9 tips to improve your smartphone's battery life

You’re really concerned about your battery life, aren’t you? That’s right, when it’s time to travel or go out, you always remember two things -- your toothbrush and your charger! The toothbrush to make your morning fresh and the charger to save you from the irritation of the diminishing smartphone battery during your working day.

Battery life has been one of the most important concerns for users, app developers, and manufacturers. On average, most smartphone batteries last 1-2 days before being completely depleted. In smartphone reviews we see how battery life can outrank other features -- after all, if the battery’s dead we can’t use them for those important calls or emails! While we wait for any latest technology to come to market, let’s look at some easy ways to conserve battery life. These tips will definitely help to make you feel relaxed and anxiety-free till you return safely to your charger.

1. Keep Out of the Heat

Try to keep your phone cool. If it’s very hot, don’t walk in the heat holding your smartphone. Keep the phone in a pocket to save the battery from draining. Direct rays from the sun suck the life out of the battery. The impact on the battery is particularly noticeable above a certain temperature so better to keep the phone out of the heat.

2. No Phone Vibration

Not everybody will know this one, OK? Having the phone vibrate for notifications, texts, and calls is a big drain on the battery. If you really wish to stretch battery life on a busy day then turn off vibration. It won’t be miraculous but you will notice a few extra minutes. "Little drops of water make a mighty ocean".

3. No Radio, No GPS

Most people know that casually turned on Bluetooth eats battery but GPS and radio also run it down fast. Android phones are chock full of radios and GPS. If you don’t use them, it makes no sense to keep them turned on. Make an effort to leave wi-fi off until you’re in an active hotspot. When you’re not listening to the radio don’t leave it to run in the background. Make sure the GPS is shut off when not using the navigation or location features of the phone.

4. Yes to "Power Saving Mode"

Power saving mode has a significant impact on system performance. All you have to do is turn it on when your battery level is dropping low. Many smartphones have a setting that lets you program a battery level to trigger power saving mode automatically.

5. Dim the Screen

Obviously! Yes, people still don’t do it. Why not follow this simple tip and extend your battery life. It’s common sense but worth mentioning. Android phones have an auto-brightness setting that automatically adjusts the screen brightness based on ambient room light level.

The display on Android phones is the biggest drain on the battery, so it makes sense to turn it down as low as possible. This can add hours of life to the battery.

6. Reduce Screen Timeout

Android phones will automatically turn off the display after a set interval. It is advisable to set this interval as short as possible to stretch the battery life.

Samsung Galaxy Note 2’s Smart Stay prevents the screen from dimming and timing out if it detects the user is looking at the screen. The screen won’t keep turning off while you’re using the phone, but will do so if you’re not using it after a few seconds.

7. Reboot Occasionally

It may not always have a positive effect on the battery, but it doesn’t hurt to occasionally reboot the phone. It makes sure you start with a clean slate with as few apps running in the background as possible.

8. Turn Off App Notifications

Many mobile apps offer notifications, those little messages that tell you when something has happened in the background. Unfortunately, this can eat up a lot of battery and lots of mobile applications do it.

You’ll have to go into each app to turn the notifications off but it’s worth the effort. Two of the biggest offenders are Twitter and Facebook so turn those off unless you can’t live without them.

9. Extra Battery

If your phone has a replaceable battery, the surest way to get through a busy day with a live phone is to get a spare battery. Having two batteries will certainly get you through the longest day and maybe two days without charging.

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