Tech Talk: Power to the people

EARLY adopters of Apple’s latest iPhone, released last autumn, have been complaining that the battery doesn’t last as long as they thought it would. Actually, it’s not as bad as some of its Android rivals, but nevertheless the need to have a charging cable constantly at hand makes you wonder whether battery technology has really advanced much since Faraday and his jugs of electrodes.
By David Behrens
Published 23rd Jan 2012, 00:00 BST

Pro-actively managing your battery is a necessity of life for most smartphone users, if you expect it to last long enough for the commute home. Here are some of the best ways to do it...

Turn off what you’re not using. Smartphones can connect to the wider world via your mobile network, wifi, Bluetooth and GPS satellite, and by default many will try to do so all at once. But each one sucks the juice out of your battery and you seldom if ever need all four to be active. Start by turning off GPS and leaving it off except when you need to find your location on a map. Unless you’re using a cordless headset, Bluetooth is also unnecessary most of the time.

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If you’re in a wifi zone – for instance, at home – turn off the mobile network, and if you’re not, turn off wifi instead. You’ll find all the switches on your phone’s settings screen.

By the way, your phone will still work for calls and regular texts with both wifi and the mobile network turned off. The data is needed only for connecting to the internet.

Turn the brightness down. Unless you’re in direct sunlight you should be able to see your screen perfectly with the brightness turned down to 50 or even 30 per cent. The higher the brightness the faster the battery drain. And while you’re at it, set your screen to switch itself off after 30 or 45 seconds.

Save your email until you’re ready to read it. Constantly monitoring your inbox uses processor power, which in turn uses up the battery. Try turning off the auto-sync function and polling your inbox manually instead – when you launch your email app, for instance.

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Let an app do it. If you would rather not tweak the settings yourself, there are plenty of apps – many of them free – that will do the job for you. All they really do is monitor which other apps are using resources and temporarily turn off those that aren’t required, but even that can be a help. Check the reviews before you download, as some of these apps actually use more power than they can hope to save.

And just in case... Invest in a spare charging cable to keep with you at work. You’ll find mains, car and USB models for most phones online for only a pound or two.

Related topics:Apple