If you are an Android phone user, you may be experiencing its mid-life crisis frequently after only a few hours after charging.  Basically every time you take a look at your phone you think “wow, I need a charge.”  Although Android phones are beautiful in design and functionality, most Android phones simply do not last a full day without a couple of recharges.  What most people don’t know is that there are various ways around this issue, some more efficient than others.  Being an Android user myself, I was getting an average 6-8 hours a charge and even then people were telling me that’s great battery life!  Unfortunately 8 hours is not enough for me and I’m sure it’s not enough for most users.  Well I have read and experimented with quite a few different ways to extend battery life and now I am getting up to 18 -24 hours a charge.  Here is a list of different options to extend Android life.  The best in my opinion are listed first.

 

Two “smarts” are better than one:

 

I believe the most effective way to extend your Android’s life is to be a smart user.  Combining your own knowledge with your smart phone’s knowledge is a sure fire way to get the most out of it.  First know that most people do not need Wi-Fi, 4G & 3G data, Bluetooth, or location services set on 24/7.   Most phones allow users to turn all of these on or off, and knowing when to use each one carefully will give you at least 75% more battery life.  It’s obvious when you need Bluetooth or GPS, but as for data it can be a little tricky.

 

First an average user doesn’t need internet access all day long so Wi-Fi, 3G, and 4G should be off at times when you are not using your phone.  Everybody without an addiction shouldn’t need to be constantly notified with emails, Facebook posts, or news.  If you feel like you do need to be notified, you can turn on Wi-Fi or 3G every 2 or 3 hours to check.  Most users should have an easy access to Wi-Fi, but when you know you can’t get access, for example when you’re driving, you do not need your phone to keep trying to find a connection.  Turn this on only when you’re indoors, at home, or at work.  Also when Wi-Fi is on, 3G and 4G should be off.  At the times you are using data, 3G is fast enough for regular use except maybe when you’re streaming music or videos, downloading large contents, or playing a game online.  So using 3G instead of 4G will save you plenty of life.  A lot of users think that they cannot text and make calls with 3G off, but this is not true, without data your smart phone is.. well it is just a phone, except with more battery life.

It takes at most 10 seconds to change your settings, and will make your Android’s life a lot more reasonable.  I immediately noticed that battery life doubled when keeping my data connection off.

 

Getting to the root:

 

I will not get into the details of rooting an Android phone, but basically this allows a user to access the lower level OS privileges that carriers usually don’t allow.  Now there are risks that come with rooting and whether a user wants to root or not depends entirely on them.  I have read that having a rooted phone allows users to extend battery life by controlling the phones voltages and CPU performance.  There have been cases where users gain about 25% extra life and cases that battery life lasts a few days, either way it definitely helps.  Combining a rooted phone with a smart user will have huge impacts on an Android’s life.

 

Now some of the risks that come with rooting include waiving your warranty and possibly bricking your phone.  Bricking means your phone will lock up and become as useful as a brick, hence the name.  A lot of users say that there is a very minimal chance of bricking as long as you follow the rooting process very carefully.  It is up to the user whether the risks are worth it or not.

 

Get a Bigger Battery & Charge!:

 

I think the next best thing I can think of is buying extra accessories to help get through the day.  Now this tip doesn’t exactly extend battery life, but can ensure that an Android will stay alive the majority of the day.  If you don’t like tampering with your phone’s settings and don’t want to root, you can always do the obvious and buy car chargers and wall chargers for home, cars, work, school, or wherever you spend most of your days.  If you have access to a charger everywhere you are, battery life won’t even be an issue.  There are also extended batteries that carriers may have for particular phones.  Extended batteries can give up to an extra 25% battery juice.

 

This option may not be the most appealing to users, but it does help a lot to have a charger everywhere you go.  The only bad part is the cost of accessories may seem high to a lot of people.  Also the extended batteries give a lot more juice, but this is because they add a good amount of weight to your phone.

 

There’s an App for this:

 

Now I am one of those users who don’t believe that there are apps that can make your Android’s life last longer, but there have been a lot of users who say that there are a few apps that definitely have a good impact on battery life.  Some of the most popular applications I have heard of that receive positive feedback are Juice Defender, Easy Battery Saver, Go Power Master, and Power Max.  There are many more apps out there that try to extend battery life and from personal experience I can barely tell the difference in many of the apps I tried.

 

Some of these apps just do things for you that you can do yourself such as turning off data at certain times, lowering brightness at certain times, killing background applications, and etc.  If you don’t like worrying about changing the settings yourself, then I would recommend getting an app!

 

I think they can, I think they can:

 

Now I have tried other simple things that may help, but I haven’t noticed much difference.

• Dim the brightness and use darker wallpapers, since you’ll notice the screen uses up the most battery, I think a darker background will use up less battery.
• Don’t use too many widgets, some require an app to run in the background, and some cause the screen to use more power.
• Turn off haptic feedback.  The vibrations that your phone gives off is said to use more battery, turning off vibrating keys, ringtones, and alarms should help save some juice.
• Adobe flash is said to be unnecessary at times and uses a lot more battery when web browsing.  You can go to your browser setting and go to “Enable plug-ins” and set to “On Demand” instead of “Always On.”

There are probably other tips for extending battery life, but most of them that I have listed should do the trick.  You should be able to at least get an extra 50% battery life depending on the phone you are using.   As for now this is all I can offer, but I hope I helped Andrioid users get the most out of their phones!