Battery life woes? Let’s fix that with 10 easy tricks you can do on your smartphone at your leisure.
Just bought a new smartphone and the battery life already sucks? It may be suffering from battery drain issues. Before you get a replacement, here are 10 things you should try first to increase your smartphone’s battery life.
1. Brightness Level
The display consumes a lot of power because brightness is the biggest culprit but you can manage it.
If you’re inside, you can just raise the level wherein text, images, and other visuals are clear. No need to max it. If you do that often, expect the battery to drain fast and the phone to heat up quickly.
If you’re outside, you can use Automatic Brightness to let the phone manage the level. Compared to putting the brightness level on max, Automatic Brightness saves more battery life when you often put the device in your bag or pocket.
2. Refresh Rate
A high refresh rate makes scrolling smooth as butter, but refresh rates higher than 60Hz will impact battery life. The best of both worlds is 90Hz, though your phone may not have this in the options menu. Many models today only show either 60Hz or 120Hz.
A 120Hz refresh rate will drain more power and raise the temperature faster than 60Hz, especially during gaming. The same goes versus 60Hz and 30Hz. If you’re into AFK gaming, set the refresh rate or FPS to 30 to extend battery life.
You choose the dynamic refresh rate but be aware that some phones have conditions like it only works when you’re using the device at a very high brightness level.
3. Volume
Love your phone’s loud stereo speakers? If the volume is high, expect the speakers to consume more power. Some phones have volume boosters, which are great for hours of sound trip, but they may drain more battery than usual.
You can go for wired audio accessories. Wired headphones consume less power than wireless, while 3.5mm headphones may consume less than USB-C headphones.
A 3.5mm headphone has an average power consumption of 60W, which is lower than the 100W average consumption of a USB-C headphone. However, many USB-C headphones have premium audio quality.
Whether you’re on speakers or audio accessories, limiting volume levels will definitely save battery life during your sound trip.
4. Auto-sync
Syncing data to ensure emails and social media updates is important for some. But if you’re not a fan, turn it off to increase your smartphone’s battery life.
It’s easily found in the Settings menu under Accounts. Once turned off, syncing across your accounts will stop. You can always manually do it by tapping Sync Now, found under the Accounts as well.
5. Airplane Mode
No SIM card means better battery life? Not until you turn on Airplane mode.
If you don’t know, you can still dial the emergency number and get through without a SIM card. As long as such a smartphone is within the coverage of a local network, it will use power to maintain its connection to the grid.
Turn on Airplane mode to completely cut off your smartphone from local networks. Just remember that no calls or texts will be received, so don’t forget to turn it back on.
Do this on your secondary phone, which has no SIM cards, 24/7 to greatly conserve power.
6. Location Services
GPS alone is not the big deal because modern phones only access them when you’re using specific apps. The real issue is the Location Accuracy under Location Services; higher accuracy, more power consumption.
You can turn that feature off and the GPS itself without losing the function. You can still check maps and similar apps via the internet but you may get less accurate results. It may also impact navigation when driving.
But if you don’t use navigation a lot, it’s better to disable location-related services.
7. Wireless Scanning
Under Location Services are two battery hoggers. These are Wi-Fi scanning and Bluetooth Scanning, both that always scan for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections even if the toggles are turned off. Modern smartphones have these two enabled by default.
Go to Location > Location services and turn both features to increase battery life.
8. Dark Mode
Dark mode has been associated with better battery life on OLED screens. OLEDs simply turn off each pixel that isn’t displaying other than the color black. However, there are limitations to this:
- Conserves around 3% at 30% brightness level.
- Conserves around 9% at 50% brightness level.
- May worsen symptoms of astigmatism for some people.
- May worsen symptoms of near-sightedness for some people.
So, when should you use Dark mode? Use cases include outdoors at max display brightness and indoors with dim-lit surroundings at low display brightness.
LCDs don’t get improved battery life because the pixels are still powered and are just displaying the color black.
9. Battery Saver
The all-around bandage is Battery Saver mode. It usually limits animations, app syncing, and some features to increase battery life. If you’re busy and can’t attend to your phone, turn this on to extend its standby time.
10. Ultra Power Saving
The more desperate solution, particularly when you can’t access any charger, is the Ultra Power Saving mode. This basically turns your smartphone into a basic phone.
The power mode enforces many restrictions, including:
- Restrict animations.
- Restrict app syncing.
- Restrict features and services.
- Restrict several wireless functionalities (Wi-Fi and cellular allowable).
- Restrict the maximum brightness capability of the screen.
- Restrict access to just 6 apps of your choice.
Many experience power drain issues on their smartphones and have become frantic about hard management. But here’s the deal: you bought that phone for a reason and you should use it at your heart’s content.
You’re allowed to conserve power or consume the battery whenever you like. At the end of the day, the battery is a consumable and must be replaced after several years. Nothing will stop that from happening.
