power saving mode. If so, then make sure it is turned on. The purpose of the power saving mode is to turn off certain features and prolong the battery life.
Finally, you should take good care of your battery. If you struggle to get a signal and often leave your phone on a window ledge, try and keep it out of the sunlight. Batteries don’t appreciate overheating and this will only serve to reduce the quality and shelf life of your battery,so keep it cool and in the shade.