Technology is improving and smartphones are now able to work for a longer time on a single battery charge. However for some users the nightmare continues and some seek help from battery monitor/saving apps.

As an android smartphone user, you can improve you battery life almost instantly by following the procedures mentioned below. A battery saving app will also do the same, unless you don’t want to burden your smartphone with that extra app.

Screen brightness
The display screen consumes a lot of battery juice. The higher the brightness the more the battery drain. Most smartphones do have the auto brightness option, though that is a good option and can save a considerable amount of battery juice.

But if you spend a lot of time at a particular location (say your office desk) you might want to go manual and change the brightness to the lowest. Try it and it will definitely improve your android phone battery life.

Screen Timeout
This feature needs no introduction the lower the time-out, the better. But for smartphones an ideal time would be 1 minute, that’s because there is a lot more features on these phones and sometimes you are just lost or waiting for a process to complete.

Look out for that Network Bar
Keep a track of the Network Bar, the higher the better but if it keeps fluctuation it will drain more power. You will face this issue where you have network problems or specific areas inside the buildings. Though there is nothing much you can do about this, but if you can it will help a lot.

If you are in an area where there is no network, it would be better to switch off the phone or enable airplane mode, so that the network signal is not constantly checked as constantly searching for a network will drain a lot of battery juice.

How to Improve battery life on android smartphones

Cool Environment, better performance
Have you ever noticed that your phone does last longer when you are using it in a cool environment e.g. AC office / home or indoors. The battery will drain faster if you are operating the phone in a hot environment. Hence when possible keep it cool.

Switch off Services not required
Not using the Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth etc. then it makes sense to switch it off. Even the data connection if possible, this will ensure your phone saves that extra Battery juice and will last longer.

When to charge the battery?
Now this is a very important. Charge only when you get a message “battery is low – connect to charger” usually at 15% power and make sure you charge it to 100%. You need to follow this process for extended battery life and performance.

It is also advisable to switch off the services that are not in use while charging. Furthermore to speed up the charging process you can even switch off the phone (if possible).

With busy and hectic schedule it is not possible to follow this step, and users would always want to maintain a full charge all times and in that process they keep charging the phone every now and then. But try to follow the full drain, followed by a full charge (pattern) as and when possible.

Switch off Auto Rotate
Almost every android phones has this auto rotate feature, you can switch this off which will help save battery. At times this feature may also get quite annoying especially when you are reading into something important and the orientation changes cause of accidental tilting.

Close apps that you are not using
Once you open an app on your android phone it remains active in the background, even when you close it. It is better if you manually close the apps (process is much simpler on ICS (Android 4.0) OS and above). This will not only help manage memory but also put fewer loads on the CPU which in turn will improve battery life.

Try out these methods and you will see an overall improvement in the battery performance. If you know of any other tip, leave a comment below.

By Rajeev Rana

Founder and Chief Editor - gogi.in