Ways to save power on Android in 5 mins... A lot of power

[xox]

At the moment, my pocket possesses a 2012 Xperia S, which runs Android 4.1.2 Jellybean. Although this is a great phone, I did used to be quite frustrated with the poor 1750 mAh battery included with it as it would only usually last about 8 hours on a medium-usage day. At that point, there was only 2 options; flick all the switch in settings or downgrading to Ice Cream Sandwich. Now since I use the features of Jellybean quite a lot, the latter didn't seem like a possibility. So there I was in the settings looking for ways to save power, which was a very short time as my search ended early in the 'Location Services' page. I quickly unchecked the 'Access To My Location' box. This basically disables any app from looking at my location, even if it is an administrator. I then went into Google Maps, then went into 'Settings' and then 'Google Location Settings', leaving with 'Access Location' unchecked. This means that Google can't look at your location and record it, so if you're a tin foil hat anti-NSA person, then this may be a real boon. This does mean, however, that Google Now can't function 100% and neither can Maps. But when you need location features, you can just flick a few switches and it will be done. It saves all of this background location stuff from happening. Which is a real drain on the battery. This wasn't such a problem before the new Google Maps, I'm surprised that such a thing hasn't been addressed by Google yet.

 

If doubling (yes, doubling!) your battery life by that method isn't for you, you can always use other battery-saving options. The system app 'Mediaserver' tends to use so much battery (5-15%) and this is just a pain when we need every last milliwatt our phones can offer us. This method only applies to people that don't like music on their phone. So listen carefully if you don't. Basically, having media on your phone actually is a huge battery drain, and the app that manages it all (Mediaserver) isn't really up to the job. This is simply because of Album Artwork, which when Mediaserver has a problem reading or categorizing, it just tries again and again and again. There is no stopping Mediaerver from carrying out this task. Now, doing things again and again seems battery-intensive, right? Well yeah, that is 100% correct. In fact, it can have a substantial drain on the battery. Now, if deleting the Music off of your phone seems a bit gun-ho, then if you take the time to remove the album artwork from each song, then you will avoid such a prominent battery drain.

 

Now, if none of these methods are for you and you are a GPS-hugging, music geek, then I still have a few options for you. First is to disable Google Now, which is an utter battery whore, this is because Google Now is checking your location constantly to see what coffee shop, painting class or caravan expo you should be going to next. I think that it has some neat features, but are those neat features really worth 30% off your battery life? Next are the obvious ones; Lowering Brightness, enabling 'Battery Stamina Mode'* (Which is surprisingly good), Disabling WiFi, disabling Hangouts, Disabling the usless Google Play apps you never use, deleting Games, Installing a Task Killer, with AutoKill so you don't have to keep referring back to it, not using 4G networks;3G is more efficient, replace the app 'Facebook' with 'Fastbook' or your web browser, both are probably faster and both are less of a battery drain, disabling bluetooth, disabling NFC, turn off mobile internet in the background, switch auto sync off.

 

Hope that hepled. If you do all of those, then hopefully your battery will last "forever and a day" as JLS once said.

 

-Tom

 

*Only available on Timescape Jellybean devices

[carolkarine]

very helpful but not news.

[sof006]

I leave mine on and my phone has the same mAh battery as yours and mine lasts much much longer than yours. Galaxy Nexus BTW.

 

Mine lasts around 10+ hours with listening to music and occasional web browsing.

[xox]

very helpful but not news.

 

 

'News, reviews, articles and guides' is the forum

 

It was news to me when I found out :D

[bradscoolio]

Android does a really good job of managing background apps and services.

Any task killing app you'll run will only give you placebo battery life.

[sof006]

Android does a really good job of managing background apps and services.

Any task killing app you'll run will only give you placebo battery life.

This is 100% true. Task killers are completely irrelevant, killing tasks that are vital for the system (which is what most task killers do) are automatically started back up and this would just waste power anyway. And when apps like Facebook etc are not being used they are suspended and don't use battery power unless they are being used again. Only "task killer" I use is the one that comes with Android as part of Android on my phone which also doubles up as a task switcher. 

[Thibaudv]

This is 100% true. Task killers are completely irrelevant, killing tasks that are vital for the system (which is what most task killers do) are automatically started back up and this would just waste power anyway. And when apps like Facebook etc are not being used they are suspended and don't use battery power unless they are being used again. Only "task killer" I use is the one that comes with Android as part of Android on my phone which also doubles up as a task switcher. 

Yes. The only thing that matters (at least with the newer versions of android) is screen time.

 

I get about 1h30 screen on time. Doesn't matter if I'm using task killers or anything, the only thing that matters is how long my screen is on. (When screen is off, it automatically under clocks etc)

[Alcatraz]

 

 

 

'News, reviews, articles and guides' is the forum

 

It was news to me when I found out :D

 

 

Their is a dedicated Guides and Tutorials section  

[carolkarine]

 

 

 

'News, reviews, articles and guides' is the forum

 

It was news to me when I found out :D

 

 

technically, this section is just news.