Probably the number one complaint of all Android users is the poor battery life of their handset. With Android phones sporting bigger and bigger screen sizes, quad-core processors and a powerful GPU, the battery life is going to take a hit somewhat. The increase in battery consumption is usually offset by using a larger and beefier battery by Android OEMs.
The truth is that most Android phones can easily last a day of average use. They usually don’t because of some apps in the background draining the phone’s battery or auto-syncing being enabled for useless apps. A bit of tweaking will be more than enough to easily get nearly a day of juice from your Android handset.
So, if you are bothered by the poor battery life, here are some tips and tricks that should help improve the battery life of your Droid.
Tips To Improve The Battery Life Of Your Android Device
Deep Sleep – The first thing that you need to is to make sure that your Android phone is entering ‘Deep Sleep’ mode when its screen is off. Deep Sleep mode is a low-power state that devices usually enter when idle, where they can usually turn-off the unneeded cores or sensors to save battery. If your device is not entering Deep sleep mode, expect the phone’s battery to drain to 0% in just a matter of few hours, even when you are not using it.
To make sure that your device is entering Deep Sleep mode, you can use an app called ‘CPU Spy Plus‘ from the Play Store. The app will show all the various frequencies that your device has spent in each state or frequency of your processor, including Deep Sleep mode. Keep in mind that if your Android device is on charge, it will not enter Deep Sleep mode. I will recommend readers to restart their phone before removing it from charger and check the readings of CPU Spy Plus at the end of the day.
If your phone is entering Deep Sleep mode, then all is well. If not, then an app or a setting is preventing your Android device from entering Deep Sleep mode, thus draining its battery.
BetterBatteryStats – If your Android device is not entering Deep Sleep mode, then this tip is for you. Otherwise, you can skip to the next tip. Download BetterBatteryStats from the Play Store or you can download the APK for free from XDA forums.
Once you have installed BetterBatteryStats, select the Kernel Wakelocks and Partial Wakelocks options, one by one. The app will then list all the processes in order of their power usage and battery drain. If there is any app that is draining your phone’s battery, it will show up in this list here. You can then very well uninstall or disable that app to preserve your Droid’s battery life. If you cannot make out the name of the culprit app or are confused by the list of processes, just drop in a comment and we will be more than glad to help you.
Background Synchronization/Push Notifications – Background syncing in Android allows certain apps to notify users about an update even when they are not using the app. Auto-Syncing allows GMail, Google Contacts, Calendar, and other such services to be always connected to Google’s or their respective provider’s server, and provide instant updates to users.
The downside is that constant syncing can significantly affect the battery life of any Android device. You can easily turn switch off syncing for quite a few services and can save significant battery life in the process. If you don’t need instant Gmail notifications or for any other app, you can simply switch off ‘Auto-Sync’ for a major boost in battery life. Keep in mind that switching off Auto-Sync will also disable background notifications from any app.
If you don’t want to turn off ‘Auto-Sync’, you can always turn off syncing for individual services from under the ‘Accounts’ sub-menu in Settings. If you use Google+ app on your Android device, you can turn off Messenger/Hangouts and Notifications provided you don’t use them.
Disable GPS/Auto-Brightness Etc. – This is perhaps the most common tip to save battery life. Disable anything and everything that you don’t need. Disable Wi-Fi or Bluetooth when you don’t need to use them. Disable GPS when you are not using it. If you have a phone with an AMOLED or Super-AMOLED display, use a black wallpaper. AMOLED screens require nearly zero power to display black since they do so by switching themselves off. On the other hand, displaying white drains a lot of battery Thus, if your Android phone or tablet has a AMOLED screen, using a black wallpaper or black theme in apps can save you tons of battery power.
Conclusion
If you follow these four basic tips that I have mentioned above, you can easily improve the battery life of your Android device by a noticeable margin. If none of the steps above work, I will recommend you to factory reset your device once. If your Android device is very old, it can be very well possible that its time you need to replace the battery.
If all else fail, invest in a portable charger or a high-capacity battery. If your Android OEM does not have a high-capacity battery for sale for your device, check out Mugen Batteries. Mugen is known for making high-capacity extended batteries for all Android devices, which should be more than enough to last you a day or if you their XL batteries, a few days!