How to Make Your Phone and Laptop Battery Last Longer
We’ve all been there — running from meeting to meeting, juggling obligations with personal life, and we finally get ten minutes for ourselves. We decide we’re going to check our email or make a phone call when — surprise, surprise — we find out our laptop or phone has run out of battery.
Batteries are important to us because we use our devices on a daily basis to keep organized, stay in touch, and remember everything we need to do. So when our devices run out of battery, we tend to panic.
So for your convenience, we’ve put together a small list of tips and tricks to help you save on your battery life. Each one will make your battery last longer, so try one or all of them to see the difference it can make on your device today!
Use Power-Saving Mode
This tip can save you when your device is running on empty. Power-saving mode is available on any device and will put your device into sleep mode when you’re not using it, saving power for when you do use it. Just go to settings, enable it, and forget it! It’s that easy.
Turn Off Programs That Run in the Background
Did you know that some programs run in the background of your laptop or cell phone, even if you’re not using it? If you didn’t know, don’t worry. Most of us don’t realize it until we’re stuck at the local coffee shop, wondering how our fully charged battery is done after only a few hours of work.
The truth is that our devices run apps in the background continuously to keep us up-to-date on things. This is especially true for mail, social media, and messaging apps on any device. Because these apps need information from the internet, the device keeps them running — using battery power — in order to give us the most recent information.
So how can you combat this? Sit down and look at your applications through a battery monitoring program. From this program or your device’s settings, you can set what programs run in the background. Choose the least important ones and turn off background refresh to save you some battery.
On a side note — every app that you have enabled to send push notifications to a device is using power. Choose what you receive notifications from wisely.
Learn to Single-Task
Hear me out on this one — multitasking on any device drains your battery’s power. It’s absolutely true. When you’re emailing friends and you have two or more programs open at the same time, your device has to generate more power to keep up with how fast you’re working.
This is true for phones as well. When you switch back and forth from a productivity app to a messaging app and then to a social media app, your phone leaves those apps open, using power to keep all three apps running at the same time. This is for your benefit — you’re always guaranteed that you come back to where you left off on any given app.
But if you want to save your battery power, stop multitasking. It’s hard for all of us, especially since we have so much to do, but it will be better for you and your phone in the end.
Screen Brightness Matters
Okay, this might seem like such a small matter, but it really does help — dimming your screen’s brightness or using auto-brightness can save your battery. And if you think about it, it makes sense — the brighter the screen, the more power is needed to keep the screen that bright.
You can control the brightness on your laptop through settings. Each laptop is different, but this setting is generally found in the display or general settings. On phones, it can usually be accessed from the touchscreen. Both devices do allow you to set the brightness or let you choose auto-brightness, which lets the screen dim in bright settings.
Monitor Battery Usage
The great thing about technology advancements is that it not only helps you do everything more efficiently, it can also make your devices more efficient. This includes apps and programs for both laptops and phones that can monitor — and to a certain extent, limit — battery usage.
There are a variety of management programs for every type of device. These programs, some of which are free, can help you learn what programs use power even when you’re not using them and can even be configured to stop programs from eating your device’s power.
For smartphones, this is doubly important, especially when you’re juggling school runs, morning meetings, and social life obligations. Installing one of these apps can save your phone from dying when you need it the most, so research which app is best for your devices and start saving power now!
We have come to rely on our devices, and we spend a lot of time dodging that dreaded notification that lets us know they’re about to die. But by using these tips, you can save yourself time and stress, so try them out now! And if you come across other tricks, let us know in the comments before and share your knowledge!
Bio –
MightySkins was generous enough to provide this guest post. MightySkins is a company making custom vinyl skins for electronics such as Alienware skins, laptop skins and phone skins.