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As smartphones have grown increasingly capable, establishing themselves as a crucial part of our daily lives, it seems battery life has gone backwards.
Ask anyone what they find most frustrating about their mobile and the majority will say battery life.
Phone manufacturers know this is the case, but appear hell-bent on making handsets unnecessarily thin instead of improving their stamina.
It's impossible to remove and replace the batteries inside most modern smartphones too.
Fortunately, there are a number of steps you can take to improve your phone's battery life, and they're very straightforward. Simply removing battery-draining apps can help enormously .
Click through the gallery below for tips.
Show all 9 1 /9How to improve your phone's battery life How to improve your phone's battery life Limit notifications Notifications are incredibly useful, but they also drain battery life and not all of them are actually necessary. Switching off notifications for certain apps can help your phone’s stamina. On Android, head into Settings, hit Apps and select those you don’t need to be notified by. On iOS, go to Settings and then Notifications.
How to improve your phone's battery life Disable auto-sync Certain apps, such as email and social networks, constantly run in the background even when you’re not using them. This is so you see updated information and updates when you do open the apps, but the benefits can be offset by the amount of battery life auto-sync can eat up. On Android, you can turn off auto-sync by going to Settings, Accounts and hitting the menu button. On iOS, go to Settings, General and Background App Refresh. However, since auto-sync is genuinely useful, we’d recommend disabling it when you know you’re going to be running low on battery life, rather than switching it off all the time.
How to improve your phone's battery life Switch off location services GPS is a huge drain on your phone’s battery, as more and more apps use your location data to work out where you are, and shape your experience according to that information. Unless you’re using a Maps app, you can get by without it. To turn off GPS on Android, go to Settings and Location. On iOS, go to Settings, Privacy and Location Services.
How to improve your phone's battery life Lower brightness Your phone’s display is responsible for the biggest impact on your battery life, but it’s easy to limit how much energy it uses up. Auto-brightness is convenient, but often sets the screen brightness to a much higher level than it needs to be. Turning auto-brightness off, setting your display’s brightness to a lower level and adjusting it when you need to is much more sensible.
How to improve your phone's battery life Uninstall apps you don’t need Some apps drain more battery life than others, and it’s worth working out which ones you can do without. Facebook, for instance, is known to have a big impact on your phone’s battery, and you can eliminate this by deleting the app and using the social network in your web browser instead. On Android and iOS, you can see the apps and processes that are affecting your battery by going to Settings and Battery. From there, work out what you can delete or replace with a less-demanding alternative.
How to improve your phone's battery life Cut your assistant off Virtual assistants are becoming increasingly capable, and therefore increasingly important in tech companies’ eyes. Not all consumers share the enthusiasm of Google and Apple though, and rarely - if ever - use Google Assistant and Siri. Whether you use them or not, by default the two assistants are always listening out for their trigger words, and this uses up battery life. On Android, you can switch this off by going to Settings, Google, Search, Voice and “Ok Google” detection. On iOS, go to Settings, Siri and Allow “Hey Siri”.
How to improve your phone's battery life Stop vibrating Vibrate is a great middle-ground between a potentially disruptive ringtone and total, uncertain silence, but it also uses up the most battery life of the three options. You can go a step further by also disabling tap feedback, which can be reassuring, but is ultimately unnecessary.
How to improve your phone's battery life Turn off connections If you’re connected to a Wi-Fi network, switch your mobile data off, and vice versa. Similarly, remember to turn off Bluetooth and NFC when you’re not using them.
How to improve your phone's battery life Airplane mode Airplane mode isn’t just for when you’re on an aeroplane. If you know you’re not going to have or won’t need signal or a Wi-Fi connection for a good amount of time, it’s worth enabling Airplane mode. Otherwise, your phone will use up battery life by pointlessly trying to connect to a network.
Consumers will be hoping Apple manages to boost battery life with the next iPhones, which are set to launch next month. Here's everything we know about them so far .
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