10 Tips to Make Your Smartphone Battery Last Longer

Tips and tricks for maximizing the battery power of your personal devices.

We all know that smartphones are getting faster and providing more options for entertainment, business, and communication between people.  However, with all of these extra features, many of us are discovering that our phones are reaching the low battery indicator far earlier than ever before.  Fortunately, there are several things users can do to make their batteries last throughout the day - as well as maximize the entire life of the phone battery.

1. Don't wait to charge your phone.
If you wait until your battery is at 10% to charge, this actually makes the battery work harder (and thus lowers its life expectancy).  A better practice would be to charge when you're at just under 50% remaining to ensure a longer life for your battery.

2. Focus on one task at a time. 
While you may be browsing the internet, playing Angry Birds, and reading through Twitter updates, you probably aren't doing all of those things at once.  Since each application requires some power to receive data and function properly, this drains your battery faster.  Make sure to close out of applications that you aren't currently using.  Some phones have task managers already built into them to quickly close applications that are running.  However, for those who do not have one on their phone, there are many free programs that work great (such as Advanced Task Killer for Android devices).

3. Adjust your brightness / background.
Brighter screens require more battery power.  Enough said.  As a solution, go into your settings and set the brightness somewhere in the middle of your settings (to minimize the strain on your eyes and conserve some power).  For phones that have an automatic brightness adjustment feature, enable it!  Another thing you can do with regards to your screen usage is to remove any animated backgrounds.  Just as videos require more battery power to display changing graphics, animated backgrounds consume battery faster than one that is stationary (in most cases, it makes your device respond slower as well).  By going into your wallpaper settings and finding a still picture or colored background, you might find that your phone makes it a lot longer in the day.



4. Vibrate less!
Ringers use less energy than the vibrate option.  Use the ringer for situations that it is appropriate to have your volume, otherwise go to your settings and turn off both the ringer and vibrate options.

5. Turn off wi-fi and disable location services.
These services constantly run to receive data by looking for network connections and receiving GPS information.  Turn them off to give your battery a break!

6. Use a screen lock.
Not only does locking your screen prevent strangers from browsing through your phone content, it also keeps the phone from turning on when it brushes against something (such as when it is in your pocket).

7. Avoid applications that update frequently.
Many applications are constantly reaching out for new information, including social media applications such as Facebook and Twitter.  Since most people aren't going to avoid downloading the applications, they can at least go into the application settings to change how often the feed is updated.  By doing this, your phone only has to update a couple times versus every few minutes.

8. Give your smartphone a nap! 
When you're about to go into a meeting, class, movie, etc., chances are that you probably shouldn't be using your mobile devices.  Simply turn them off for a few hours each day and save the battery for times when you will actually be using it.

9. Utilize Airplane Mode
Even when you're not on an airplane, you can set your device to be in airplane mode to prevent it from sending and receiving signals.  While this prevents you from being able to access the internet or communicate with others, it can be a last resort option to conserve battery.  It's also a great way to play games on your phone without receiving advertisements!

10. Keep your battery cool
When a phone overheats, it can damage the battery cells and reduce its charge cycle.  Try to avoid taking your phone to places where the temperature is much higher than room temperature.  When you go out in the sun with your phone, prevent yourself from using it much when it is in the direct heat.

Final thoughts:
All of these strategies will help to maximize the life of a battery.  However, you should also remember that the typical phone battery should probably be replaced after two years of use.  At that point, your battery is probably on its death bed and would create less of a hassle to simply discard it for a better one.

If you have any other suggestions for how you conserve the battery in your smartphone, don't hesitate to let us know in the comments!