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Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Keeping Your Android Alive

A common complaint amongst most smartphone users, android in particular, is that their battery tends to die off rather rapidly. I myself suffer the same issue with my Droid2 and have resorted to walking around with spare batteries and only using the phone for minor tasks unless near an outlet. The batter life that plagues the Droid 2 is not the same in every android though as my original Droid lasted more than a day even with major tasks and being overclocked. There are however little things that users can do to extend their phones life.


The most obvious life extender would be to not use your phone. While this does not sound like a lucrative idea it is the most power saving. If you keep things like wifi and bluetooth off whilst not in use, use gps and mobile networks only when necessary and keep the screen off for a majority of the time you can extend the life of your battery by hours. Android users will be able to make use of the Power Widget in order to easily control these settings from their home screens. I myself find that this method causes my phone to only drop 10% ever 4-5 hours or so. Results will obviously very from phone to phone however so do not expect the same results. A useful tip for android users is to keep applications that run background services uninstalled unless absolutely necessary. The running background services can drain your battery by using mobile data constantly or trying to track your location by keeping the gps on.

If it is necessary to use your phone throughout the day try to keep the screen brightness as low as you can due to the screen often being a major source of power consumption. Also for the android users once again, try to keep applications not being used closed by way of a task killer. It is not always a good idea to use a task killer but it can help out if you have a power hungry app constantly running. No matter what preventative measures one takes, until battery technology advances further, there will always be issues with battery life, especially as mobile devices become ever more power hungry. These are but only a few tips that I use and are geared towards mainly Android users as that is the phone I own.

*Update*- It has been noted that the application Juice Defender for Android will also help with controlling 3G, Wifi, and GPS use.

Have your own tips for saving power? Leave them in the comments below and be sure to let us know which phone you are using. The more tips I get the more I can add to the article for future viewers to see. 

3 comments:

  1. I use the widget as well, but I also have the app "Juice Defender"(the free one) and it makes a huge difference for me on my Droid X2. https://market.android.com/details?id=com.latedroid.juicedefender.beta&feature=search_result

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  2. Ah yes, I have heard of many who use that app. I have yet to install it but perhaps I shall look into it. Could be a good addition to this article.

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  3. Yeah, the main thing that it does is disable 3G when its locked, as well as GPS and WiFi. Works well.

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