How to Prolong Your Smartphone Battery
Modern smartphone batteries can have a long life if used properly. The main trick behind extending battery lifespan is to limit how much stress the battery endures.
However, there are other smartphone battery saving tips to get the most from your devices. Because when you save your battery, you improve your battery's lifespan and avoid early battery replacement. An Android battery saver and iPhone battery saver can also help to salvage your smartphone’s power.
To get the most from your smartphone, you’ll need to learn how to charge and save the battery while it is still fresh.
In this article, we’ll answer some of the following common questions:
- What percent should you charge your phone?
- Should you charge your phone to 100%?
- When should I charge my phone for good battery life?
- How do you charge a new phone battery?
- Can phone security compromise my battery life?
Phone Battery Lifespan Explained
Practices with batteries have changed since the days of lead-acid cell models. Gone are the worries about “battery memory,” so it’s important to understand how newer batteries work.
Modern lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery life can be viewed in two ways: lifespan and life.
Battery lifespan refers to how long the battery works as intended (before you must replace it). The lifespan tends to be at the back of a user's mind until the battery starts dying unusually fast. If you develop healthy battery use habits early on, you'll be able to use the battery for longer.
Battery life is how long your battery lasts on each individual charge. This is the day-to-day battery “life” you are usually concerned with. Generally, the more often your battery is depleted, the shorter it’s lifespan will be. Budgeting your power will help improve both.
Batteries have become difficult and dangerous to self-service since most phones have done away with replaceable options. As a result, users in need of a new battery must go into a shop for expensive professional servicing. You’ll want to be more conscious about your battery use to minimize your phone maintenance costs.
It’s worth keeping in mind that no battery has the exact same lifespan. Your habits around phone use and charging explicitly decide how long you can go before swapping to a brand-new battery.
Smartphone Battery Charging Tips
Proper smartphone charging is the best way to extend the battery lifespan directly. Although you should start with good habits from the very first charge, used batteries can still benefit.
General Mobile Battery Charging Tips
Don’t stress the battery with extremely high or low charge volumes. Modern batteries have been tested to work best between 20-90 percent in daily use. So, it's ideal to unplug your phone before 100% and charge before dropping to 20%. If you're going to turn off and store the phone for an extended timeframe (like being out of the country for a week) get the charge to 50 percent first.
Avoid heavy use during charging. This causes what is known as “parasitic load.” Using your phone in this way will cause dysfunctional charge cycles and ruin the lifespan. The main culprits for this type of damage include playing games or watching movies while plugged in.
Don’t overheat the battery. Heat shortens the lifespan at a much quicker pace. Prolonged periods of heavy use can generate unwanted heat, like gaming or watching videos during charging. Also, trickle charging that happens at 100% can heat the battery.
Use fast charging only when necessary. Fast charging is a convenient feature, but it’s a bit like using energy drinks in place of a good night’s sleep for a human being. This feature puts the battery under stress, so slower charging is a better choice. Consider using power sources like smart plugs that throttle charging.
Plugin for smaller, more frequent charges vs. longer charges. Charging in small amounts, reduces stress, and keeps the battery in ideal charge ranges. Even for prolonged periods of powered-down storage, top off the battery to 50%. Battery charges fade naturally with time, even when not in use.
Smartphone Battery Saving Tips
Saving battery slows battery life (per charge cycle), which improves your battery lifespan. The following tips focus on how you use your phone between charging sessions.
General Mobile Battery Saving Tips
Use anti-virus to check for malware. Malicious programs will noticeably deplete your battery life — much faster than normal. If your phone has begun to drain suspiciously fast, it might be time to protect your device with an anti-virus solution. Products like Kaspersky Total Security will root out any problems and remove them from your phone. Whether you use Android or iOS, you are still vulnerable to cyberthreats so we recommend buying security for your phone — regardless of the OS.
Lower your screen brightness. The ideal is to set the backlight as low as possible without making the screen unreadable. Manual setup is the absolute best way to do this, but it’s a bit too involved for most people. Automatic brightness is going to be the most practical choice for the average user. Keep in mind that you can still adjust the range of brightness manually as needed.
Short auto-lock times can help reduce your screen use, which requires less battery power. Experiment to see what works best for you. Shorter times are always going to be better in terms of battery use. However, you may want a slightly longer time if you frequently read news or books on your phone. Most users will benefit from changing this setting from the default.
Remove or restrict apps that show high battery use. Apps that are constantly active in the background will be a drain on your daily battery life. Indicators might include apps that frequently pull and send data or apps that deliver notifications often. Check battery usage by app (in your phone settings) to see what apps might be causing you trouble.
Low-power modes trade performance for battery life. To accomplish this, these power settings throttle power-consuming features while keeping the essential functionality intact.
Turn off advanced graphics features. If you dig through your phone’s settings, there are likely features that ‘beautify’ your phone experience. But parallax backgrounds, moving wallpapers, and app-switching transitions all take extra power. Deactivate these to save battery and potentially boost your phone’s performance.
Shut off Wi-Fi or cellular radios if the signal is weak or absent. These signals demand increased power to find and keep a connection. Choose the best signal you have at the moment and turn off the remaining radio. If you don’t have a signal for either Wi-Fi or cellular, turn off both.
Shutting off the phone or using airplane mode. Obviously, you can power your phone down if it's not needed for parts of your day. Alternatively, airplane mode can turn off battery-draining radios while still allowing you access to your phone's offline features.
How to Save Your iPhone Battery
iOS dark mode might help you save your iPhone battery if it has an OLED display. With no power used to activate display pixels, you’ll see power benefits across the board. Older LED displays have to turn on pixels for dark colors, but you may still see a slight power boost.
In-app dark mode may need to be turned on for some apps, like those used for reading. Other apps integrate directly with your choice of dark or light mode within the OS itself.
iPhone battery saver apps can keep your smartphone energy use to a minimum. Only download apps from official app stores and always check the legitimacy of these apps. We also recommend reading up on any existing vulnerabilities that have been reported.
How to Save Your Android Battery
Automation apps can be used to tweak multiple settings based on current use. For example, you can set your phone up to brighten and lengthen time-out when using news apps and social media. Then, you can set it to dim in less screen-heavy use like switching songs on Google Music.
Android anti-virus protects your phone from the cyberthreats targeting the OS and your battery life. Android security solutions like Kaspersky Antivirus for Android help to protect you and your device from malicious malware and battery draining viruses.
Regardless of your smartphone type, being aware of your phone usage can help give you a much longer battery lifespan. At the very least, start by making tweaks to your settings and avoid going overboard with your charging. If you apply these best practice habits, you'll be able to cut back on your phone servicing costs significantly.
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