Any conscientious phone-user will keep a keen eye on their slowly declining battery level. There can be nothing worse than being caught short without your charger and a waning battery!

To help keep your phone battery out of the red for longer, we’ve come up with some simple things you can do when you need your battery to last; this will ensure you’re getting the most out of your phone for as long as possible.

Turn Down Screen Brightness

Not only will your eyes thank you for this tip, but your battery will too!

Decreasing your screen’s brightness has been shown to reduce the drain on your battery. You can also set your phone to ‘auto-brightness’ to ensure the screen dims if you are in a darker place. This is one of the easiest things you can do if your goal is to extend your battery life.

Turn Off Location Services

When not in use, it is often best to turn off location services by going to your privacy settings. Some apps will continue processing your location when running in the background, which uses battery unnecessarily.

Low Power Mode

These days, most phones will have a ‘low power mode’ or ‘battery saving mode’ option. When turned on, this function can reduce background activity and save power until you can fully charge your phone.

This is the best option for when you need your phone to last in an emergency; downloads and other unnecessary activity will be halted, and existing battery will be reserved for keeping your phone on and ensuring you can contact people.

This is not a long term solution as phone performance can be negatively affected, but it can be a useful option until recharging is possible.

Use Battery Stats

When accessing low power mode on iPhones, you will also be able to see a breakdown of how much battery is used when each app is running. This information can be useful for assessing which apps should be deleted or which apps need to be used less frequently.

The data here can also show you how much battery is used when apps run either on-screen or off-screen; background activity may contribute to a lot of your power drain.

Battery-Saving Apps

Saying ‘there’s an app for that’ has become a bit of a cliché, but in this case, it’s true!

If your phone does not have a battery breakdown function, you can use third-party apps to help identify big power drains. Battery-saving apps will also pinpoint other problem areas, and many will allow you to adjust location services, Bluetooth and screen settings to help maximise battery savings.

Apps like this can be helpful if you want to access all battery conservation functions in one place. For many, it can be easier to operate a central app that recommends and facilitates all the ways to make your battery last.

Some apps may also be able to provide you with an estimate of how much time you have left to use each app before your phone’s current charge runs out.

Popular battery-saving apps include:

• Battery Life
• Battery HD
• Better Battery Stats
• Greenify

Managing Your Apps

As you might be able to ascertain from your battery usage stats, apps that use lots of graphics, audio and adverts are often to blame when it comes to major battery depletion. It may be best to use these kinds of apps when you know you will have access to a charger and outlet.

You should also remember to fully close your apps rather than just exiting them. They can continue to run in the background even when they aren’t on-screen.

Regularly going through all of your apps and uninstalling unused or unnecessary apps can also be useful. They may only use up a small portion of your battery life, but this can build up if you continue to install apps that aren’t needed.

Enable an Auto-Lock

Forgetting to lock your phone and effectively impose sleep mode can be a massive drain on power and can leave you with very low battery.

An auto-lock feature can be set to automatically lock your phone when it is inactive after varying periods of time. This will ensure that on-screen usage will not run on indefinitely.

Turn Off Wi-Fi Connection and Bluetooth

When your phone is constantly looking to find a hotspot or Bluetooth connection, battery is drained significantly.

So, when not in use, these functions should be turned off.

Turn On Airplane Mode

Similarly to the above tip, turning airplane mode on will prevent your phone from searching for signal when you don’t need it. This can be especially useful when you know you’re going into an area without service.

If you know your phone won’t be able to connect to anything, switching to airplane mode will save your battery from being utilised in the search for a non-existent connection.

Reduce Camera Usage

Constantly taking photos or videos will also contribute to a rapidly decreasing battery life. Shooting long videos that add to your on-screen usage will be particularly draining so try to refrain from doing this when you’re aiming to save battery.

Manage Email Services

If your phone is constantly checking for new emails, it can eat up your battery life very quickly. If emails on your phone are not a necessity, it can be better to log out of any email service and only sign in to manually check your emails every now and then.

If you’d prefer not to log out, you can also set your email to automatically refresh and fetch new data less frequently, ensuring your battery can last for longer.

If making your battery last longer is the least of your problems and you need a new phone ASAP, why not consider a reconditioned phone? Here at Second-Hand Phones, we stock a wide range of second-hand devices that have been fully refurbished and are of excellent quality. Why not take a look to see if we’ve got something for you?