Smartphones and "pad" devices are swell tools and/or playthings, whether Android or Apple or Windows. All the smartness, though, brings a problem with battery life. Where cell phones can go for days in standby mode, smartphones and pads are lucky if they can go even one day on standby without a visit to the charger. And you're actually using the thing, then your battery life is down to a few hours.
So what's the deal with smartphone battery life, and is there any way it can be extended?
The thing is, some of the "smart" part is always working "in the background". That is, even when you're not actually using an app, it might still be loaded up and doing something to be ready for you. And this "background" action is always eating away at battery life.
This is particularly so in Android phones and pads where running background services and battery use is like the wild west. Apps will do and use whatever they can get away with. Basically; more apps in your phone tends to mean shorter battery life.
This is not as much the case with stock Apple devices: iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. Expressly to extend battery life, Apple keeps a tight grip on what apps are, and are not, allowed to run in the background. Unless your iPhone is jailbroken, then the vast majority of apps are simply not permitted to eat your battery when you're not looking.
So the tips below mainly apply to Android devices but some, particularly the first few, can still have a helpful effect on Apple device battery life too.
1. Turn down the display
The display, when it is on, is the primary power drain on most smartphones and pads. There are three settings to check to reduce display battery drain:
First, turn down "brightness" to half or a third. The lowest usable setting is best.
Second, uncheck "Automatic brightness", in the general settings for "Display" on your Android or iPhone. This turns off a circuit that constantly checks the ambient brightness and adjusts your backlight up or down. Less checking equals more battery life.
Third, shorten the time to automatically turn the screen off. The default is usually 1 minute. Reduce it to 30 seconds, if you can. Turning off the light sooner saves battery.
2. Reduce or turn off syncing
If you can, turn ALL automatic syncing to OFF. Doing this will have a huge postive impact on your battery life. You can still sync manually whenever you want your email or to check Twitter or Facebook. SMS text messaging on your phone will still come through automatically.
If you need your email or Twitter kept up to date, then set the sync interval to the longest possible. An hour is better than 15 minutes, and 4 hours is better than one hour. Fewer sync checks equals more batter life.
Turn off, or set to manual sync, the services that you don't need immediately, and set the others to as few sync's as possible.
3. Turn off unused radios -- like, Bluetooth, GPS, WiFi.
If you seldom use Bluetooh or GPS, turn them off. These radios gobble up battery juice. Turning them off will have an immediate and quite significant positive effect on battery life.
All phones have an "automatic" mode for GPS -- so that it is only turned on when specifically needed. Use that setting in the system, and make sure that apps are set to only use it when they are running in the foreground.
If you know that you're not going to be using Bluetooth for an extended period (or ever) then turn it off until you do need it. Even when you are not using it, an active Bluetooth radio will be constantly searching for nearby devices -- and eating battery. Turn it off!
WiFi also constantly searches for available networks, even when you're not using it. So, if you know that you're not going to be using WiFi for an extended period of time, then turn it off to save a lot of battery life.
"Airplane mode": if you're going into a doctor's office or a parent-teacher meeting or some other place where you're not going to be using your phone at all for an extended period, put it into "Airplane mode". This turns off all of the radio circuits all at once and really saves a lot of battery life.
Good news: if it doesn't already have one, you can find apps that will put "toggles" for radios right on your screen. Then you just have to tap the button to turn off WiFi or Bluetooth or even to go into airplane mode.
4. Turn off animations
This doesn't really apply to Apple devices, but on Android devices you can generally disallow apps from using animation services on your device. In the "Settings" for "Display", top "Animation" and set it to "Some animations" -- better -- or "No animations" -- best for battery life. The system will still look swell and behave well, but apps will be forced to behave best for your battery.
5. Manage apps and widgets
This mainly applies to Android devices -- or jailbroken iPhones -- because, as noted, Apple keeps a pretty tight grip on background battery eaters. On Android devices, though, the apps are, let's say, free to misbehave. Some apps turn themselves on -- even without you asking! Some apps will remain running in the background, even though you think that you've exited and turned them off.
Go to the app Market (one that will stay loaded and running) and download a task manager. The "Advanced Task Killer" is popular and fairly easy and intuitive to use. These task managers let you see what apps are running, with or without your permission -- and to selectively turn them off.
Unfortunately, you need do this periodically so that you can manually "kill" off the apps that are eating your battery. Some of these task managers, including "Advanced Task Killer" have automatic modes that run periodically to kill unneeded apps. In this case the automatic mode is not a battery eater. Whew!
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