Help
- Keep Wi-Fi off unless you need it. This is admittedly a pain. But Wi-Fi makes a big difference.
- If that's too much of a pain, keep Wi-Fi off when you know you're not within range of a signal. Wi-Fi consumes more power when it's searching for an access point, and if there's no access point, it eats power pretty quickly.
- Keep GPS off when you don't need it. Google even says that GPS is a battery hog.
- Keep the screen brightness as low as you can stand it. Be forewarned: on the NexusOne, the minimum setting is okay indoors, but you won't see anything outdoors. It sucks if you go outside and can no longer see the screen. But a bright screen is a big batter hog.
- Turn down sync intervals for things like Twitter and Facebook, and even email. There's a reason for app preference settings.
- On Android specifically: if the battery is going too fast, check what's using your battery. If the biggest users aren't display, cell standby, and phone idle, you've probably got an application that's wedged and using lots of power. If the biggest user is the Android system, you've almost certainly got something wedged. Reboot. You've probably already chewed up a good chunk of your battery life, but the reboot might get you through the rest of the day.
|
|
|||
|
Welcome
O'Reilly Answers is a community site for sharing knowledge, asking questions, and providing answers that brings together our customers, authors, editors, conference speakers, and Foo (Friends of O'Reilly). More »
How to maximize cell phone battery life on Android (and other cell phones)
These tips on battery life were written with Android in mind, but they apply to most smart phones.
5 Replies
Soloren2001
: Oct 20 2010 06:26 AM
How do you disable the GPS?
I looked and in Settings, you have access to disable GPS (2 checkbox for: Cell towers and satellite). Is battery consumed for GPS if you are not using an GPS app like Google Map, Navigation...? Also how do you quit applications? I am using an Android HTC Desire and I tried everything and I haven't found a way to leave an application and close it. Basically whether I use "back arrow" or the "home" button most apps stay open. I actually can't think I ever really needed an app to run in the background. I saw there are applications to force close apps, but that would be annoying as hell to do every single time. However it doesn't seem that these apps being open consumme battery. Typically Cell Standby is the big consummer... Which is clearly vague at best. A very basic cellphone can last up to 5 days. My android dies by the end of the day if I don't over use it. And yes, I've started to turn off wifi every time. And yes, I've even on occasion changes the luminosity down to save battery. It just seems that the system is still very inefficient to do all this for you in the background. And although I hate the close platform of Apple, my android sucks compared to the iphone. Can you help with the battery consumming issues?
@Soloren2001
Are you familiar with the Timeriffic app (http://www.appbrain....fray.timeriffic)? It allows you to create profiles that control settings on a schedule. For instance, I use a work week profile that puts my HTC Evo into airplane mode during the times I'm commuting to/from work on our subway system with no connection. Once I get to work, it takes my phone out of airplane mode, with GPS and WiFi turned off, and uses my cube-farm friendly volume settings. It mutes my phone automatically during my daily status meeting, then automatically un-mutes at the end of the half-hour. Once I'm home, it reactivates WiFi and turns up all the volume settings -- until bedtime. This helps manage battery life without my having to remember to manually make these adjustment. And then, I could set up a vacation profile... |
|||
© 2013, O’Reilly Media, Inc. (707) 827-7019 (800) 889-8969 All trademarks and registered trademarks appearing on oreilly.com are the property of their respective owners. |
