How to make your phone battery last longer
12th Dec 2023 Technology
2 min read
Does it seem like your phone's battery life keeps getting shorter and shorter? Here are a few ways you can make your phone battery last longer
Have you noticed how despite massive improvements in your phone’s camera, screen and capabilities over the years, the one thing that never seems to get much better is the battery life? This is why speaking to a battery scientist a few years ago, my mind was blown: Batteries are getting better at storing energy. The problem is that as technology has improved, we’ve demanded that our phones do more battery-intensive things.
In fact, when the likes of Apple and Samsung make a new phone, when they’re at the engineering stage they literally design their devices around the idea that the battery will last on average, exactly one day.
"as technology has improved, we’ve demanded that our phones do more battery-intensive things"
So even if Apple could make an even more powerful iPhone, with a faster chip or even whizzier camera, it won’t unless it can also be confident that on the average day, you’ll start the morning fully charged and still have a little bit of juice left by bed time.
However, in the real world not every day is an average day. Some days, you need your phone. You need those GPS directions for a long drive, or you want to take lots of photos at the party.
Four ways to make your battery last longer
So how can you stretch that battery to last the distance? Here are four top tips:
- Reduce your screen’s brightness: Making your screen light up is one of the most energy intensive things your phone does, so if you can make it a little darker, you’ll make significant battery savings over the day.
- Turn off wifi: Even if you’re not connected to a network, if your wifi is switched on, every few seconds your phone will be sending out a little burst of signal to look for available networks. So if you know you’re not going to be using wifi for a while, switch it off in your Settings app.
- Reduce background processes: Sometimes when you leave an app, it doesn’t stop working in the background, which will eat up battery. On iPhone, in your Settings app go to “General” and then “Background App Refresh”, and toggle off anything that isn’t important to you. (Probably keep it switched on for your emails—but Instagram might be less important!) If you have an Android device, most phones will let you slide up and see the apps you have running—swipe up on any you don’t need to close them properly.
- Stop playing games and watching videos: Graphically intensive activities like games and videos will quickly drain your battery as your phone’s processor will have to work harder to display all of the action. So if you need to preserve your battery on a long train journey, dig that book out of your bag and read that instead.
If you’re still finding yourself running low at inopportune moments, it may be a sign that the only real solution is to spend some money. If your phone is getting old, it might be worth getting the battery replaced, as batteries do degrade over time. But another reliable solution is to buy yourself an extra “power brick” battery back-up, so you can charge up on the go. It’s another thing to carry around, but it can be the extra peace of mind that you need on a busy day.
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