Boost Your Smartphone Battery Life

How to Extend Battery Life in a Smartphone

For all the power and pleasure that smartphones pack, they are still cursed with pretty poor battery life. The problem is that smartphones do too much for their tiny batteries to power all day long. Here are some tips to get the most out of your iPhone, Android or Blackberry smartphone's battery charge life.

The average smartphone battery is rated to last about 5 watt-hours. That means it can continuously put out 1 watt of juice for 5 hours. To make your smartphone last until you get home from work, make a few compromises.

Dim the phone's screen as much as you can. That bright display is the number one power-eater in your phone. Most phones include an auto-brightness feature that automatically adjusts screen brightness depending on ambient light conditions. That saves some energy versus leaving the screen at full brightness all the time. But you can save even more power by turning down the screen brightness as low as you can stand it, and leaving it there.

Shorten the Screen Timeout. A phone's display lights up when the device receives input such as a key tap or an incoming call. Under the display settings option on your phone you will find a "Screen Timeout" setting (it may be called something similar) which controls how long the screen stays lit. Reduce it to the minimum.

Data is a Battery Killer

WiFi is a silent battery drainer. Switch it off when you are not in range of a WiFi network, and turn it on again only when you settle in for a data session and a cup of coffee.

Turn off Bluetooth when you don't absolutely need it. Even when you are not talking on your Bluetooth headset, the radio in your phone is still burning electricity listening for Bluetooth signals. Enable Bluetooth only in your car, for hands-free chatting, or when you are expecting a call for which you need to use that headset.

GPS involves yet another battery-draining radio inside of your smartphone. The GPS radio communicates with satellites to pinpoint your location. Various apps use GPS to provide location-based services like mapping and directions, weather and traffic alerts, and other things you want to know. But you can deny permission to use GPS to apps that only want to send you an ad for the bar across the street. And if a game, screensaver, or wallpaper app wants to know your location, you should be suspicious.

Consider using an app such as JuiceDefender (Android only) that will maximize your battery life by automatically managing the settings for data, screen and other functions that want to suck your battery dry.

Avoid multitasking as much as possible. Running several apps simultaneously drains your battery rapidly. For Android phones, a free app called Advanced Task Killer has an auto-kill feature that polices your apps throughout the day and closes apps that are not being used. On iPhones, double-tap the Home button until the multitasking tray appears, hold an icon until an X appears, and tap the X to close the app.

Don't use "Vibrate." A battery only has to move a tiny diaphragm to play a ringtone, but it must shake your whole phone to give you a vibrating alert of an incoming call or email notification. If you don't want to be disturbed (or disturb your neighbors), disable notifications and leave the phone where you can see the screen light up as new call comes in.

Android phones have a built-in Battery Use screen that will show you exactly what hardware and software features are using the most battery power. You can find this under Settings / About Phone. Use this info to improve the battery life in the ways that will benefit you most, without compromising features you need to use often.

Do you have other battery extending tips? Post your comment or question below...