Whether it’s a long road trip or just a tentative experiment trying to use your phone’s new AI features, batteries seem to be running out faster than they should, despite increased capacities. What’s driving the drain, and what can you do to make your battery last longer? Find out with this quick guide.
5 Tips To Make Your Phone Battery Last Longer
Here are 5 tips to help you extend your phone’s battery life:
#1: Rein In Your Rogue Apps
Rogue apps, or apps running unbidden in the background, are one of the biggest contributors to battery drain. The kicker? Most people never end up noticing these apps until combing through the ‘Battery’ tab in their phone’s settings app.
AI apps, in particular, can contribute significantly to battery drain in the background. If you’ve downloaded apps like Gemini or Perplexity and don’t really use them that often, you might want to offload or delete them.
You can identify these apps by auditing your phone’s battery settings and hitting the ‘Restrict Background Refresh’ toggle on suspicious apps.
#2: Tweak Your Phone’s Screen Settings
The biggest power hog on most devices usually isn’t any single app; it’s the screen! Most modern flagships like the iPhone 17 rock 120Hz displays, and some even come with OLED panels. Scrolling through reels with the brightness turned up might look better than ever, but it also drains an immense amount of battery.
If your phone doesn’t automatically adjust its refresh rate to suit whatever you’re doing, you can save a ton of battery by bringing it back down to 60Hz. A Phone Arena comparison revealed that Samsung users increased their battery life by nearly three hours with this trick.
#3: Adopt Smarter Charging
Adopting smarter charging practices is half the battle if you’re trying to make your smartphone battery last longer. That means:
- Plug your phone in to charge at around 20% and unplugging at 80% to slash the stress on your lithium-ion batteries.
- Do not let your phone hit 1% or run out entirely before plugging it in.
- Enable optimized charging features in your phone’s OS. Doing this on an iPhone will cause charging to halt at 80% if the situation calls for it.
For those wondering, ‘Is fast charging bad for your phone?’, here’s the quick answer: no. As long as you’re using a supported charger, you’re good to go. This ultimately helps you maximize your iPhone storage.
#4: Tune Up Your Connectivity Game
Choosing not to turn your phone’s WiFi on when you get home and running with 5G typically leads to a 10-20% loss in battery life. Mobile data is a lot more battery-intensive than using WiFi, where possible, assuming you’re not running on 4G.
The same applies to minor features like Bluetooth, AirDrop, and location services. While the latter two don’t have as much of an impact on battery life, they’re worth switching off if you’re looking to get the absolute most out of your device in an emergency. Here’s to you, airplane mode.
#5: Don’t Forget About Power-Saving
Android’s battery saver mode and iOS’s power saving mode have been designed to prolong battery life in a pinch, and yet most of us end up forgetting about them when the clock’s ticking. If that sounds familiar, you can head to Settings -> Battery and schedule power-saving mode to turn on automatically whenever you hit a certain battery percentage.
Is there a trade-off to using this feature? Yes, but it typically doesn’t make enough of a difference to be a problem for most smartphones. Power-saving modes tend to turn off unnecessary background processes and conserve system resources, leading to delayed push notifications and somewhat longer load times.
Final Word – How to Maximize Your Battery Like a Pro
In sum, modern phones come with all the features you need to maximize battery life, right out of the box. All that remains is actually to use those features when the time comes. Plan ahead, schedule key features like power-saving, and follow charging best practices to get the most out of your phone.
