As a tech enthusiast, I feel happy that I’m a millennial. For anyone who belongs to that age bracket, you probably have witnessed the incredible evolution of smartphones, just like I did.
The most incredible part about modern Android handsets is that they can pull off tasks that you needed a desktop or a laptop a couple of decades ago to complete.
However, not everything about evolution is great. For example, I particularly don’t like how much less the battery of a phone lasts nowadays as compared to the ones that came with tiny screens and a physical keyboard.
I wish my Android phone lasted three to four days on a single charge. I am not sure if we’ll ever get there, but there are tricks for Android users to save battery life on their handsets.
I found these six Android settings toggles that actually save battery life.
6 settings I change on every phone to instantly upgrade my Android experience
I change these settings before installing any apps
Adaptive brightness
The display panel of your phone has the highest battery consumption. So, if you use the wrong display settings, it’ll eat up your battery quicker than you would like.
I keep the Adaptive brightness toggle enabled instead of keeping the brightness slider in a fixed position.
When the Adaptive brightness is turned on, Android automatically adjusts the brightness of your display based on the lighting conditions. You don’t need to manually control the brightness when Adaptive brightness is turned on.
However, when the Adaptive display is enabled, you still have the freedom to manually change the brightness level.
I never had to increase the brightness level with the Adaptive brightness enabled. But I sometimes lowered the level to save more battery, especially in outdoor conditions.
If you don’t find the Adaptive brightness toggle in the Quick settings, open the settings app, type Adaptive brightness in the search bar, select the option, and enable the toggle.
Lower the screen refresh rate
The high screen refresh rate is great, especially for people who do a lot of scrolling on social media.
I’m one of those people, but a 90Hz refresh rate or anything above that consumes your battery very fast when you scroll through pages.
When my battery is running low, I quickly downgrade the screen refresh rate from 90Hz to 60Hz.
However, the screen refresh rate setting isn’t standardized across all Android skins. But regardless of the one you use, it’s usually available in the Display settings.
I use Galaxy S21 as my primary phone, so I go to the Display page on the Settings app, select Motion smoothness, tap the Standard option, and click Apply.
If you use a Pixel, you will need to toggle off the Smooth display option from the Display settings. If you use Hello UI, go to the Display settings, select the Display refresh rate option, and change it to 60Hz for lower battery consumption.
This ensures that the refresh rate never jumps to 60Hz unless I change the Motion smoothness setting to Adaptive.
Dark mode
While you need to make some compromises if you change the refresh rate to 60Hz, there is no downside to changing the theme from light to dark.
It saves your battery and feels easy on the eye. On most modern Android phones, you’ll find the option to switch from light to dark or vice versa in the Quick settings.
On some devices, you’ll also find the option to schedule the dark mode. You can set the schedule that suits you the best. Depending on the time you choose, it’ll automatically switch to dark or light.
While Schedule dark mode is better than Light mode when it comes to saving battery life, the most effective way is to select the Dark option. This will keep your phone always in dark mode, thus saving more battery.
Put unused apps to sleep
My phone has plenty of apps that I can’t remember the last time I opened them. I haven’t removed them from my phone because I still need them once in a while.
However, I never forget to put them to deep sleep after I have completed what I needed them for.
This is another effective way to save battery on your phone, because when you put them to deep sleep, it stops all the background processes.
This means you stop receiving notifications, background tasks like Cloud backups, and news feed updates will stop. This is why you’ll see immediate battery savings after putting them to sleep.
In addition, on my Galaxy S21, I allow Android to put unused apps to deep sleep automatically. I go to the Battery setting, tap Background usage limits, and enable the Put unused apps to sleep toggle.
You can manually add apps to Sleep mode from the Battery usage limits from the Background usage limits page, too.
Reduce screen time
The screen timeout is set to 30 seconds by default on my Galaxy S21. The more time it takes for the screen to go off, the more power it’ll consume.
This is why I have set the Screen timeout setting to 15 seconds, which is the lowest on any Android phone. This means my phone’s screen automatically turns off and locks after 15 seconds of inactivity.
Not only does it save battery life, but it also protects your privacy because it gives someone very little time to pick up your phone and access your information.
The Screen timeout setting is usually available in the Display settings. But if you can’t find it, open the Settings app, type Screen timeout in the search bar, select the option, and set it to 15 seconds.
Always On Display
In a battery test conducted by DXOMARK, the results showed that the battery drains four times faster with the Always On Display feature turned on.
Always On Display keeps a small portion of the display on to show key information on the screen without needing users to touch, wake, or unlock the phone.
It shows icons for missed calls and unread messages or emails, battery percentage, and more.
None of this is more important than battery life for me, because my S21 is almost five years old. Its battery isn’t even close to the original capacity.
It can be even worse if your phone is not OLED or AMOLED. If it’s an LCD panel, it won’t be able to turn on individual pixels while keeping the rest of the display black, unlike the OLED or AMOLED panels.
On my Galaxy S21, the Always On Display option is available on the Lock Screen and AOD page in the Settings app. If you use Pixel UI, you’ll see the option in the Lockscreen setting.
There is no magic pill for better battery life
For anyone looking to improve the battery life of their Android phones, there is no magic switch for this. You’ll need to develop smart habits to make your battery last longer on a single charge.
The above tricks certainly help, but you also need to take care of your battery and protect it from overcharging. This will increase the overall lifespan of the battery, which is also very important to get more screen time on your phone in the long run.
It worked for me, and it’ll work for anyone who uses the tricks.
