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A definitive guide to everything that affects smartphone battery life

Here are all of the things that can contribute to bad battery life.
You’ve no doubt seen or read many articles online about saving battery life. It’s a popular topic because nobody likes tethering a phone to the wall multiple times a day. However, most battery-saving articles give you ideas about what to try in order to improve your battery life. This time around, we’re instead going to identify all of the various things that cause battery drain in smartphones.


The list is actually surprisingly long and that’s probably a good indicator of why so many people struggle with battery life. It is difficult to keep track of every little thing your phone does. However, we hope that giving you this knowledge will help you troubleshoot battery issues and adjust your usage to maximize your battery life. Here is our definitive guide to everything that affects smartphone battery life.


Battery sizeOnePlus 10 Pro top view showing battery statsWe’ll start with the most obvious influence on battery life — the size of the battery itself. Not all smartphones have the same battery size and it’s this size that helps determine how long your phone will go before hitting zero. Smartphone batteries are generally measured in milliamp-hours (mAh). This is mostly simple math. The more mAh a phone has, the longer it should be able to theoretically last. It doesn’t always work that way, but it’s a good place to start.


On the high end, phones like the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra and the Moto G Power have massive 5,000mAh cells while some other phones, like the regular Galaxy S22’s 3,590mAh battery, have smaller cells. Generally speaking, phones with larger batteries tend to have better battery life than ones with smaller batteries.
Of course, there are many other factors to take into account. More powerful processors and larger, high refresh-rate screens will drain your battery faster. More on those factors below. However, if the phones have identical specs, the one with the bigger battery will simply last longer.


DisplaySamsung Galaxy S22 Ultra vs Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max front on carpetThere are four different ways a display can affect battery life. The first is the size, as larger screens have more surface area and require more power to light up. Phones with larger displays also usually have larger batteries so there is a bit of a give -and-take there.
The second way a phone’s display affects battery life is the resolution. Admittedly, the differences aren’t huge, but it is objectively measurable. Displays with 1440p resolution have 77% more pixels than a 1080p display and it requires extra processing power (and therefore , more battery) to render those extra pixels. OEMs sometimes include a 1080p mode on a 1440p display to help cut back on the processing power and save battery.


Displays use more battery than any other phone component.Brightness is another significant power draw. This is also a matter of simple math. The brighter something is, the more power it requires. It’s not as noticeable if you go from 50% to 40% brightness. You’ll almost certainly see a difference when going between 80% to 20%, though.


Finally, the display’s refresh rate matters a lot. The refresh rate represents the number of times a screen refreshes every second and is measured in hertz (Hz). Newer phones have 90Hz and 120Hz displays which refresh 50%-100% more frequently than regular 60Hz displays.

That requires a whole bunch of extra processing power and puts further strain on your phone’s battery. Modern phones have adaptive refresh rates to help combat the battery drain, dropping down to as low as 1Hz when viewing static content.
Displays eat up more battery than any other individual component of a device because it is the main way we interact with a phone. This is why most battery-saving tricks revolve around display tweaks. However, lowering your brightness a few percentage points does virtually nothing and the resolution only matters if you have lots of screen-on time. Finally, using dark themes on AMOLED displays doesn’t work as well as most think it does.


ConnectionsSamsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G speed testConnections have a massive impact on battery life. The most common connections are your cell phone signal, data, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and location services. Connections drain the battery in a few different ways and the first one is fairly obvious.
If you enable these connections and don’t use them, they draw unnecessary power over the course of the day. Hardware and software optimizations have minimized this drain and it’s barely an inconvenience these days. It still drains the battery, but not nearly as much as it used to.


Additionally, a weak signal can greatly increase battery drain. It’s also a very difficult problem to fix. Your device regularly checks for signal strength. When the reception is bad, the phone checks more frequently, and this constant checking drains the battery. Usually, this only happens in certain types of buildings and in bad reception areas, but if you live (or work) in one of those places, it can be a constant and nearly unsolvable problem.


Every time your phone connects to something, it costs you battery life.Finally, actually using these connections drains your battery. If you go online and spend five minutes downloading a file, that’s five whole minutes your phone is actively using its networking hardware. The same is true of voice calls as your phone engages its radio for the entire length of the call.


A lot of people recommend using airplane mode to switch off all connections when not using your phone. To be honest, it doesn’t save that much battery and it ends up being invasive and annoying. We recommend staying connected to Wi-Fi while at home (or work). Additionally, the Google Play Store, Google Photos, Amazon Photos, and others all have settings that will postpone backups or updates until you’re connected to a charger. You should definitely check and see what can be put off until your phone is safely charging.

For regular users, the first thing that matters for the chipset is its generation. Every year chips get smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient. The Snapdragon 855 was faster and more energy-efficient than the Snapdragon 845, and the latest Qualcomm chipset , the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, continues the tradition. The same goes for HUAWEI’s Kirin SoCs, Samsung’s Exynos chips, and MediaTek’s silicon. This is a rather complex topic, but the super basic explanation is that newer chipsets can do the same work as older chipsets except faster, with less energy consumption, and with less heat. All of those things affectbattery life.

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6 common battery myths you probably believe

Concerned about overcharging? Think it’s healthier to completely discharge your battery?Here’s the truth.We here at Android Authority are often asking you, dear reader, for feedback on the smartphones running our favorite operating system. One of the most consistent bugbears over the years has been to do with battery life — whether it’s finicky fast charging or just phones just downright not lasting long enough. These complaints are certainly warranted — there’s nothing more frustrating than suffering the dreaded battery anxiety at 5 pm, as you’re trying to make dinner plans.


Virtually everyone has experienced gadget battery problems at some point in their life, so it’s no surprise people hunt for smartphones continuously with the best battery life. And if that fails, they dole out all sorts of little tips and tricks to make their batteries healthier and healthier longer-lasting. However, knowing the scientifically-backed tips from the plethora of absolute malarkey is increasingly difficult. In fact, you probably believe one of the many prevailing battery myths (I know I did!). So now it’s time to go on a battery myth-busting spree.

Does leaving a phone on the charger all night overcharge its battery?

samsung galaxy s22 ultra chargingThis is one of the most common rumors we come across but it’s just plain wrong. Or at least the overcharging part is. It’s complicated, as leaving your smartphone plugged in overnight certainly isn’t dangerous but it might make your battery age marginally faster.

“Overcharging” is the term that gets thrown around a lot with this one. The misnomer is if you leave your phone on the charger for a while after it hits 100%, it will keep pumping in the current and that will reduce the capacity of the battery, or even cause it to catch fire.
You don’t have to worry about overcharging modern smartphones.This myth has some origins, so it’s no surprise it’s stuck around. In the days of yore, lithium-ion batteries could overheat if you left charging them for too long. This did, in fact, cause damage to the battery and reduce performance .

Hell, it even led some to explode.
Modern devices and wall chargers are way smarter with managing power and will gradually reduce the amount of current as the phone fills up. However, there is some truth to the reduced capacity issue, as both extreme heat and high charging power levels do cause lithium- ion batteries to age faster. Charging all the way to 100% quickly is slightly worse for your battery than stopping before then. It might surprise you to note that manufacturers will often lie about when your smartphone really hits 100% just to eke out a little more battery longevity.


If you have a poorly designed case that doesn’t allow for heat dissipation, or you tuck your phone under your pillow at night, the heat build-up is definitely bad for the battery. The same applies if you leave your phone charging on a hot dashboard too.
Should you completely discharge a battery before charging it?

Google Pixel 7a wireless charging 1OK so, anyone thinking they need to discharge their batteries before charging them up is thinking about a different kind of battery entirely. Nickel-cadmium or nickel-metal hydride batteries are what these folks are talking about, but smartphones use lithium-ion and lithium -polymer batteries.
Once again, the myth’s origin has a firm basis. It’s absolutely true that older nickel-centric batteries would ‘forget’ their full capacity if you didn’t fully drain them before charging again. But lithium-ion is a different ballgame. It doesn ‘t forget and can retain a working charge across the entire battery. In fact, discharging your battery to 0% lowers its voltage and places some additional strain on the battery when recharging.


It’s true that lithium-ion diminishing batteries in capacity with every charge cycle, but this effect is quite small. While not quite draining and filling up your smartphone battery can have marginal benefits, it’s unlikely to have a notable effect on your smartphone’s battery capacity unless you keep the phone for many years. Most smartphone batteries retain 80% or more of their original charge capacity even after several years of heavy use. And even then, it’s easy to replace smartphone batteries if you want to restore its full capacity.

Do you have to use the official brand charger for your phone?

Google 30W USB C Power Charger upright next to boxOh boy, this one. This has its roots in what is essentially marketing. Whenever you buy your shiny new phone from a given manufacturer, the odds are pretty good that the manual or spec sheet will suggest you buy chargers from the company that made your device. They want you to buy their accessories, after all.


There are still plenty of smartphones that use proprietary charging standards and therefore won’t fast-charge with third-party plugs. However, plenty of phones now support universal charging standards like USB Power Delivery. Handsets include the ever-popular Apple iPhone 14, Google Pixel 7, and Samsung Galaxy S23 series. That’s right, you don’t have to buy the official chargers for these smartphones in order to power them up as quickly as possible.


You’ll have to pay attention to the charging standard and power you require, but with those bits of information at hand, there’s a wide market of affordable third-party chargers that are great buys for your new smartphone. If you want to steer clear of the few bad eggs, be sure to pick out a charger from our carefully curated list below:

To combat this issue, a small selection of phones, such as the Sony Xperia 1 IV’s Heat Suppression Power Control, offer a power pass-through option that draws power directly from the mains and doesn’t charge the battery while you’re gaming. It’s a smart option if you’re planning a prolonged gaming session as your phone is more likely to warm up.

Does disabling Bluetooth and Location drastically improve battery life?

The Google Pixel Buds 2020 true wireless earbuds case open and next to a Pixel smartphone with the Bluetooth dropdown menu displayed.This is another one of those rumors that have stuck around because it actually used to be good advice. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth used to latch onto your smartphone’s battery life like a vampire bat, but they’re nowhere near so bloodthirsty today. Location services are even leaner.
Don’t believe me, we even tested screen-on time with Bluetooth enabled and disabled. The result — on average less than 4% extra battery drain by leaving Bluetooth on. That works out to maybe a few minutes of screen-on time, hardly worth fretting about if you forget to turn the toggle off.


So while it’s true that disabling all these options or going into airplane mode will save some battery life, we’re talking a very tiny sliver — like half an hour over the span of an entire day — so the gains are arguably not worth the trouble . Furthermore, chipsets and technologies are more efficient every year, drawing less and less power when idle. So leave the services that you use on regular running all you want. Yourphone is designed to handle it.

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Android Adaptive Battery: Everything you need to know

As phones have become more capable of performing various tasks, allocating battery power has become crucial to maximizing its lifespan, especially if your smartphone is draining fast. Today, our phone’s SoC significantly regulates power consumption between the apps and features we use daily. Even if you don’t have one of the Android phones with the best battery life, you can still extend your device’s lifespan with this feature. Let’s look at how Android’s Adaptive Battery works and how you can ensure it’s turned on.

What is Android Adaptive Battery, and how does it work?

samsung galaxy s22 batterydisplayWhen you are using your phone, it isn’t just the app you have open that is eating up your battery life. Even when you put your phone down and aren’t touching it, many background processes run behind the scenes. For example, many apps actively retrieve information from other apps, such as contacts or location data, not to mention all the external cellular and Wi-Fi connections.


All of these processes and more need varying amounts of energy to function. Without anything to coordinate power consumption, you would notice a big difference between an optimized battery and a device without one. An Adaptive battery is how your Android phone makes it through an entire day of usage or more. Here are a few essential system tools that Adaptive Battery uses.


Limiting background appsThe most common way Adaptive Battery saves minutes to hours of battery life is by restricting how apps run in the background. As mentioned earlier, some apps can consume a lot of power without you knowing it. When Adaptive Battery is turned on and an app is running too heavily, you will get a notification with the option to put it to sleep.


Over time, Adaptive Battery will learn which apps take up the most background usage and limit some of their functions. This doesn’t really affect your phone performance, but it means the battery won’t drain drastically when your phone is idle.
Learning your habitsAnother way Adaptive Batterylives up to its name is by learning the patterns of how you use your phone. After having Adaptive Battery enabled for some time, your phone will keep track of what apps you use the most, how long you use them, and how quickly your battery drains when not optimized.


Eventually, your Android phone will utilize this data to fine-tune how it expends a full battery so that it can last throughout your daily usage. A crucial piece of information in this equation is learning your charging habits. Once the time is regular enough, Android will start stretching your battery life to when it anticipates you will plug in your phone to charge.
Reducing performanceOne of the subtler ways Adaptive Battery improves battery lifeis by slightly reducing performance. Chips take a lot of power, and your battery can last much longer if that power is reduced to match your current needs.
On Samsung Galaxy phones, a complimentary feature to Adaptive Battery in the settings lets you change your device’s processing speed. This tool can save you more battery life than Android’s Adaptive Battery does. The Exynos processor in the flagship S-series devices barely lags in the “optimized” state, either. However, the difference in performance can be more noticeable in other Android devices, but if you are out and about without a charger, that might not be a concern.


How to turn on Android Adaptive BatteryHere’s how to turn on Adaptive Battery on a Google Pixel or Samsung Galaxy phone.
Google PixelNavigate to the settings by swiping down from the top screen and tapping the Settings cog. Then tap Battery. Select Adaptive Preferences, and lastly, hit the toggle on Adaptive Battery.

Pixel Settings Battery
Pixel battery usage
Pixel adaptive batterySamsung GalaxyNavigate to the settings by swiping down on the screen and tapping the Settings cog. Select Battery and device care. You can optimize your battery usage here. Tap the Battery readout near the top, then scroll down to select More battery settings. There, you ‘ll find the Adaptive battery toggle.

samsung adaptive battery toggleAs mentioned, you can adjust the Processing speed under the Adaptive battery option. There are three different speeds: Optimized, High, and Maximum. Select the option that best suits your usage.
samsung processing speedHow to manage battery usage for individual appsAdaptive Battery will treat all apps the same, but you can manually give certain apps exceptions or stricter limitations. Navigate to your Settings and select Apps. From there, select the app you want to manage, scroll down to choose Battery, and select the desired battery usage for that app.

samsung app use detailsOverall, Adaptive Battery is a great feature to extend the life of your Android device. If you find your battery isn’t lasting long enough, try turning it on or limiting the usage of energy-hungry apps. Remember that Adaptive Batteryneeds time to learn your usage habits and may not work immediately, but you should notice results soon enough.

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What to do if your phone battery is swollen

As impressive as modern smartphone technology is getting, batteries still rely on chemical reactions. This means these units are prone to some issues, one being battery swelling. It’s not a common issue for most, but the topic pops up from time to time. Apple , Samsung, and even Google devices have had problems with this in the past. It’s not only an annoyance, but a swollen phone battery can be dangerous. This is why today we’re showing you what to do if your phone battery is swollen.

If you find out your phone battery is swollen, you should be very careful with it, as it may be dangerous and is technically a fire hazard. The best you can do is stop using it, turn it off, and go to a professional to get the battery replaced. This may cost money, unless your phone is still under warranty or covered by insurance.
If the phone is no longer worth fixing, you should recycle it safely. You can find recycling centers at call2recycle.org.What causes a swollen phone battery?Galaxy iPhone and Pixel smartphones with selection of chargers 2There are multiple reasons why a lithium-ion battery may swell. There is usually one underlying cause for this to happen, though. Batteries usually swell because gas builds up, creates pressure, and expands them.

With that in mind, we must consider the more common causes for a battery to store gas. Manufacturer defects can happen. If the battery maker doesn’t make the battery correctly, gas can slowly build up during the charging process. This essentially means simply charging your phone enough times could be an issue, especially considering juicing up your phone also creates heat.
Heat commonly speeds the process, too. You should probably make sure not to leave a phone in the sun too much, or next to very hot items.
Additionally, physical damage to the battery can be a very common cause of battery swelling.

Have you ever dropped your phone? Maybe you accidentally punctured the battery?

This could be why your battery is swelling. Not to mention batteries get old, too. Chemical reactions can change, and parts weaken.
By the way, this shouldn’t be a common occurrence. Unless there’s a severe manufacturer defect, most batteries should last the couple or few years most users keep a device.


How to know if your phone battery is swollenpixel5a vancouver 1It’s much harder to tell if your battery is swelling these days, as handsets with removable batteries are becoming very scarce. We never really see our batteries anymore. This makes it harder to identify a swollen or damaged battery.
The easiest way to tell if a battery is swollen is by inspecting the device (or battery, if you can). Are there any bumps?

You may notice an unusual wobble when you lay it on a flat surface. Also, look for warped shapes or signs of the phone disassembling itself. Smartphone backplates start to come off as the battery’s swollen shape puts pressure against them.
While not as safe, the smell can also be a sign of a swollen battery.

We wouldn’t advise that you actively try to inhale chemicals, but this is something you may have accidentally noticed already. Does your phone smell odd? People describe a bad battery smell as metallic, and sometimes even sweet.
Even simple things like battery performance can be a dead giveaway. If your battery is charging too slowly, or the charge isn’t lasting as long as it should, this may be a cause of concern.
What to do if your phone battery is swollenMoto G Power 2021 back of phone in hand – Swollen phone batterySo you’ve found something odd with your smartphone’s battery. Is it safe to use a swollen phone battery? Definitely not! A swollen lithium-ion battery can be very dangerous. The pressure can make gases escape, and the battery can even catch fire or explode, especially if pierced.
Your first step should be to turn off the device immediately, and keep it off. Don’t plug it in or mess with it, either. Leave it in a safe place and keep it there, preferably away from anything that can burn.


A swollen lithium-ion battery can be very dangerous!If it’s possible, and safe to do so, you should probablyremove the battery. Just be careful not to mess with it too much in the process, and try to avoid smelling any fumes it may give off. We actually recommend taking the phone to a professional instead. Technicians will have the necessary knowledge and tools to do this easily. They can also find a suitable replacement for you. This will likely incur some charges and require replacement purchases, though.


If your phone is still under warranty or insurance, your best bet is to go with the carrier, retailer, or company handling the coverage.


How to dispose of a swollen phone batteryE Waste Recycle 2 – Swollen phone batteryIf you remove the battery yourself, you should get rid of it safely. You shouldn’t just dump it in the trash. A swollen phone battery is a fire hazard, and no one wants that at home.
If and when it’s safe, you should take your smartphone batteryto an authorized battery collection center or a recycling location. You can find your nearest one at call2recycle.org. You can ship them, but we wouldn’t recommend that either. Shipping usually entails a lot of movement, banging around, and packages being around plenty of flammable materials.

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Why is there no easy way to see battery health on Android?

Apple provides a convenient way to check your iPhone’s battery health, but Android has no such equivalent. At least not yet.
Batteries don’t last forever; that’s just an unfortunate fact of smartphone life. As controversial as the iPhone 14’s seemingly limited long-term battery health may be, at least Apple provides an easy method to track how your power cell is holding up. It’s as simple as checking your regular battery settings. So while your iPhone may eventually only last a few hours on a single charge, at least you’ll be well prepared to book that battery replacement.


Android, by comparison, is a black box. Everything ticks along fine until your phone starts restarting, and hopefully, you piece together that the battery is kaput before sending the phone away for diagnostics. A simple battery replacement isn’t all that expensive, especially compared to a new phone. But many will end up discarding an otherwise perfectly working handset because it’s not clear what the cause of the problem really is or they need an immediate fix.
A heads-up would be nice, to say the least. Especially as many phones in the flagship and mid-tiers receive long-term updates that, in theory, will keep them ticking along for four or five years. Increasingly, the battery is the weakest link when running your phone for many years and consumers now need a way to keep on top of this potentially key repair.
Battery health monitoring is essential for phones built to last four or five years.We reached out to Google to ask why no such feature is built into Android and whether there are plans to adopt an iPhone-esque percentage of initial capacity metric. Unfortunately, we received no response. As it stands, Android simply doesn’t include specific tools for tracking battery health baked into the operating system, leaving users at the whims of third-party applications.


All hope is not lost, though. A new battery health API in the latest Android 14 beta could allow apps and OEMs to expose this information to owners easily in the future. In the meantime, you might have to make do with one of the few Android apps that can help track battery health.

How do I know if my phone needs a new battery?If your phone only lasts a few hours on a full charge, randomly restarts, or struggles to charge to full, it’s likely time to replace the battery.
How to check Android battery cycles and healthDepending on your smartphone, there are several ways to check your smartphone’s battery health. We’ve detailed a couple of the best options below.


Is it possible to check Samsung battery health?If you’re a Galaxy owner, Samsung provides a method to check battery health that doesn’t rely on a third-party app. You’ll have to grab the Samsung Members app from the Galaxy Store or Play Store first and can then check battery health from the familiar settings menu.
Once installed, head to Settings > Battery & Device Care > Diagnostics > Phone Diagnostics, and press the Battery Status button. You can then see your phone’s battery status under the “Life” result.

Samsung Galaxy Battery Health Diagnostic
Samsung Galaxy Battery HealthSamsung offers a simplified “Good,” “Normal,” or “Weak” rating system to make it easy to understand, in addition to displaying the phone’s rated battery capacity. Your battery shouldn’t need replacing until the readout states Weak. However, power users may find that their phone doesn’t quite last as long as usual, even with a Normal rating.
Android apps to quickly see battery healthNon-Samsung owners can pick from a selection of third-party applications that claim to report battery health. Many hardware monitoring apps offer a battery health rating, including AIDA64, CPU Z, Device Info, and others.

AIDA64 Battery Health Score
DevInfo Battery Health ScoreThese apps pull out the phone’s reported battery capacity, temperature, voltage data, and a battery health score. However, that relies on the apps being able to access this information, and that battery statistics are reported accurately by the OEM, which is not always the case. Without the new Android 14 API, it’s unclear if the battery capacity is reported dynamically, so we’d view these apps as a rough guide rather than a reliable gauge of your phone’s remaining battery health.

How many years does an Android phone battery last?Typical Android phones are rated to hold 80% initial battery capacity after 500 to 800 charges. It varies by user, but most phone batteries will last at least two to three years before issues.
Track battery health with AccubatteryIf you’re looking for long-term battery health monitoring, the third-party Accubattery app is a solid choice to identify poor battery health. The app is free, but a paid version removes ads and unlocks additional functionality.


You’ll have to permit Accubattery to run in the background to track your charging stats, as it doesn’t provide an instantaneous reading like other hardware monitoring apps. Instead, you’ll have to fully charge the phone at least once before the app provides a reading.


AccuBattery Battery

accurate than the basic health metrics reported by hardware monitoring apps. We saw quite different reports between Accubattery and CPU Z, with the former reporting a lower capacity that is likely more accurate for a daily driver that’s over a year old. However, it can take several full-charge cycles to improve the accuracy of Accubattery’s score. Even so, it’s a suitable medium- to long-term monitoring solution.


In addition, Accubattery provides insights into your charging habits, including your typical charging speeds, wear, and efficiency with each charging cycle. This can be helpful if you’re looking to maximize battery healthby following the best smartphone charging habits.

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How to Keep Your Phone Battery Healthy

Does your Android or iPhone’s battery seem to hold less of a charge over time? Like all rechargeable batteries, Li-ion batteries (which are in most phones) become less effective as they age. Even though these batteries aren’t made to last forever, having a healthy battery and charging habits can extend the life of your battery. We’ll show you easy ways to maximize your smartphone battery’s lifespan by changing your charging habits.


1.Don’t wait until the battery is empty to recharge.

Charge your phone throughout the day. Your phone’s batteryhas a fixed amount of charging cycles (the number of times you charge the battery from 0% to 100%). For example, if your battery has a lifespan of 400 charging cycles, letting the battery drain every day means your battery will only last 400 days.[1] If you top off the battery before it drains completely, it reduces the number of overall charging cycles, which makes your battery last longer.Keeping a battery at full charge or always draining it to 0 can damage it and reduce its capacity. Try to keep your battery midway charged when you can and only charge to 100% when you need the extra time.


2.Avoid extreme temperatures.Exposure to very high or low temperatures drains the battery quickly.

Batteries are made to work best at room temperature, which is about 68 °F (20 °C).[2] Your battery, especially when fully charged, will drain much faster in extreme temperatures. This can cause damage to the battery over time.[3]Avoid using your phone at all if the temperature is below freezing 32 °F (0 °C).If you live in a very cold region and spend a lot of time outdoors, invest in an insulated phone case.Only charge your battery at temperatures between 41 °F (5 °C) and 95 °F (35 °C).If the phone or charger feels hot to the touch during a charging session, unplug the phone from the charger as soon as possible to avoiddamaging the battery.
3.Don’t always charge your battery to 100%.

When you’re always charging to 100%, the frequent high voltage can cause stress to the battery. Fully charging your battery won’t destroy it, you can add some time to the battery’s lifespan by only charging to 80% when possible.


4.Only use ultra-fast charging when necessary.

Fast charging is convenient, but don’t use it every time you charge your phone. Fast charging puts more stress on the battery than necessary, so battery performance can suffer over time.[4] Opt for a standard “slow” charge more often than not to preserve battery longevity.


5.Use your phone sparingly while it’s charging.

To avoid parasitic load, don’t play games or stream videos while charging your phone. Parasitic load is what happens while a battery is being drained during charging.[5] Parasitic load adds higher voltage stress to the battery, increases heat, and can cause parts of the battery to continually cycle and deteriorate faster than the rest of the cell. While you can take calls or browse the web during a charging session, avoid heavy tasks.


6.Use power-saving modes to increase time between charges.

When your battery is slow, turn on your phone’s low-power or battery-saving mode. Both Androids and iPhones have special battery-conservation modes that turn off background apps, decrease processing power, dim the screen, and disable other services that can drain your battery quickly.To turn on your iPhone’s Low Power Mode, open the Control Center and tap the battery icon.If you have a Samsung Galaxy, open Settings and go to Battery and device care > Battery > Power saving. Tap the switch to turn on Power Saving Mode.[6]For other Androids, go to Settings > Battery > BatterySaver and tap Turn on now.

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How to maximize battery life: Charging habits and other tips

Most of us — casual users and enthusiasts alike — are forever searching for smartphones with the longest battery life. And while fast charging keeps us topped up every day, the absence of replaceable batteries means eventually, the lithium-ion cells enclosed in our phones are going to age and deteriorate, making it harder to maximize battery life.
If you’ve held onto a phone for a couple of years, you’ve probably noticed the battery doesn’t seem to last as long as it did when your handset was brand new. Four or five years down the line, many phones struggle to make it through the day on a single charge. Holding onto a phone even longer can even spell trouble for reliability too as you may face sudden shutdowns.


Unfortunately, battery capacity inevitably declines with age. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do anything to prolong the lifespan of your smartphone’s battery. If you’ve ever wondered what the best way to charge your battery is, here are some scientifically proven tips to maximize battery life.
If you’re in a hurry, here’s a quick summary of the best battery life-maximizing tips you should keep in mind:


Avoid full charge cycles (0-100%) and overnight charging. Instead, top up your phone more regularly with partial charges.Limiting your smartphone’s maximum charge to 80-90% is better for the battery’s health than topping up to completely full everytime.Use fast charging technologies sparingly and when your device is cool.Heat has the potential to accelerate battery health degradation. Don’t cover your phone when charging, and keep it out of warmer places.Don’t play intensive games, stream videos, or run other intensive workloads while charging to avoid heat and stressing the battery.Keep reading for a more detailed explanation of what factors will prolong your battery life
Partial charging is a healthy habitGoogle Pixel Stand wireless charging Galaxy S21 UltraOne particularly persistent battery myth is that you need to occasionally fully discharge and recharge to erase “battery memory.” This couldn’t be more wrong for lithium-ion batteries. It’s a leftover myth from lead-acid cells, and it’s pretty undesirable to Charge your modern smartphone in this way.
Partial charging is just fine for lithium-ion batteries and can have some positive benefits for cell longevity. To understand why it’s important to appreciate how a battery charges. Li-ion batteries draw constant current and operate at a lower voltage when closer to empty. This voltage gradually increases as the cell charges up, leveling off at around a 70% charge before the current begins to fall until the capacity is full.


Partial charging is just fine for lithium-ion batteries and even has some positive benefits.Notably, operating at a low voltage is good for a battery’s lifespan, increasing the number of available charging cycles before you’ll start to see a significant reduction in capacity. Roughly speaking, every 0.1V decrease in cell voltage doubles the cycle life, according to Battery University. Therefore, charging up your phone in that 30% to 80% range keeps the voltage lower and might slightly prolong the battery’s lifespan.

Avoid idle chargingGoogle Pixel 7a charging plug and wireless dockCharging overnight or in a cradle during the day is a very common habit, but it’s not recommended for several reasons (the old “overcharging” myth isn’t one of them). First, continuous trickle charging of a full battery can cause plating of the metallic lithium, which reduces stability in the long term and can, in rare cases, lead to system-wide malfunctions and reboots. Second, as we just mentioned above, it leaves the battery at a higher stress voltage when at 100%. Third , and most important, it creates excess heat caused by wasted power dissipation.
Some phones disable or slow down charging when nearing full capacity. Use these options.Ideally, a device should stop charging when it reaches 100% battery capacity, only turning the charging circuit back on to top up the battery now and again — or at the very least reducing the charging current to very small amounts.


While some phones disable charging once full, many continue to pull up to half an amp and sometimes more from the wall outlet. Turning smartphones off doesn’t make a difference in many cases either. While this isIt’s not a massive amount of power, it’s going to stop your phone from cooling down as quickly and will continue to cycle through a small part of the battery, resulting in a mini-cycle.A final point worth mentioning is parasitic load. This occurs when the battery is being drained significantly at the same time as being charged, such as watching a video or gaming while charging.

Gaming or watching videos while charging is bad because it distorts charging cycles.The best way to avoid parasitic loads is to turn your device off while charging. But that’s not really realistic. Instead, it’s best to keep the workload light while the device is plugged in, leaving it idle most of the time. Browsing the web is Probably fine. Also, remember to unplug it once the battery is topped up enough.
Heat is the enemy of long battery lifeASUS ROG Phone 5 product shot of the battery and charging logos up closeAlong with all of the above, temperature is an equally key contributor to longevity and maximizing battery life. In fact, it’s arguably the biggest killer of long-term battery health. Like high voltages, high temperatures stress the battery and make it lose capacity far more quickly than when kept at lower temperatures.

Leaving your phone to fast charge up for 5 to 15 minutes won’t lead to major overheating problems, but I certainly don’t recommend using them for a full charge. Instead, you’d be better off using a temperature-aware fast charging solution or switching to a slower charger, especially if you plan to plug your phone in overnight.


How to maximize smartphone battery health long-termmotorola edge plus charging indicatorLithium-ion battery technology is well understood these days, and smartphones are built around our use cases, but bad habits and myths still permeate the public consciousness. While most of these habits won’t severely negatively impact your phone’s battery life in the medium term , the decline in removable phone batteries means we should take extra precautions to maximize battery life and thus our smartphone’s longevity.


Broadly speaking, smaller regular charge cycles and keeping your phone cool are the key things to remember. Although I should point out that different phone batteries will always age slightly differently depending on how we treat them.

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Best Practices For A Healthy Smartphone Battery Life

Users are forever in search of the best smartphone that has longer battery life.Gone are the days where batteries are easily replaceable. Today, we have to be conscious of our battery usage to minimize the expensive professional service that comes with smartphones.


Almost all smartphones are equipped with lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries and while we all use the same type, no battery has the same lifespan. It all depends on our habits and how we use our phones that can determine how long can we keep the health of our smartphone batteries.


Best Practices to keep your Smartphone Battery HealthyIf you have been with your smartphone for more than a year, you might notice that batteries don’t last long compared to when it was brand new. Down the line, many phones can’t make it through a day with a single charge.


There are various ways to extend your phone battery lifespan. You might be familiar with it or it might sound new to you, but here are some best practices you can follow to keep your smartphone battery healthy:
Partial ChargingMost of us are guilty of fully charging our phones out of habit but in reality, it’s bad for the battery. Also, some are using their phones until the battery goes 0 percent before plugging it in, which should be avoided.
The best way to charge your phone and extend its lifespan is to charge it partially and frequently. For example, you can charge it for up to 80% and use it until it goes to 20% before charging it again. With this charging cycle, you can improve yoursmartphone’s battery life.


Avoid Extreme HeatLi-ion batteries don’t respond well to heat or extreme cold. If you are located in a cold area, its’ best to use thick phone cases that can keep it warm. For hot weather, don’t leave your phone exposed to sunlight. Heat is the worst enemy for Li-on batteries while cold might damage its health temporarily.
It’s best practice not to leave or store your mobile device in an enclosed space where there’s minimum ventilation as it raises the phone’s temperature, especially inside a hot car.


Decrease Screen BrightnessTurning down your screen brightness will save energy. Your smartphone screen is the component that uses battery the most. For iOS and Android devices, it gives you an option to automatically reduce the screen brightness when there’s light, though it still uses a light sensor. It’s advisable to disable auto-brightness.
You probably don’t require the full brightness, so manually setting your screen’s brightness depending on the ambient lighting is best recommended and will save your phone battery life.


Avoid Using Phone While ChargingMost people can’t keep away from their phones because it’s now considered a necessity. However, when it’s charging, it is better to avoid using it. When you use apps that require a large proportion of battery to operate, it’s consuming a lot of energy, thus reducing your battery life in the process.
It can also lead to overheating the device and as mentioned earlier, heat is the worst enemy for Li-on batteries. The best solution is to turn it off while charging, or if it’s really necessary to use it, then keep the workload very light when your phone is plugged in.
Avoid Using Non-Compatible Charging CablesThe most common practice people do is to use a counterfeit or third-party charging cable. You might think that you are saving some money because you bought it for a lower price, but it can seriously harm your smartphone battery.
Accessories that are not manufactured by the original provider are made of cheap materials that don’t work the same way as the original cables. Ensure that you are only using the right charging cables to protect not only your battery but also your smartphones.
Reduce Screen Timeout or Auto-LockSimilar to laptops or computers, your mobile’s screen can automatically turn off if not in use. You can save energy by reducing the screen timeout or auto-lock by 1 minute or even 30 seconds. Both iPhones and Androids have these features and it’s easy to set up.


Check Your AppsAll smartphone apps use power and data even if they are not in use, like Facebook. To extend your battery life, disable the background refresh activities of apps that aren’t crucial and do it regularly. When apps update, some new features are added and might consume more energy, so you’ll notice your battery draining. Make it a bit to monitor apps that consumes power even if you don’t use them.

Nowadays, Lithium-ion battery technology is more understood, but some myths remain in our consciousness. While most of the habit doesn’t severely impact your smartphone’s battery life, the decrease in removable batteries should be a reminder that we need to take precautions to prolong our smartphone’s battery life.

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Apple could be planning a big change for its iPhone 15 launch

Apple Retail employees across the globe work tirelessly in the build-up to a new iPhone launch to ensure customers have the Apple experience they’ve come to know and love on launch day.
Usually, this means overnight teams working around the clock a few times over the course of iPhone launch week so that the Apple Store is ready for the busiest period of the year.

question (most often the night before), a strange new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman claims that this year, Apple Retail Stores are actually planning for overnight updates on the same night as the September 12 “Wonderlust” event, possibly hinting at “near- immediate availability” forApple’s new iPhone. 
Gurman’s report indicates that this faster approach to an overnight could be because Apple is planning for a quicker launch than we’ve come to expect in previous years. Although, logistically, that would be incredibly difficult to coordinate. We still expect iPhone 15 preorders to open on Friday after the event (September 15), with the launch day scheduled for the following Friday (September 22).


Apple’s Wonderlust event is scheduled for September 12. We expect to see the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max alongside new Apple Watches like the Series 9 and Ultra 2 revealed.

While a rumored overnight update happening on September 12 would imply that Apple wants to have the Apple Stores ready quicker than ever before in time for the iPhone 15 launch, I think it’s far less interesting than the headlines would suggest.

 The store goes through loads of changes throughout an iPhone launch week, and this overnight update could be used to make the process smoother rather than relying on a single overnight shift the evening before launch. Overnights happen throughout the year, and while the most exciting ones are for new product launches where new products are installed on tables and secured to prevent theft, there are also overnight shifts to get the stock room ready for a launch, as well as updating software or changing in-store merchandising graphics.

Some Apple overnights even involve simply counting all the stock in a store to check the accuracy of stock levels, a twice-yearly event known as Physical Inventory — or they might just be doing a deep clean that happens to fall on the evening of the biggest event of the year (unlikely but again,overnights are common).


To think that Apple could speed up the Apple Store overnight updates to launch the iPhone 15 sooner would be almost impossible, considering Apple employees don’t get any info on releases in advance, and a three-day turnaround from the reveal would be incredibly difficult That said, Apple has shocked us in the past, but we’ll have to wait until September 12 to have more information on whether this is a routine overnight shift that’s made the news for no apparent reason or if Apple has chosen to defy the odds and drop the latestiPhone a week earlier than expected.