This is perhaps the only minus point I can think of after having an Android for about 2 years. But along with some other tips, Android's plus point: the availability of a wide array of apps comes to its rescue here. Yes, you got that right! There are a lot of Android apps that claim to extend your battery life. I shall recommend you which one you should use later in the article. I shall also cover some other basic tips you can use to make your juice last longer. A combination of all these can make your battery last almost 2x as longer as it did before.
Tip 1. Turn off data when you don't need to.
If you're not an entrepreneur who needs to get emails instantly, I don't think there' any reason that you may leave your data on. In the background, it is used by apps like Facebook, Gmail, twitter etc. to sync your account. Turning off data when you're not browsing the web and neither are using any app is a wise thing to do. To make this more effortless, add a power widget to your homescreen, by long pressing on your home scrren and then select widget and finally select power widget. Not only it saves you from few extra clicks, If it lies in front of your eyes, it will also act as an reminder for you to turn off the data. To manually turn it off, you need to go to Settings > Wireless & Networks and then disable the data from there. Btw, it will also help you save a few kilobytes of data usage if you're on a limited data plan.
Tip 2. Turn off wifi when you're not using it.
Like data, wifi is also a major battery hogging feature. Don't be too lazy to turn it off thinking that you might need it after a while. Come on, it just takes a few clicks. And God knows, if you don't turn that off, you might not be able to use it after a while if the juice goes down. So, better act then before it's too late and your battery is gone.
Tip 3: Lower the brightness.
When indoors, lower your brightness as much as possible. You should lower it to the point you're comfortable viewing the contents on screen. The power widget has a brightness button too, clicking which lets you toggle through a few different levels of brightness. Instead of doing the hard work yourself, you can also set the brightness to "Automatic" (if you're phone supports it) so that the brightness increases automatically when you go outdoors. Otherwise it's like hitting arrows in the dark when you try to increase brightness in sunny conditions.
Tip 4. Turn off 3G when you're not using 3G services.
It's a well known fact that 3G eats up lot more battery than 2G, so when you're not video calling, watching TV or browsing the web using 3G on your phone, switching to 2G will please your battery a lot. Voice calling should be done using 2G as there's not much quality difference, but talktime during 2G is significantly higher than when you are using 3G. Use any automator like Tasker to automate the process of automatically turning 3G off when you switch off the data. If you're doing it manually, go to Settings> Wireless & Networks> Mobile Networks> Network Mode and select 2G only/ GSM only.
Note: 2G = GSM and 3G = WCDMA
Tip 5. Analyse what's eating up your battery.
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| Battery Usage Stats Froyo |
Tip 6. Uninstall Battery Hogging apps.
Those apps which are heavy on CPU also tend to drain your battery fast if used for a bit long time. Identify such apps by tip #6 and if you can live without them, better uninstall them. Or maybe just use them less when you want the juice to last longer.
Tip 7. Carry an extra battery.
If you're going out somewhere, like on a tour or if your workplace doesn't allow you to get your phone charged, then you should buy a backup battery, which you should fully charge before leaving for that "wireless" place. Pardon me because I know it's not a battery life increasing tip, but can be handy, if you use your phone a lot, like me, and often don't get access to a place where you can charge it.
Tip 8. Clock your CPU at lower speeds.
If you're rooted, then install any CPU governing app like setcpu and set the maximum CPU speed to about 50% of the max possible of your device when you want to conserve some battery power. Or just set the scaling to "On Demand", so that the CPU adjusts its clock speed according to the task you're currently performing.
Tip 9. Some build.prop tweaks to save battery.
Again, If you're rooted, open any file explorer with root access and go to /system and open build.prop in text editor. Add the below lines at the end (The first one saves power when your device is sleeping while the second one smooths out network disconnects):
pm.sleep_mode=1
ro.mot.eri.losalert.delay=1000
Tip 10. Use a battery saving app.
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| Easy Battery Saver |
If you apply all the tips above, or just even half of them, I can guarantee that you will observe increased battery life.
