- HubPages»
- Technology»
- Communications»
- Smartphones»
- Android Phones
How to Increase Battery Life of Samsung Galaxy S4
Samsung Galaxy S4 boasts a 2600 mAh battery. But it is not enough for the huge 5 inch super AMOLED HD screen with 441 ppi pixel density and the quad-core 1.6 GHz processor. The extra functions and the “innovations” added to this device has also increased its thirst for more and more power.
To increase the battery life of the Samsung Galaxy S4 you can follow the tips provided below. With these tips you can easily get 20 % to 30% more run time.
The SGS4 needs charging every night and it is the standard for most of the smart phones nowadays. But a modern complex Android phone is equipped with so many features and services that can draw a lot of power, but you do not need them. Below I have tried to figure out those to help you.
Vote!
Which between the two is better?
Check the Culprits
First you need to find out what is draining your battery most. Go to settings by sweeping the notification tray from above. Find out the Battery tab. You can see the list of things which drink the battery juice. You can most probably see the screen is the principle consumer. You will also see more drunkards in the list. If you play many games or surf the internet much, then you can see the related apps or games gulping considerable amount of energy.
External Battery Charger for SGS4
What will you do, if you went on a trekking for 2 days and nights on a hill far away from the madding crowd? How will your phones be alive until you bring yourself back to the civilization?
In that case, you have only one solution. An external battery pack. As for example, 12000mAh Portable Charger External Battery Pack made by Powebank is a very popular portable cellphone charger. It is 12000 mAh, so it is capable of charging your Galaxy S4 more than once. The charging is pretty fast. It also supports various other phone models and tablets. This power bank will charge your phone fast. You can charge an iPhone and a Samsung Galaxy side by side with it.
Control the Screen
You need to take control of the screen and let it become more diet conscious. The massive AMOLED display with all the bells and whistles need constant stream of current to maintain its glitters. But, you need to be more practical and so set the display brightness to a lower level. It can be done it easily if you have a battery widget in the home screen. The widget has three presets, high, medium and low. If you are not in the open daylight or sit very close to it, you do not need the full brightness. You can select the screen luminosity level as low as comfortable. This step will sure improve your Samsung Galaxy S4’s battery life.
Not only the brightness level, for maximize the battery power saving you need to lower the screen timeout. Decrease the screen time out and the phone screen will be off quickly.
Disable the Useless Super Cools
Samsung Galaxy S4 is known for some cool extra features. One of such feature is Air Gesture. If you are trying to impress everybody around and catch a girlfriend in your net then you need this feature. Otherwise, just disable it from the settings menu to save power. Sweep the notification bar, go to settings and disable such useless services.
Wi-Fi
If you do not use Wi-Fi much then you do not need to keep this service running for all time. If enabled, it will make your Galaxy S4 to scan regularly in search of Wi-Fi signals. Find out and switch Wi-Fi off. You can open it when you need to have use the Wi-Fi.
Bluetooth
Bluetooth is a digital radio transmitting and receiving system. By default the phone’s Bluetooth service is enabled from the startup. The Bluetooth radio will draw considerable chunk of power. You do not need to keep it always open. Disable the service.
The SGS4 uses push mail system. The email will be delivered instantly. But do you need such real time mails? Are you a very busy man who gets important email messages at the rate of 100+ ? If you are not, then open the email settings and change the update time.
NFC
I don’t think this NFC thing will be a very useful one to you and so you need not have to let it run all time in the background
Sync
The auto syncing of various apps will eat the battery very soon as well as your capped data. Facebook and Twitter will be constantly updated. If you are not a so-called “Social Media Superstar” then you can make the processes less often.
In the Facebook app you can see the option of Refresh Interval from settings. Make it 1 hour and you shall be fine. There is also a similar function in Twitter settings.
You need to check such other constantly syncing apps to take appropriate actions.
Do not Allow Push Ads
Many free android apps use push ads like Airpush. Whenever you go to download something free from the Play Store, read the review section to find out that app has such feature or not. The push adds run constantly at the background and fetch advertisements from the internet to show on your notification bar. Use an app to find out which apps are doing so. Uninstall them and save a good amount of juice.
Samsung Galaxy S4 Video Review
Use a Black Theme
The black is the most power efficient color for an AMOLED display. This is because this type of displays is made of millions of tiny lights. Black means the lights are dim or completely off.
Use black or dark colored wallpaper. Use of blacks everywhere will give you some extra juice after the end of the day.
Live Wallpapers
Say “No” to the Live Wallpapers. These things are pleasing to the eye and very cool. But these are apps which will run constantly in the background. I don't think that a live wallpaper is a very essential app. So disable them and save some battery life for your Galaxy S4.
Airplane Mode
When you do not need the phone for a long time, like when you are going to sleep, put the phone in Airplane mode. Airplane mode will cut all the signal radios and thus will save a lot of power.
Power Saver Mode
Samsung Galaxy S4 has a built-in power saver mode. When you are running out of battery, use this mode. It will cap the max CPU speed and limit the number of services to save juice.
Power Saving Apps
There are some apps available in the market, which are designed to save battery power on an Android phone. One such very popular app is Juice defender. These apps can automate the power saving tasks and so make it easier for you to get extra time out of your phone.