Modern Battery Life

It is mentioned a lot that batteries dont last as long as they should and furthermore charging your phone every day is a pain. The problem is, we expect more from our digital devices than ever before.

There are hundreds of complaints on forums about phones not lasting more than a day without needing to be charged and comparisons to old Nokia 3310's that "never ran out of battery" so lets have a look at the top ways to reduce the eternal escape from a charging cable.

1. Dim the screen
While technology has gotten smaller over the years, actually take a second to think about how big the screen was on say a Nokia 3310. Its nothing in comparisson to the glorius "look ma' - no pixels" screens of today but the power usage is phenominal and when you consider how much the backlight uses to show your phone in full daylight - its incredible how much can be saved by dimming it by just 5-10%.

2. Location services
Now everywhere you go, your phone tries to keep up and act as a virtual assistant and give you useful information as to where you are and whats around. That's brilliant but not everything needs it. Apps like Facebook get your location information every time you go to make a post and keeps your location "warm" somtimes allowing them to quickly find your location. This does mean receiving data from 9-12 satellites and running some fairly simple maths to calculate your location. Obviosuly however, this on a minutely basis can suck battery life. Even background apps and services - looking at you Siri and Google Maps.

3. Turn off 4G
Woohoo - 4G internet is great but if you live in an area without 4G and you know it - turn it off. The searching for a 4G signal takes up a large chunk of power.

4. Get an external battery
Now with most modern phones, they charge over USB and this has the advantage of being able to buy a battery pack which you can simply throw in your bag for when you are caught short. Personally I have an external battery pack by New Trent and I get a load of iPhone charges out of it and even enough for a few iPad ones.

5. Use your phone less
People seem to forget the age old trick of you were not always on Facebook, Snapchatting, Tweeting, Instagramming and you didn't have 4G access to terabytes of cat pictures. Its amazing how many people spend their time absorbed in a fake reality while ignoring whats around them.