How to get the most of your Android Smartphone's battery

 

 Smartphone batteries don't last forever but there are lots of things you can do behind-the-scenes to make your Android last longer. Let's explore how to increase battery on your smartphone.

 

How does batteries work on Android

 

First, some background: most smartphones have either a lithium-ion battery or a lithium-polymer battery. Both are actually lithium-ion though, and as such, do not have a 'memory', which means you can charge them from any level – you don't have to fully discharge them before charging them up – and you don't have to charge them all the way to 100 percent.

 

In fact, these types of batteries suffer from low voltage problems, so it's actually better to partially charge them (say, from 20 percent to 90 percent) than to fully charge and fully drain them. Battery care is always open for debate though, so for every accepted tip there will be someone that says it makes no difference. Just find the ones that work for you and you can increase battery on your Android device.

 

Black wallpaper can increase battery

 

If your phone has an AMOLED screen (like most Samsung devices), use a dark-colored background. Black wallpaper can increase battery life because AMOLED screens only illuminate the colored pixels. Black pixels are unlit, so the more black pixels you have, or the more darker pixels, the less power is needed to light them up.

 

To download a completely black wallpaper, tap the link here. Now, save the picture and go into your Settings. From there tap Wallpaper hit Choose wallpaper and scroll down to Gallery. You should be able to find the black wallpaper you just saved. Hit set to wallpaper and lock screen.

 

Doze Mode

 

Doze mode has been around since Android Marshmallow, but with Nougat, it's been much improved. Before, Doze would only work when the smartphone has been stationary for a while. But now, it can also work when it's being moved around (in your bag or pocket while you're on the go, for example). The screen just needs to be off to work.

 

Doze mode essentially just shuts down things you're not using depending on how long it has been since you've touched your phone. Network connection is severed and syncing only happens during specific intervals. When you're away from your phone even longer, more things are stopped, like GPS, Wi-Fi scanning and all syncing.

 

Turn off Google hotwords

 

Stop your phone from always listening. Google's OK Google voice searching is a fantastic and often very functional feature. The problem is that it can wreak havoc with your battery. Especially if you don't actually use it or only use it occasionally.

 

Go into Google settings from your app drawer and tap Voice heading. On the next page, select OK Google detection. In this menu, the best option for battery life would be to untick all the boxes, but if you are a fan of OK Google, just tick the From the Google app box to ensure your device is only listening when you're in the Google app.

 Don't let your apps fall behind the times

 

Keep your apps updated. There's a reason developers constantly update apps, and most of the time it's for memory or battery optimization. Keeping your apps updated also means you have the best optimizations available. Likewise, delete old apps you no longer use, because these may be running background processes that chew up RAM and battery life.

 

 

Once you've ensured your apps are up-to-date you can go through them individually and check if they're optimized for battery life. This can be done quite quickly. Just go into your Settings and tap Battery. From there hit the menu button (three dots at the top right of your screen) and go to Battery optimization. From there you can see which apps are optimized and change them. You can only change the non-essential system apps.

 

Use the 'Lite' versions of apps

 

To save battery life, not to mention mobile data, you can take advantage of 'Lite' versions of popular apps. These are stripped down to their essential features and designed to be simpler and more economical than their full counterparts. Facebook and Messenger both have Lite apps available in the Play Store. Skype also has a Lite app in the Play Store, but it may be unstable as it is technically unreleased. For services like Gmail, Twitter and Instagram, there is no Lite app available to download.

 

Don't use adaptive/auto brightness

 

Don't use display auto-brightness. It may sound useful, but auto-brightness is usually way brighter than you really need. It's better to manually set the brightness to a level that is low but comfortable, and bump it up when necessary. This is one of the best ways to improve your battery life, because the screen is one of the biggest battery suckers.

 

To ensure your adaptive/auto brightness is off go into the Quick settings in many devices and you should see Auto with a box above and a checkmark in it. Uncheck this box and your auto will be off. With some devices you might need to go into the Settings then tap Display. From there you should see Brightness level and in it you'll find the auto settings.

 

Turn off vibrate and haptic feedback to save battery

 

Switch off vibrate. Unless you really need that added awareness, turn off vibration alerts for incoming calls. It actually takes more power to vibrate your phone than it does to ring it. Turn off haptic feedback too (that buzz you get from typing on the keyboard). Sure it feels cool, but it doesn't really add anything to your experience, and it's another battery drainer.

                                                                                                                                

Set your 'Do Not Disturb' or 'sleep' schedule

 

Set sleep times or blocking mode to switch off Wi-Fi and mobile data when you don't need them. If your phone is basically off limits at work, set your device to not ring, vibrate or connect to the internet while you're at work. Many phones have a Do Not Disturb setting for just this purpose.

 

Likewise, you can set your phone to airplane mode when you're asleep or use sleep or blocking modes to set up limits for what your phone does during certain times of the day, whether that's while you're asleep, at work or in a meeting. Cool apps such as IFTTT let you create rules that can help you save battery life too.

You don't need to be connected 24/7

 

Turn off GPS, Bluetooth, NFC, Wi-Fi and mobile data whenever you don't need them. Turning off location data, or changing your location settings to use Wi-Fi or 3G data rather than GPS works perfectly well. This will increase battery on your Android device.

 

Only turn on Bluetooth and NFC as long as you need them (even though they consume very little power), and there's no need to have both Wi-Fi and mobile data turned on at all times, especially if you know exactly when you'll need one or the other.

 

If you use Wi-Fi a lot though, say at home and at work, then it makes sense to keep set your Wi-Fi to 'Always on during sleep' as this uses less power than to have your Wi-Fi reconnecting every time you wake your phone. Most of these can be found in your Quick settings.

 

Don't get bogged down by widgets

 

Ditch widgets you don't need, especially those connected to the internet, such as weather widgets. If you have multiple widgets across several home screens, which are constantly syncing and updating (Twitter, reddit, weather, Gmail and the like), you're not doing your battery any favors. Just hit the apps when you need them.

 

If you already have a bunch of useless widgets on your device then you just need to do a couple of things and they'll be gone. Long press on a blank space on your home screen. Now drag the widget you don't need into the trash bin at the top or bottom of your screen (it depends on the brand).

 

Explore the battery saving features on your phone

 

All ROMs, whether stock Android, OEM UIs such as TouchWiz, or custom ROMs like CyanogenMod, have various settings in the menu to help conserve or optimize battery consumption.

 

HTC has Extreme Power Saving Mode, Samsung has Ultra Power Saving Mode, Sony has STAMINA mode and so on. Find these various options for your device and ROM and make them work for you.

 

Even if your phone doesn't have layers of battery saving features like some (or you simply don't want disable so many features), at least make use of the basic battery saver mode.

 

Don't fall into the auto-sync trap

 

Turn off auto-syncing for Google accounts. If you don't need every single Google account updated every 15 minutes, just go into Settings and Google account and turn off auto-sync for those apps you don't need constantly updated.

 

Some apps – like email – let you manually refresh when you launch them, rather than running multiple auto-refreshes throughout the day when you may not need them to. The same goes for Twitter, Reddit and co. Unless you need constant updates or push notifications (like for Facebook or your calendar) just sync when you actually use the app.

 

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How to get the best sound quality out of your Android smartphone

Audible

Not all smartphones have the speaker quality or volume levels to make your stereo sound the way you want to. Here are a few ways to help you improve sound quality and increase volume on Android.

•Check your settings

•Get a better music app

•Get an EQ

•Know your speaker placement

•Check if your case is blocking a speaker

•Use headphones

•Boost speaker volume

Check your settings

You could optimize your Android audio experience through the settings. Not all Android UIs have this feature, however, so it won't work for everyone. If your device has it, the procedure is easy, though. And once you've done it for the first time you will be able to quickly enhance your audio settings in the future.

For TouchWiz, you need to plug in whichever audio device you want to use (if you're using one). Then, hop into your Settings and tap Sound. From there hit Audio settings. You should have a series of options to enhance your audio experience.

MIUI from Xiaomi, has an enhancer for headphones. Just toggle it on and pick the type you're using. You should have the choice between in-ear and normal headphones.

Xperia UI allows you use the ClearAudio setting and has an equalizer. You can get to it through the settings. With Sense UI you can toggle BoomSound but there's really no reason to turn it off, as the audio is terrible without it on. You can't optimize your audio settings from Oxygen, Optimus or Stock Android.

Download a new music app

You have the option of replacing the stock music app with one that includes more audio control. We recommend Poweramp or Equalizer+. Both are jam-packed with audio tweaks, presets, bass boost and more. Just make sure your music folders are checked in the app settings.

Equalizer+ provides a five-band EQ, while Poweramp offers a 10-band EQ for serious tuning. You'll have to pay a couple of bucks to access all the best features but once you do you'll never look back. Check out our article for more music player apps.

Download an EQ

The default audio controls on most phones, with the exception of Sony phones and the OnePlus 2, are not exactly comprehensive. Some include a basic EQ but it often only works within the default music app and provides no control over audio not played through the music player.

It's important to note that no app works miracles when the hardware is not working properly but with a couple of simple adjustments your sound quality can be improved significantly. So hit the Play Store and get yourself a decent EQ. I can recommend both Music Volume EQ and Bass Booster.

Know your speaker placement

It may seem silly, but the first thing you need to know is where the sound is coming from on your smartphone. Lots of phones have twin speaker grills, but often only one of them produces any sound. If your speaker is blocked then the sound quality will be low or non-existent.

Test out where your sound is coming from by playing some tunes and covering the various holes on your phone until you know exactly where the audio is coming from. There shouldn't be too many places for a speaker to hide and, once you've found them, you can get started on finding the problem.

Once you know whether your speakers are front-facing, bottom-mounted or on the back, you can make more intelligent decisions about how to position your smartphone to give speakers the best chance to shine. Don't block them when holding your phone (a common mistake when gaming with bottom-mounted speakers) and point the speakers towards you, not away from you.

Check if your case is blocking a speaker

If your phone has a protective case or cover, it will affect the quality of the sound you get from the speakers. All those vibrations coming from inside your phone will be muffled by the additional layer of plastic or rubber that the manufacturer won't have taken into account when designing its speaker system.

Not all case makers understand the subtleties of your device. Some cases block essential parts of the phone like the audio jack, microphone or speaker. Before you buy a case be sure that you check to see that it won't block anything.

Use headphones

The simple fact is that most smartphone speakers are simply not good enough to get decent sound quality out of, even with a fancy music app or EQ. This is where a decent pair of headphones can help (some audio settings in your phone won't even work without headphones plugged in).

Check out our list of the best headphones and see how much of a difference a serious set of headphones can make to your smartphone audio. Not all headphones are created equally and there are different types for various situations. Make sure you look through and find the one that best suits you.

Boost speaker volume

If you are rooted, there are plenty of app options out there that can bypass the max volume of the Android system with a few simple tweaks. Check out our ultimate guide on how to root Android for more details. If you don't want to root your phone or simply aren't convinced by the distortions that most volume-booster apps in the Play Store end up producing, then there are still a few things you can do.

Get to know a little about sound waves. If you position your phone in a corner and fire the speaker output towards it, you'll get a louder, 'bassier' reverberation than if it was just shooting out into the room. The same logic applies to any object: put your phone in a box, against a bowl or in a glass (empty, of course) and you might be amazed to hear how much louder your speaker suddenly is.

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Now get Face unlock on your Oneplus 3/3T

With the new Android Oreo-based OxygenOS 5.0 update, OnePlus 3 and 3T have received the face unlock ability, which means that same will hold true when OnePlus 5 starts getting Oreo update.

 

Notably, the feature works as flawlessly as it does in the latest flagship oneplus 5T. To enable the face-unlock feature in the OnePlus 3 and 3T devices running on the Android Oreo operating system: Go to Settings and look for ‘Security & fingerprint’ option. Under ‘security and fingerprint’, there is another ‘Smart Unlock’ tab that will take you to five options including ‘Trusted face.’

 

While this feature works under most lighting conditions and is as swift as OnePlus 5T, it doesn’t take you to home screen after unlocking your phone which means you will have to swipe up from the lock screen to get there.

OnePlus 3 and 3T have already got notifications for Android Oreo update, OnePlus 5 got its first Oreo beta on Monday, which you can grab directly from the company right now. As for the just-announced OnePlus 5T, it should get the update early next year.

 

In case you haven’t received the update you can get it done by installing a vpn like turbo vpn and preferably choose a server from Canada and check for system updates and your phone should be notifying you one.

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