How To Get The Best Smartphone Battery Life With These 5 Tips

Whether you own an Apple iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy S4 or anything in between, you want your smartphone to have a long battery life. Regardless of which smartphone you have, you can’t really go more than a day without charging it. With these helpful tips, however, you can maximize your phone’s battery life, delaying the inevitable hunt for electrical outlets as long as possible.

What you first must understand about smartphones and battery life is that the thing that consumes the most juice is your phone’s screen. Merely having the display on is a killer, and it is the main reason why even the longest-lasting smartphone usually can’t go a full day without a charge. Take a look at the screenshot above of the battery menu on an Android phone. This menu gives you a breakdown of how your smartphone is consuming battery life.

See what we mean? Your smartphone’s display is an absolute battery menace. With this in mind, here are five essential tips for improving your device’s battery life.

1. Turn Down Your Screen’s Brightness

The brighter your phone display, the more battery life your phone will use. The fact is that you don’t need to keep your phone’s brightness level at or near 100. In fact, we keep ours around 60, although for the longest time we had it set as low as 25-30. We only turned it up because it was difficult to see our screen when it was being hit with sunlight. Either way, a brightness level between 30 and 50 should be sufficient enough for you to be able to clearly see everything on your phone’s screen.

2. Organize Your Phone’s Home Screen

If you constantly find yourself flipping back and forth between your phone’s main menu to access your favorite applications and services, you’re using your screen much longer than you have to. Put all the stuff you access most often right on the initial home screen. That way, you can quickly access your stuff and minimize the amount of time that your phone’s display is in use.

3. Turn Off Services You Don’t Need Or Use

It’s entirely possible there are multiple services switched to “On” in your phone’s Settings menu that you either didn’t know existed or don’t use at all. Don’t use maps or weather apps? Turn off Location Services, which links your phone to satellites that work in tandem with those services to bring you relevant data. Turn off Bluetooth and NFC, or near-field communication. as well if you don’t take advantage of those features. By leaving on anything that you don’t put to use, your phone is forced to consume juice needlessly and unproductively.

4. Watch Your Wallpaper

The most battery-friendly wallpaper is one that’s also the most boring: solid colors, with black being best. We know it’s tempting to download and set up a wallpaper that’s snazzy and features animations and bright colors, but producing all that pretty takes precious battery life. If you put your phone’s longevity at a premium, switch to an austere wallpaper that’s low on eye candy.

5. Tell Your Phone’s Screen To Nap Early And Often

You can set your phone’s screen to stay on even if it’s just sitting around doing nothing. The timers can range from mere seconds to indefinite, but what good would it do you to leave your phone’s screen on all day if it’s not being put to use? Since we’ve already established that the screen is your phone’s biggest battery-life vampire, you should set the phone’s sleep timer to a bare minimum.

What do you think of these battery-saving tips? Do you plan to try any of them? Why or why not? Which are your favorite tips and why? Do you have any tips that aren’t mentioned here? If so, what are they? Sound off in the comments below.