Possible Reasons Why Your Smart Phone's Battery Doesn't Last - Full Solution

Have you been having this problem of poor battery performance? Are you the type that has made power bank your second phone? If yes, then this article is for you.

I have taken my time to make research on the possible reasons why most smartphones don't last up to two days or even a day, and am about sharing my findings with my readers to enable them solve their own smartphone's battery wahala..

To squeeze more out of your smartphone battery, it is recommended that you wait until a certain percentage before plugging it in, unplug it when it’s fully charged and always store it at 50 percent.

We know, it doesn’t really matter how fancy or current your smartphone is, it is quite useless if the battery runs out faster. With all the things we can do with smartphones these days, making it last a full day is always a big challenge.

If your smartphone’s battery keeps getting red-lined before the day is even over, there are a few tweaks you can do to help it along.

There are many functions and Apps running on your phone that you don't really need and these Apps keep draining your battery. Turning most of these features off can do wonders to your battery life.

SHORTEN YOUR SCREEN TIMEOUT

A quick setting you could tweak is your screen timeout settings. The longer your screen is on when it’s idle, the more battery life it consumes. Try shortening your phone’s timeout setting to better efficiency since this will turn off the screen quicker when it is not in use.

To set your Auto-Lock settings on an iPhone, go to Settings >> Display & Brightness >> Auto-Lock >> then set your auto-lock duration. The shorter, the better.

For Android, again it depends on your device, but try going to Settings >> Display >> Screen Timeout to shorten your times.

TURN OFF MOBILE DATA WHEN NOT USING IT

Turning data off definitely saves battery, whether you are using 2G, 3G or 4G as there are many apps that keep using data in background which causes battery drain.

But if you want battery to work longer and keep mobile data ON , then you can restrict background data usage of Apps that you think might continuously use network to keep themselves updated (Like Social Networking App, News App, etc)

TURN OFF YOUR LOCATION SERVICE

Using your phone’s GPS radios for location tracking is a big battery hog. You can disable your phone’s location services to save your battery from fast draining.

Obviously, location sensitive apps such as mapping/traffic guides, outdoor running/hiking workout trackers, and social media check-in apps like Facebook, Yelp or Foursquare will require location services to be turned on to take advantage of their specialized tracking features. If you don’t really care for or rarely use any of the location-based functions of these apps, then go ahead and turn off your phone’s general location services to save your battery. Most apps don’t need location tracking turned on all the time and some apps don’t need location tracking at all to function properly.

On iPhone, you can limit apps’ location access to “Never,” “While Using The App,” or “Always.” For most apps, “While Using the App” will be the best setting but you can always restrict it to “Never” if you feel that a particular app doesn’t need location info. With that said, having each app’s location set to “Always” will be one big battery killing mistake you want to avoid.

To check and modify an iPhone’s Location Services, open Settings >> Privacy >> Location Services. From here you could turn Location Services completely off by toggling the switch or scroll down and set the setting for each app.

For Android users, it depends on your Android version and device model but typically you can check an app’s location service by going to the Settings app >> Personal >> Location >> “Recent location requests.” To control your device’s location tracking go to Personal >> Location >> Mode >> then toggle “Location” to Off.

REDUCE YOUR SCREEN BRIGHTNESS

Your smartphone’s screen brightness actually plays a huge factor in prolonging your battery life. If you are a power user and you have it on full brightness all the time, then you’re probably losing two to three hours compared to having it on half brightness.

Setting your screen brightness to as low as you can go while preserving viewability is the best way to go for getting more usable hours from your phone. Turning on your smartphone’s Auto-Brightness so it will automatically adjust to the current ambient light is also recommended.

On iPhone, adjust your brightness setting by swiping up to access the control center then set the slider to the desired setting. You can also set the Brightness and turn on Auto-Brightness by going to Settings >> Display & Brightness.

On Android, go to Settings >> Display >> Brightness. You could slide to the desired setting here and also turn on “Automatic Brightness.”

BACKGROUND ACTIVITY APPS
Another setting that you need to check is background apps that are allowed to refresh even when the app is not in use. This allows certain apps to occasionally check your location, send push notifications, or automatically update its status. With all this background activity enabled, your battery life will surely take a big hit because of all the processes running hidden from plain view.

Similar to Location Services, it is advised that you review your settings and turn off Background App Refresh for apps that you don’t need to be constantly refreshing. Keep in mind that apps that may need background refresh include cloud backup services, step/activity tracking apps, and instant messenger apps, so be careful when selecting which ones you turn off. In general, though, turning off background activities for most apps will squeeze more life out of your battery.

To check Background Refresh on an iPhone go to Settings >> General>> Background App Refresh >> then either toggle the general Background App Refresh setting to Off or better yet, scroll down to select which apps you want it enabled.

On Android, without third-party apps, there’s no general toggle to stop background apps. To stop apps from running in the background, you can try force stopping an app by accessing Settings >> Apps >> Apps Manager >> then select the app to force stop it.