Across the spectrum of devices, “how to increase battery life” is a common question. No one wants to make that mad dash to a power outlet to save their laptop before it dies. Whether you work in an office, at home, or in a coffee shop, you need your battery to last.
From laptops and tablets to android phones and iPhones, everyone wants to improve battery life for their device. Thankfully, consistent design improvements to new devices make our batteries last longer as we buy new devices. But unless you consistently (and expensively!) replace your phone, you probably notice that your battery drains faster and faster as your device gets older.
In some cases, solving this is a simple matter of checking your power settings. For older devices, it may require a battery replacement. Let’s take a look at a few ways to improve battery life in laptops and phones.
If you still aren’t sure how to increase battery life in your device, call on HAILaGEEK for some expert help! Our technicians meet you where you are to solve your tech problems.
Before we explore how to improve battery life in a device, it’s good to understand why a lithium battery drains faster over time. These rechargeable batteries power an array of portable electronics, from phones and laptops to electric vehicles.
However, over time, these batteries start to age and degrade. This is an issue that many smartphone and laptop users face. In part, this is due to charge cycles.
A charge cycle is simply the drain and recharge of a battery. When it drains too low to power the device, and then recharges back to 100%, that’s one cycle. Per battery experts, this adds to the aging process of the battery. The more cycles the battery completes, the more it degrades. Unfortunately, this also reduces the capacity of the battery. That’s because the capacity reduces over time, so what “100% of the battery” actually means after a few months of cycles is less than what “100% of the battery” means when it’s brand new.
When it comes to increasing battery life, it’s crucial to avoid bad charging habits. How you charge your device plays a major role in the lifespan of your battery. Here are a few habits to avoid, along with the good habits to follow, when you want to improve the battery life on your device.
• Don’t charge your phone all night. This causes harm to the battery over time. Instead, unplug your charger from the phone when you wake up in the middle of the night, or charge your phone during the day.
• Avoid cheap, third-party chargers. In many cases, they prove fatal to your battery as well as the device. When buying a charger, check for the MFi (made for iPhone) logo, or better yet, buy another original brand charger that matches your phone brand. It’s worth the extra $5 to $15 when you compare it to the $50+ cost of replacing your battery.
• Try to keep your battery between 20-80% charged
• Avoid using your phone while it charges. Heat is one of the top enemies of battery life. Charging creates heat, and using the phone creates more heat, so often, this doing these together causes the device to overheat.
• As much as possible, use the charger that came with your device or an official replacement.
• Avoid high temperatures, such as direct sunlight. For example, if you like to keep your phone at eye level in your car, try to point an air conditioning vent its direction to keep it cool. If your phone will be under direct sunlight, place something between it and the sun to give it some shade.
“Why is my phone dying so fast?!” HAILaGEEK technicians hear this question a lot. There are many reasons for a battery to drain faster. Above, we mentioned a few of the main culprits. However, there are still an array of factors to consider.
Your battery life is affected by how you use your device, how you charge it, the apps you use, and what’s running in the background. While some of this may seem like common sense, people often don’t realize how many apps run without their knowledge.
If you want to increase battery life on your phone, check how your phone uses power. Android phones have a “Battery Usage” section in the settings that shows the details of power consumption:
• Go to Settings, Find and click on “About Device”, and Choose “Battery” or “Battery Use”
Or
• Go to settings, search for “battery usage”, and click on “battery usage.”
Now you can see what apps and systems consume the most battery. From there, uninstall apps that you don’t use, or look at what you can turn off on some apps - such as “run in background” permission, notifications and pop-ups.
Another way to improve short battery life is to adjust some of the display settings. Here are a few suggestions.
• Reduce the screen brightness and turn off auto-brightness. Instead, opt to manually set it at a lower level and adjust whenever necessary.
• Most of the latest devices have a Dark Mode for certain apps and even in the system. On many phones, this option helps to improve battery life.
• Reduce the timeout for Sleep. This ensures that your screen shuts off faster and doesn’t stay on at unnecessary times. Often, the shortest timeout is 15 seconds. Choose the shortest timeout that works for you.
Once you open an app, it keeps running in the background - even when you navigate away from it. Apps you’ve opened continue to run and drain your battery. When you want to know how to increase battery life in your phone, it’s important to stay vigilant about these silent battery drainers.
Depending on your device, you can often see what’s running in the background simply by swiping up on the home screen. On other phones, one of the buttons at the bottom of the screen shows you all the running apps. From there, swipe away any apps you don’t need running in the moment, using up your battery life.
When you want to extend battery life and know you’ll be stuck away from your charger, power save mode comes in handy. This mode automatically reduces an array of functions that eat away at battery life.
Many of the latest phones offer multiple options, such as Optimized and High Performance. Regardless, when you enable battery saving mode, it disables non-essential features in your device. This does wonders for reducing the battery’s burden.
While the screen may seem a little duller in battery saving mode, it helps to extend short battery life. To enable power saving, swipe down to your phone’s quick settings screen, and turn on Battery Saver or Power Save Mode.
Ultimately, when you want to know how to increase battery life, it’s important to remember every battery has an expiration date. If your phone has a short battery life after 2-3 years of use, it’s likely you need to replace the battery.
Oftentimes, you can check the health status of your battery as it charges. Visit Settings > About Device > Battery Status. If it shows “poor” or similar status, this double-confirms that it’s time to replace the battery.
Luckily, battery replacements help to extend the lifespan of your phone. Moreover, they’re usually far more affordable than a brand new phone.
When you’re ready to replace your phone’s battery, get a technician from HAILaGEEK. Our reliable, trusted technicians meet you where you are right now.
Whether you want to replace the battery or figure out how to increase battery life, a HAILaGEEK technician will be there in a jiffy to make things right.
The inconvenient truth is that Mac and PC laptop batteries frequently don’t last as long as the manufacturer advertises. When manufacturers specify a long-lasting battery, several specific factors are being assumed:
• Power settings
• How many apps run
• The temperature of the room
Thankfully, much of this is easy to sort out once you understand how to adjust your settings. Here are a few low effort ways to extend the short battery life in your laptop.
For Windows users who want to know how to increase battery life, there’s a pretty handy solution. The Windows 10 battery performance slider groups together settings that impact battery life into a few categories.
While Microsoft controls what the slider does, here are a few things to keep in mind.
• Best Performance: Improves speed and responsiveness in exchange for a shorter battery runtime. This does not stop apps in the background from consuming power.
• Better Performance: Limits resources for apps in the background but continues to prioritize power over efficiency.
• Better Battery: Deliveries an extended battery life over the default or recommended settings.
• Battery Saver: This appears when your laptop is unplugged. It reduces the brightness of the display, prevents updates, and stops the Mail app from syncing. Additionally, it suspends most apps in the background.
With Apple laptops, you don’t get the battery performance slider. However, some of the same settings are available via Energy Saver in your Settings. If you want to know how to increase battery life in your MacBook, here are a few tips.
Use Spotlight (the magnifying glass) to search for Energy Saver. Click on the Battery tab from there.
If your goal is similar to the Better Battery or Battery Saver modes, check these options.
• “Put hard disks to sleep when possible.”
• “Slightly dim the display while on battery power.”
Additionally, be sure to uncheck the option “enable power nap while on battery power.” Disabling this option keeps your MacBook asleep until you choose to wake it.
So, if you want to increase battery life, should you use Battery Saver all the time?
Not quite. This mode tends to disable useful features when your battery falls below 20%. Similarly, when you turn off Power Nap, it takes longer to catch up on notifications you miss when you walk away from your laptop.
Today, many laptop batteries require less maintenance than those from a decade ago. This is thanks to software and firmware innovations as well as improvements to the battery itself.
However, heat still hastens the demise of a battery. When you want to know how to increase battery life for your laptop, think long-term.
Unfortunately, some laptop designs obstruct ventilation ports in certain conditions depending on how we work or how often we clean our laptops. For instance, dust buildup is a common issue.
Periodically, take a can of compressed air and clear out the dust from vents and ports.
Additionally, it’s important to consider how you use your laptop. Sometimes, people set the device on a blanket or pillow. While comfy for us, this obstructs the ventilation fan and retains heat in the system.
To avoid this, use your laptop only on a firm surface that doesn’t flex. Opt for a desk or table, or even a firm flat food tray, instead of your blanket or legs.
From phones and tablets to laptops, there are plenty of causes for short battery life. If you want personalized, help figuring out how to increase the battery life in your device, HAILaGEEK is here to help!
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vendor, HAILaGEEKTM engages 3 skilled techs to review disputed jobs and assess the quality of the work