The battery continues to be one of the aspects that matter most to users today. Battery technology remains the same as 20 years ago, it has not advanced at any time. Fortunately, due to battery limitations, the main manufacturers have got down to work.
For some time now, the main processor manufacturers have been incorporating nuclei dedicated to energy efficiency of the devices. This energy efficiency is also found in both iOS and Android, by software developers, they are also doing their bit.
How long does an average battery last?
Depending on how we use the smartphone, the battery may last more or less time. It is not the same to charge the phone every day, every day and a half or every two. If you charge it every day, chances are that after two years, you will be forced to change the battery.
Another factor that affects battery life is the charging system that we use. It is not the same to charge a smartphone with wireless or cable charging for a year (between 5 and 10w) than with a higher power charger (there are up to 50w).
What factors affect the battery of a smartphone?
Public enemy 1 of batteries is heatr. In the last 3 years, we have seen how most manufacturers have adopted wireless charging, a slow charging system (between 5 and 10w). This charging method is ideal for charging the device at night, as we are not in a rush to charge the phone to rush to work.
The problem is found in cheap wireless chargers. When choosing a wireless charger, do not opt for the first charger that we find on offer for 10 or 15 euros, since in 99% of cases, they do not use quality components and the base heats up during its operation. use, heat that is transferred to the terminal and eventually ends up taking a toll on the battery.
As it is increasingly common to find smartphones with a wireless charging system, we can also find models that offer a fast charging system. Fast charging (from 20w) is fine for certain occasions when we are in a hurry to charge our smartphone, since it allows us to charge it in a few minutes to practically half its capacity (depending on the power of the charger).
The problem that this charging system offers us is heat. During the process, the terminal gets very hot and in a relatively short time, we will be forced to change the battery. Until the technology found inside the batteries does not change, devices compatible with this fast charging system are not an option.
Most phones have a security system that when they detect that they are heating up, they stop charging until the temperature is optimal again. This problem appears many times in summer, since the heat of the environment is added to that produced by the charger.
Reasons why the battery drains too fast
Too bright
The screen is always one of the components that affects the battery life the most, but not exclusively. If we use the screen with the maximum brightness, battery consumption will be much higher that if we have them activated automatically, since depending on the ambient light, it automatically modifies the brightness.
Another aspect that we must take into account to reduce the battery consumption of our terminal through the screen, is set how long the terminal screen stays on when we are not using it. If you have the habit of not locking your smartphone when you stop using it, you should take this small adjustment into account.
OLED screen
OLED screens are not only characterized by offering more realistic colors, but also have a particularity related to the battery of the devices and that is linked to their operation. OLED screens are made up of LEDs, LEDs that they only light to show a color other than black.
If the color you have to display is black, that LED will not light. If the interface of the application, and also the system, is dark, battery consumption can be reduced by up to 40%Since the entire screen is not illuminated to display images, something that happens with traditional LCD panels.
Background apps
Background apps are the applications that are always open in the terminal, although they run in the foreground. Among these types of applications we find WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, Facebook, weather applications, Gmail, Outlook ... applications that notify us instantly every time we receive a message, notification or email.
Most of these applications are optimized to offer very low consumption in the background. When I say the majority, I mean the majority, since Facebook continues to be today one of the applications that consume the most battery in the background, hence it is increasingly common for users to use the web version to access to this platform.
To check what is the battery consumption of the applications that we have installed on our equipment, we must access the battery section and check the percentage displayed next to the app (feature available on both iOS and Android). If the consumption is very high for the little use we make of it, it is clear that the application has a serious performance problem and we must quickly uninstall it and look for other alternatives.
Poor coverage
If we are in an area where coverage varies between 3G and 4G networks, the battery of our terminal suffers excessively, since continually forced to search for a network to connect to. If you know that you are going to spend a few hours in an area with coverage problems, unless it is strictly necessary to have internet, the best we can do is select a 2G network.
If it is not possible by the operator, we must select the 3G network, a network that continues to have more coverage than 4G networks. In this way, when you are in areas where coverage varies greatly, your device's battery will not be affected.
Application launcher
The customization layer that some manufacturers include is not always to everyone's taste and many prefer to use third-party launchers. If we talk about a quality launcher, we have to talk about Nova Launcher, the best that we can currently find in the Play Store.
If you are looking for other free alternatives (Nova Launcher is paid) it is likely that the application is not well optimized and your device suffer from high battery consumption, so as far as possible, if you want to customize the aesthetics of your device, you should only trust this application.
Location always on
All smartphones include a GPS chip that allows use navigation apps primarilyAlthough it is also used so that weather applications know our location and show us the data related to our position.
However, it is also used by third-party applications, applications that without any functional justification, continually make use of localization to collect data that they sell to third parties to target advertising.
Within the iOS and Android Settings, we can know which are the applications that have access to our location. When accessing this section, we must check if the applications shown (all of them have access to the GPS) really have a reason to do so. If an application is using GPS, a satellite image will be displayed at the top of the screen.
Animated wallpapers
In the Play Store we can find a large number of applications that allows us fix a movie clip to the bottom of the screen Of start. The problem with these funds is that they affect battery consumption a lot. This does not mean that you cannot use animated backgrounds on the home screen, but if they reflect very slight movement, all the better.
Turn off some notifications
Many are the games and applications that for no apparent reason, request permission to send us notifications. If we have the habit of giving permission to all applications, at the end of the day we can receive a large number of them, many of which are not related to the messaging applications we use, or mail applications, so their usefulness it is zero for the user but it affects battery consumption.
The Hz of the display
The more Hz, the better. At a higher number of Hz, on screen a higher number of images are displayed per second. Currently, many are the smartphones that offer us a 120 Hz screen. The higher the number of Hz, the battery consumption is higher.
To avoid that the display is always working at 120 Hz, manufacturers implement a automatic system that is responsible for modifying the refresh rate, although we can deactivate it and manually manage its operation.
Where the highest number of Hz is most noticeable is in games, where the higher the number of fps (frames per second) we will enjoy a higher quality. A clear example is found in PC gamers, whose computers usually use a 240 Hz or 144 Hz monitor.
Disconnecting bluetooth and Wi-Fi does not affect consumption
Before the popularization of smartphones, one of the measures that many users did was disconnect bluetooth connection to prevent the battery of our device from inexplicably draining.
But, just as the power consumption technology of processors has advanced, bluetooth technology has also advanced a lot in recent years, so that the battery consumption in smartphones is negligible.
Three-quarters of the same thing happens with Wi-Fi. The battery consumption of the Wi-Fi connection is negligible compared to the consumption of the device when connecting to mobile networks.
Neither close applications
One of the methods many users use to free up memory on your devices is to close the applications that are open in the background. This process is useless at all, since the system reopens them again as configured in the system.
Hence, continually closing background apps all it does is consume more batteryas the system reopens it automatically. If we really do not want the application to reopen, we must disable the operation of the application in the background.
Solution to most problems: restore device
One of the fastest and easiest solutions for solve the problem of high battery consumption is to reset the device from scratch. In this way, all the applications that we have installed are deleted, eliminating the remains of other applications that we have previously installed and deleted, but that have kept some residual files on the device.