Do you get to the end of the day and find your phone battery has dropped beyond what you’d hoped? Maybe your phone doesn’t even make it to the end of the day without dying, leaving you scrabbling for a charger like a fevered mole.
Even if you’ve researched and bought the best phone for battery life, after some time it will likely start to die off quickly as the cell inside ages – and if you don't want to have keep shelling out for a new device, you'll need some help to keep things ticking over.
Here’s a selection of our favourite tips you should try to save your phone's battery – follow these steps and you should be able to prolong your battery life throughout the day.
1. Turn your screen brightness down
It may seem obvious, but the number one tip for saving your smartphone battery life is turning down your screen brightness. If you dive into the battery stats on your phone right now you’ll notice the screen is one of the biggest drains.
Some people don’t even realise how bright they have their smartphone screens. Turn yours down to 50% and you’re sure to save a big part of your battery life on a daily basis.
You can boost the brightness back up when you need to watch a quick YouTube video or flick through some snaps (just remember to turn it down again afterwards).
2. Turn off connectivity
Not using your Fitbit at the moment? There’s no reason to have Bluetooth turned on then. Connectivity options such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 4G, 3G and GPS don’t need to be on at all times.
If you’re not anticipating a notification, why not leave the internet off on your phone for a little bit longer? It means your phone won’t be constantly trying to find a signal and won’t be working so hard in the process.
That’s why it makes sense to download music and media before you leave the house to save battery throughout the day, plus it won’t use all that much of your data either.
And if you really want to keep the juice saved, consider flight mode for an hour or two when you want to stay off-grid – giving you loads of extra power while your phone's not searching for sweet connectivity.
3. Limit your apps
How many apps do you need to have running at one time? There are some points when you’ll be multitasking with both media and messaging, but be sure to shut some down when you don’t need them.
Google Maps, for example, may still be asking the phone to triangulate your phone using GPS if the app is running in the background.
Just be sure to switch off the apps you’re not using and get in the habit of closing each when you’re done with it. You’ll likely find your phone is even more capable when it’s not trying to run 20 apps at the same time.
4. Black wallpapers
If you own a phone with an AMOLED screen, such as a recent Samsung flagship like the Galaxy S7 or Galaxy S6, you’ll save battery by choosing a black wallpaper.
AMOLED screens only put power into the colour pixels, so if you have a pure black back screen your phone won’t have to push so much power into the display to light it up.
This won’t work if you own an iPhone, but it will help those who have an AMOLED display-toting Android phone and want to save on battery life.
5. Turn it off sometimes
It may seem simple, but if you’re in dire need of saving battery life on your phone turning it off will do the trick.
When you know you won’t be using your phone, be sure to turn it off at that moment to avoid draining it of all the precious juice you’ll need later that day.
6. Be clean with your apps
If your battery has 'suddenly' become rubbish, it's not usually your phone that's killing it, it's an app.
Have a look in the battery section of your settings menu (or 'Usage' on an iPhone) and see if there's anything playing up – some apps will get caught constantly trying to sync, allowing you to just watch that battery meter fall.
7. Lose the vibration
If you're constantly worried about battery, turning off the little buzzing motor in your phone can help. It's usually located in the 'Sound' settings, and most phones will need you to turn off things like notifications, key presses and other elements separately, but it's worth the effort for that extra juice.
This article is brought to you in association with Tesco Mobile.
