How to extend your phone's battery life
These days, manufacturers make it harder and harder for people to replace their phones' batteries. It's true that most modern phones are water resistant, but I'd rather have the option of replacing my own battery than purchase a device that can withstand a mild rain. I am pretty sure that any sane person will keep his/her phone in a pocket while it is raining, right? Anyway, that's how things are done today, and we can't find too many modern smartphones that have removable batteries on the market.
Fortunately, there are some things that can be done to extend the life of your battery. To apply these tips properly, you will need to understand how phone batteries work, and why they degrade so quickly.
Any battery has a set number of charging/discharging cycles. To give you an idea, most manufacturers create accumulators that have 500 to 1,000 charging cycles. This means that if you charge your phone daily, its battery can last for 1.5... 2.5 years. It may sound okay for some people, who replace their devices as soon as a new smartphone generation is out, but the reality is that batteries start to lose their capacity way before the number of charging cycles has been reached.
Let's imagine that your battery has a capacity of 3,000 mAh, a typical value today. As you use your phone, the battery capacity starts to diminish, maxing at about 2,700 mAh after 100 charges. So, the main idea is to reduce the number of charges, because this will improve battery life. The less energy your phone uses, the longer its battery will last.
Your phone's accumulator will also last longer if you avoid using it in extremely hot or cold weather conditions. So, if you plan to take your phone with you at the beach, it's best to avoid exposing it to the sun. Ideally, you should turn it off.
So, how can you ensure that your phone uses energy efficiently? Begin by disabling its "fast charging" option. Fast charging will destroy any battery much faster; the same thing happens whenever you use a huge external battery to recharge your phone. It is recommended to charge your device as slowly as possible, because this will extend battery life.
Avoid the extremes. For best results, make sure that the battery level doesn't go below 15%; this is the key reason why most manufacturers have chosen that threshold to warn us that the accumulator needs to be recharged. In addition to this, you shouldn't charge the battery over 90%, because you will quickly reduce its lifespan.
This means that you should charge your phone using a low-current charger on a daily basis, unplugging the charger before the battery reaches 100%. Don't keep the charger plugged in overnight, because this will pump much more current than needed into the battery, damaging it progressively.
To improve battery life, reduce screen brightness. Most phones have a light sensor which will increase brightness in daylight and reduce it at night. If you work indoors, this simple strategy will save a lot of energy. Also, keep an eye on your screen timeout value. Don't keep the screen on for 5 minutes, when you can have it turned off after 30 seconds.
Be sure to get rid of the apps that use a lot of energy. Think Facebook, YouTube and so on. If you can't live without them, there are several lightweight programs that can replace those apps successfully, reducing battery consumption. And I am sure quite that those games you've been playing for hours each day draw a lot of power, so try to get rid of them as well.
In the end, don't forget that you shouldn't obsess over battery life. These phone components will degrade sooner or later, no matter how much you care about them. Fortunately, there are lots of phone service centers which can replace those damaged batteries for us at reasonable prices.