Today's Android phones pack big bright screens and high-end features
that suck plenty of power; here's how to squeeze the most juice out of
your battery.
Top-notch Android smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy
at Amazon and HTC One (M8)
are powerful, but unfortunately, they don't have endless battery life.
In fact, many Android phone users would be happy to make it through a
single day, hoping that a nightly recharge is sufficient.
Sadly, it sometimes isn't. A number of factors have conspired to
reduce gadget endurance over the past several years. Thinner designs
with less room for batteries, larger and brighter screens, faster
quad-core processors, more software that runs in the background, and
power-hungry GPS radios all share responsibility. The move from 3G to 4G
networks a few years ago—particularly of the LTE variety—has also taken
its toll.
But there's much more to poor battery life results than that. Fortunately, there's plenty you
can do to stem the flow of juice from your Android device. To write this article, I used a Google Nexus 5
,
as it's running the latest version of Android 4.4 KitKat with no extra
interface enhancements, but these tips should apply across just about
any Android phone. Try these tips to extend your handset's battery life:
See what's sucking the most juice. Navigate to
Settings > Battery to see an organized breakdown of what's consuming
your phone's battery. Applications and features will display in a
descending list of battery hogs. If you see an application you barely
use or a feature you never use, you'll want to uninstall the app or turn
off the feature.
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