For Best Battery Life, Don’t Charge Your Phone To 100%

4 July, 2013

Features

 
 
 
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Some people charge their mobile phones daily. Others insist on letting the power completely drain away.

But, either way, mobile phone owners will do anything to prevent their batteries from running out. Now, experts have given their verdict: if you want your battery to last, don’t charge it all the way.

Top tips for boosting battery

Your phone works best from 0° to 35°C. Keeping your it as near room temperature as possible (22° C or 72° F) is ideal.

Viewing usage statistics

Awareness of how you use your phone and knowing how long your battery typically lasts can help you improve its battery life. Typically you’ll see two items:

Usage

Amount of time the phone has been awake and in use since the last full charge. The phone is awake when you’re on a call, using email, listening to music, browsing the web, or sending and receiving text messages, or during certain background tasks such as auto-checking email.

Standby

Amount of time the phone has been powered on since its last full charge, including the time the phone has been asleep.

Update to the latest software

Always make sure your phone has the latest software.

Optimise your settings

Depending on how they are configured, a few features may decrease your phone battery life. For example, the frequency with which you retrieve email and the number of email accounts you auto-check can both affect battery life.

Adjust brightness

Dimming the screen’s brightness extends battery life.

In addition, turning on Auto-Brightness allows the screen to adjust its brightness based on current lighting conditions.

Turn off push notifications: Instead of automatically syncing accounts, manually sync them instead to save battery life.

Minimise use of location services: Applications that actively use location and GPS services such as Maps reduce battery life.

Use Airplane mode or flight mode in low- or no-coverage areas: Because your phone always tries to maintain a connection with the network, it may use more power in low- or no-coverage areas.

Lock your phone

Lock your phone when you’re not using it. You will be able to receive calls and text messages while it is locked, but nothing happens if you touch the screen.

Use your phone regularly

For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it’s important to keep the electrons in it moving occasionally.

Be sure to go through at least one charge cycle per month (charging the battery to 100% and then completely running it down).