If you are anything like the rest of us, you live on your smartphone. Android phones like Samsung's Galaxy S5 and Note 4 are pretty much mini-tablets where you can do everything from work to watching Netflix shows. And while the Note 4 comes with a high-capacity 3,200-mAh battery to provide a longer battery life, it still does fall behind other phablets like the S5 and iPhone 6 Plus.
Probably because of its higher-resolution display, the Note 4 was found to have a 8:43 battery life, compared to the Galaxy S5's 9:42 and the iPhone 6 Plus' 10 hour. Still, all three of these phones are well ahead of the smartphone battery life average of 8:22.
And while you may love your Galaxy S5, vowing never to become #TeamiPhone, customers commonly complain of the low battery life. Luckily there are ways to preserve the battery life on your Android phone. Whether you find your smartphone needs a little more juice or you would like to prevent always seeing that red battery icon, these power-saving tips can help you avoid racing to an outlet while maximizing the battery life on your Android phone.
Adjust Brightness
We all love how bright our Android screens are, but keeping your phone on automatic brightness can be a battery killer, especially on the Galaxy S5 because the phones use a few million pixels. You can either adjust the brightness yourself by going into Display > Brightness and pulling down on the bar or you can use the "Auto adjust screen tone" feature so the smartphone will adjust the brightness accordingly.
Turn Off Wi-Fi & Bluetooth
You should turn off both the Wi-Fi and the Bluetooth when you aren't using them. When Wi-Fi is enabled, the phone uses more energy. But even when you disable the Wi-Fi, your Android can still search for networks. Go to General > Wi-Fi settings > Advanced and make sure you uncheck the Wi-Fi scanning option so you manually control when your Wi-Fi gets turned on. However, if you have a good Wi-Fi connection, then use it. Bad connection can use a lot of battery. If you are in an area with bad reception, keep this feature on. And unless you use a Bluetooth every day, you can keep the Bluetooth off too.
Manage Apps
Of course we all check Facebook on our phones, but the social network app is one of the biggest battery drains, not to mention storage hogs on our phones. Okay, so you aren't going to uninstall the app, but it's smart to better manage your apps. We spend about 62 percent of time on our Android smartphones or tablets playing games. According to research from AVG, the top battery draining game apps are Puzzle & Dragons, Hay Day, Candy Crush Saga, Minecraft-Pocket Edition and Cookie Jam. Turn off app notifications to save battery and make sure you close current running apps. Go to Settings > Applications > Running Services to close open apps. Don't close apps like Gmail as that may cause issues since they run all the time. Speaking of apps, you can also download a battery saving app like Juice Defender from Google Play to help you maximize your battery life.
Adjust Screen Timeout
The Galaxy S5 and other models come with a display timer, which allow your phone to turn off the display when you stop using it. However, apps can sometimes override it to prevent your screen from going dark when playing. You can manually adjust your Screen timeout in the Display section to as low as 15 seconds to maximize battery life.
Keep Battery Cool When Charging
It's important to use the original batteries or third party manufacturer batteries instead of cheaper knock-off batteries. Because your Android uses a Lithium Ion battery, its common that these batteries heat up, which can impact the battery life of your phone. Try to keep your phone cool when charging to prevent it from overheating, which will permanently kill your battery life. Remove your phone case when charging to keep it cool and only charge when it's low on battery juice rather than when it's about to die.
You should also invest in a separate battery in case your phone dies and you can't get to an outlet. Your phone also has a power-saving mode. The Galaxy S5 gives you battery-saving options including restricting background data, meaning you have to refresh email and social media apps manually. You can also use the Ultra Power-Saving Mode, which limits your use of apps, turns off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and turns off the colors to leave your phone in grayscale. Using this feature will allow you to just use your Phone, Messages and Internet, but you have the ability to add three more apps.
These tips can apply to Samsung's Galaxy S5, 4 and 3, as well as the Note 4. However, many of these power-saving tricks don't significantly help battery life on the Note smartphones. Power Saving and Ultra Power-Saving mode are the most effective methods for the Note 4.
[Photo Credit: Kārlis Dambrāns/Flickr]
