How To Double Your Device's Battery Life
Does your smartphone or tablet need to be charged every day? Here we reveal eight free and easy ways to make your mobile device's battery last twice as long.
Diagnose and fix battery problems
There are lots of apps that promise to prolong your battery life, but our favourite is Battery Doctor. Available for Android and iOS, this fantastic free tool identifies the apps, services and features on your device that are draining your Juice. then lets you turn them all off in one go. It also tells you how much battery time you've gamed by applying its optimisation tricks, and offers a choice of power-saving modes you can activate at different times of the day.
Act fast when your battery runs low
Another good app for making your battery last longer is AVG's excellent new Tune UP & Battery Manager (http://bit.ly/145ToSY) for Android. This has a useful feature that alerts you when your battery reaches 30 (or 50) per cent charge. You can then squeeze more from your remaining juice by using the Task Killer options to close unused apps and the power-saving settings to turn off battery-draining features. We especially like that the am tells you exactly how much time you have left for specific activities, such as talking over 3G. playing music and videos, and browsing.
Turn off Wi-Fi automatically
Keeping Wi-Fi constantly turned on gives you instant web access at home and finds hotspots when you're out and about. However, it's also a big drain on your battery, even when you're not connected to the web, so turning it off will boost your battery life considerably. You can do this manually on most devices, either by going to Settings and switching Wi-Fi off or Aeroplane mode.mode. Alternatively. install an app such as Wi-Fi Auto Turn Off (http://bit.ly/18FQyI2), which turns off Wi-Fi off automatically when you're out of range. Bluetooth also saps power, so keep It turned off, until you need it.
Fetch new data less frequently
Email and social-networking apps are often set to check regularly. sometimes constantly, for updates, which can quickly run down your battery. To prevent this from happening, it's worth changing how frequently these apps sync with their servers, or turning off the feature altogether and checking for updates manually. You can do this on iOS devices by going to Settings, 'Mail, Contacts. Calendars' and changing the Fetch New Data option to Hourly or Manually. On an Android phone or tablet, go to Settings. Accounts and turn off Sync for individual accounts. Alternatively, just switch off push notifications for apps that use them.
Stop apps keeping your phone awake
If you've ever noticed that your Android device loses power, even when it's idle. the cause is most likely 'wakelock'. This is a feature within the Android OS that lets apps keep your phone or tablet awake by using system resources. A full wakelock may turn on your screen, keyboard and processor when your phone is in standby mode, while partial wakelocks just use the processor. Both cause significant battery drain. Installing the free app Wakelock Detector will show You which apps cause the biggest wakelocks (that is, keep your phone awake for the longest time), so you can change their settings. stop them running or uninstall them. For the best results, charge your phone to at least 90 percent, then leave it for a couple of hours to let the app do its work. You may be surprised by what's stopping your device sleeping. Our worst offender was the Exchange Services app we use for email.
Lower your screen brightness
Even Apple admits that "managing the screen brightness is the best way to extend iPad battery life" (http://bit.ly/ZALgui). By default, most smartphones and tablets have their automatic-brightness setting turned on. This is supposed to adjust the backlight to suit your current lighting conditions, but it's often brighter than it needs to be. To conserve power, go into your device's settings, switch off the automatic feature and lower your screen's brightness yourself. Turning off animated wallpapers and moving backgrounds also helps.
Eliminate adverts from apps
Although adverts are often necessary to fund the development of free apps. they're also responsible for major battery drain. A study last year (http://bbc.in/1aMoe3a) found that ads consume between 65 and 70 per cent of the energy used by an app, with popular free games such as Draw Something and Fruit Ninja Free sapping your battery three times faster than normal (http://vz.to/17Ib774). For this reason, it's a good idea to disconnect from both your mobile network and Wi-Fi when playing ad-supported games, such as Angry Birds. where Possible. This prevents them connecting to the ad server, so your device lasts longer and you don't have to put up with annoying obstructions to your view. You could also avoid this problem by forking out for the ad-free, paid-for edition of the app, which often costs as little as 69p, or by installing Adblock Plus.
Turn off GPS location services
Many apps use the global-positioning system (GPS) to pinpoint your location. It's not just the obvious ones like Google Maps that do this, but apps providing local information, such as Qype and Yelp. While it's great to have this accuracy when you're looking for the nearest restaurant or train station, GPS quickly runs down your battery. Once you've established where you are, you should exit apps that use GPS and disconnect from the service. On an Android phone, go to Settings, 'Location access' (or similar) and deselect the option 'Use GPS satellites'. On an iPhone or iPad, go to Settings. General and set Location Services to Off. On a Windows Phone, go to Settings. Location. When you launch an app that asks you to turn on goo-location, choose Don't Allow or Cancel to use 3G or Wi-Fi instead.
Diagnose and fix battery problems
There are lots of apps that promise to prolong your battery life, but our favourite is Battery Doctor. Available for Android and iOS, this fantastic free tool identifies the apps, services and features on your device that are draining your Juice. then lets you turn them all off in one go. It also tells you how much battery time you've gamed by applying its optimisation tricks, and offers a choice of power-saving modes you can activate at different times of the day.
Act fast when your battery runs low
Another good app for making your battery last longer is AVG's excellent new Tune UP & Battery Manager (http://bit.ly/145ToSY) for Android. This has a useful feature that alerts you when your battery reaches 30 (or 50) per cent charge. You can then squeeze more from your remaining juice by using the Task Killer options to close unused apps and the power-saving settings to turn off battery-draining features. We especially like that the am tells you exactly how much time you have left for specific activities, such as talking over 3G. playing music and videos, and browsing.
Turn off Wi-Fi automatically
Keeping Wi-Fi constantly turned on gives you instant web access at home and finds hotspots when you're out and about. However, it's also a big drain on your battery, even when you're not connected to the web, so turning it off will boost your battery life considerably. You can do this manually on most devices, either by going to Settings and switching Wi-Fi off or Aeroplane mode.mode. Alternatively. install an app such as Wi-Fi Auto Turn Off (http://bit.ly/18FQyI2), which turns off Wi-Fi off automatically when you're out of range. Bluetooth also saps power, so keep It turned off, until you need it.
Fetch new data less frequently
Email and social-networking apps are often set to check regularly. sometimes constantly, for updates, which can quickly run down your battery. To prevent this from happening, it's worth changing how frequently these apps sync with their servers, or turning off the feature altogether and checking for updates manually. You can do this on iOS devices by going to Settings, 'Mail, Contacts. Calendars' and changing the Fetch New Data option to Hourly or Manually. On an Android phone or tablet, go to Settings. Accounts and turn off Sync for individual accounts. Alternatively, just switch off push notifications for apps that use them.
Stop apps keeping your phone awake
If you've ever noticed that your Android device loses power, even when it's idle. the cause is most likely 'wakelock'. This is a feature within the Android OS that lets apps keep your phone or tablet awake by using system resources. A full wakelock may turn on your screen, keyboard and processor when your phone is in standby mode, while partial wakelocks just use the processor. Both cause significant battery drain. Installing the free app Wakelock Detector will show You which apps cause the biggest wakelocks (that is, keep your phone awake for the longest time), so you can change their settings. stop them running or uninstall them. For the best results, charge your phone to at least 90 percent, then leave it for a couple of hours to let the app do its work. You may be surprised by what's stopping your device sleeping. Our worst offender was the Exchange Services app we use for email.
Lower your screen brightness
Even Apple admits that "managing the screen brightness is the best way to extend iPad battery life" (http://bit.ly/ZALgui). By default, most smartphones and tablets have their automatic-brightness setting turned on. This is supposed to adjust the backlight to suit your current lighting conditions, but it's often brighter than it needs to be. To conserve power, go into your device's settings, switch off the automatic feature and lower your screen's brightness yourself. Turning off animated wallpapers and moving backgrounds also helps.
Eliminate adverts from apps
Although adverts are often necessary to fund the development of free apps. they're also responsible for major battery drain. A study last year (http://bbc.in/1aMoe3a) found that ads consume between 65 and 70 per cent of the energy used by an app, with popular free games such as Draw Something and Fruit Ninja Free sapping your battery three times faster than normal (http://vz.to/17Ib774). For this reason, it's a good idea to disconnect from both your mobile network and Wi-Fi when playing ad-supported games, such as Angry Birds. where Possible. This prevents them connecting to the ad server, so your device lasts longer and you don't have to put up with annoying obstructions to your view. You could also avoid this problem by forking out for the ad-free, paid-for edition of the app, which often costs as little as 69p, or by installing Adblock Plus.
Turn off GPS location services
Many apps use the global-positioning system (GPS) to pinpoint your location. It's not just the obvious ones like Google Maps that do this, but apps providing local information, such as Qype and Yelp. While it's great to have this accuracy when you're looking for the nearest restaurant or train station, GPS quickly runs down your battery. Once you've established where you are, you should exit apps that use GPS and disconnect from the service. On an Android phone, go to Settings, 'Location access' (or similar) and deselect the option 'Use GPS satellites'. On an iPhone or iPad, go to Settings. General and set Location Services to Off. On a Windows Phone, go to Settings. Location. When you launch an app that asks you to turn on goo-location, choose Don't Allow or Cancel to use 3G or Wi-Fi instead.
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