Best tips to extend battery life on your Samsung Galaxy S4 and S5

Looking for ways to get the most out of your Samsung Galaxy S4’s or S5’s battery day in and day out? Read on.

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Every smartphone’s clear weakness today is its battery, plain and simple. While there are tons of hypes on how awesome the “specs” of the most recent flagship phones like the number of cores and processors, the colors, brightness and sharpness of displays, and the high number of MPs for front and rear cameras, no single smartphone manufacturer put an the same level of emphasis on the battery, or so it seems. Existing battery technology being utilized for smartphones have real capacity limitations that the only way to add more juice is by enlarging it physically. The good thing is that it does not need rocket science to lengthen the life of our smartphone’s lithium-ion battery; there are some basic ways to squeeze more juice out of your device’s battery. Scroll down below and see some tips that you can do give your battery that much needed longer-lasting power everyday.

Avoid heat. As is true with all electronic devices, heat must be minimized at all cost. This rule also applies if you want to keep the life of your battery to last years. A smartphone’s battery loses its capacity to retain a charge significantly faster when it is exposed to heat often. Even if left unused, a battery exposed to heat degrades quickly overtime, robbing it of its much needed life for your convenience.

It is generally agreed that today’s smartphone batteries should last longer if kept cool most of the time. Although it can never be avoided, try to make a conscious effort, if possible, to keep your phone away from any heat sources. Leaving your phone inside hot cars will obviously not help.

Recharge often. A common misconception about lithium-ion batteries being used on your Samsung Galaxy S4 or S5 is the idea that a user must fully drain it first before charging it to its fullest again lest  it will “forget” part of its capacity. This charging technique is actually applicable to the older battery type–nickel-based battery–but not anymore for lithium-ion type.

Basically, your phone’s battery must be charged whenever you have the chance to do it, everyday.

It is recommended that you leave your battery more than 50% of its capacity all the time to get the most out of it. Going from full to empty will not help, and can even cause a degree of degradation, shortening a battery’s life. You still can do a single full discharge, like once every month, to keep it “calibrated”, but for the most part you must maintain north of 50% charge.

Just be mindful not to over extend the charging times everyday. If left for longer periods, overcharging can also cause excess heat so make sure to keep charging bursts regulated. Leaving your phone plugged in to the wall outlet long after it has been fully charges can also cause a bit of degradation.

Just remember that tiny charges will do throughout the day.

Don’t use wireless chargers. Sure, wireless charging is blessed by Samsung on its S5 but we recommend that you don’t use it. Wireless charging may appear convenient to some we believe its disadvantages far outweigh the advantages. For starters, wireless chargers, even the official Samsung one generates a fair amount of excess heat that will hurt the life of your battery in the long run. As discussed, more heat reaching the battery above its recommend tolerance means degradation, so unless you are not bothered by the thought of buying a new Samsung Galaxy S5 battery every few months we say you stay away from it.

Wireless charging, if left for a long periods often, can also possible cause the battery to bulge out of shape or even explode. Although it’s less convenient, going by wired charging is still the best option for topping off your battery at this time.

Disconnect mobile data/Wi-Fi when not needed. Don’t forget to turn off mobile data or Wi-Fi when you don’t need an Internet connection. Also, if your area has a really nasty habit of dropping mobile connectivity, try to use a solid Wi-Fi connection if available. Even if you can afford paying high mobile data fees, switching to a good Wi-Fi connection when available can save you some minutes on your phone’s battery as well as mitigate shortening the life expectancy of your beloved battery. Your device sweats a little more every time it tries to connect and maintain the connection to your data network compared to when linked to a Wi-Fi.

Use screen timeout feature. Although this feature is not unique to your phone, a timer tied to your display can be a real battery saver. Always set your display to shut off when you’re not using your phone. Some apps can override this feature of course so be mindful of when to use it. For example, most apps that allows you to watch movies or read something will disable this functionality so your screen will not go dark in the middle of your activity.

Your S4 or S5 allows you to shut the screen off automatically after 15 seconds.

Lower down screen brightness. If there’s one thing that sucks your S4’s or S5’s battery really fast, it’s the display. Your Samsung Galaxy S5 uses millions of pixels to render movies, pictures, and anything you want to see on your device and entire process can drain the battery quicker if left unchecked. Try to lower down the display brightness to the lowest level comfortable for you. If you can’t decide on the brightness yourself, consider using the “Auto adjust screen tone” option that Samsung offers. You will be surprised how much more time you can use your phone in a day  when this is enabled.

Use Power-saving mode. Recognizing the need to help users manage their smartphone batteries better, Samsung is the first in the industry to equip their flagship phone with  an automatic power-saving feature. In an S5, there are actually two options to save power–the basic Power-saving mode, and the Ultra power-saving mode.

The first one basically restricts background data to prevent manual syncing of apps to servers, disables GPS, lowers screen frame rate, and slows down processor speed.

On the other hand, Ultra power-saving mode dramatically cuts down on power consumption on your device by disabling many features making a smartphone what it is. This includes disabling fancy colors on the screen, preventing a few apps from running, and turning off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connections. Ultra power-saving mode effectively turns your S5 into a dumb phone but if you want to continue using it for basic functions like making a call or sending text messages, this is definitely the way to go.

 

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