1.Reduce display brightness of your screen
Although Samsung Galaxy S come with Super AMOLED which is supposedly to reduce your battery consumption but ironically it is one of the biggest battery life eater of your phone. Try to disable Automatic brightness and set it to the lowest level will improve your battery life a lot.
2. Remove unused widget in the menu
You must always remember that the more widget you have, the more battery life will be consumed up especially those widgets that use data connection and auto sync based on schedule. PS: only keep those widgets that you really need.
3.4. Turn off Bluetooth, GPS when idle
Only turn on Bluetooth and GPS when you need it, otherwise please disable it as it will consume your battery resources. Or please ensure that the charger is hook on your device when you turn on the GPS in the car.
5. Turn off 3G data connection, use Wi-Fi instead
Always gets connected with Wi-Fi when available. 3G data connection consume more battery compare to Wi-Fi connection. Turn off both of them when not needed.
6. Ensure you phone have a good signal as poor signal consume more battery life
When the phone is at the poor receiving end it will tend to use more power than usual to increase its signal strength with the communication tower. So it is always good to make sure that your phone has a good signal reception. You can try to switch to 2G if 3G connection signal in your area is poor.
7. Try to disable / reduce auto-sync whenever possible
All you have learned, data connection does consume lot of your battery life. By disabling the background scheduled auto-sync applications like Facebook, Gmail and Twitter can save your phone lot deal of battery life. If you really have to turn on the auto-sync feature in the phone try to reduce the frequency of auto-sync will also help to improve your phone battery life.
8. Disable new Samsung Apps notification
You can turn off new Samsung Apps notification if you not using it.
The configuration can be access through ~ >Settings >Application > Samsung Apps > Off
9. Turn off motion sensor
Only enable the Samsung Galaxy S Motion features that you using and try to disable those you not using like turn over, tilt, panning and double tap, turn them off as it might save your some battery life.
10. Use solid black static wallpaper and no live wallpaper
Most of the phone including Samsung Galaxy S Super AMOLED will tend to use less power on just solid black wallpaper than a lively solid white color based wallpaper because there will be almost no backlight on the screen. Please do bear in mind that a lovely animation live wallpaper will even cost you more battery life as ~ CPU power = battery life.
11. Fully close application that not use
Samsung Galaxy S is a super multitasking mini computer that come with dual-core processor but running a lot of applications at the background can actually increase your battery usage because they all require your phone CPU processing power. So it is advisable to fully close all the background applications that you not needed.
12. Freeze unused bundle applications
Too many original bundle software running in your Samsung Galaxy S? Freeze them… Titanium Backup Pro provide a way for you to freeze away all the stock application like Social Hub, Email, Maps that are running and utilizing your phone processing power even when you’r not using them. Ps: Your phone need to be rooted before you can use the Titanium Backup Pro.
13. Undervolt and underclock You 800Mhz GHz CPU
Aside from display, Samsung Galaxy S′s powerful CPU is one of the reason why your battery life eat up so fast. You can just underclock and undervolt it with SetCPU if you don’t need that much of processing power. Ps: Your phone need to be rooted before you can use the SetCPU.
14.Download and install JuiceDefender
With an amazingly over 5,000,000 downloads recorded so far in the Android market, JuiceDefender will definately extend your the battery life of your Samsung Galaxy S. JuiceDefender pack with powerful and easy to use power manager app that specifically designed to extend the battery life of your Android device. It can automatically and transparently manages the utilisation of your S battery like when to enable and disable the 3G/4G connectivity and WiFi.
JuiceDefender is available in the Android Market for free and if you would like to have a more powerful (customisable) version you can download the add-on JuiceDefender Ultimate for a small fee of $6.83.
15. Use custom ROM / firmware
Custom ROM / firmware offer a lot of optimization and tweaks to improve the performance of your battery life. You can try it out if you feel that after you have tried out all the tips above and your battery still draining too fast. But please be reminded that flashing a custom ROM / firmware will be voiding the warranty provided by Samsung.
Please let me know if there are other tips and tweaks to improve battery life of Samsung Galaxy S/Cappy that I have missed out.
I think #14 is not necessary if you are running a custom ROM
why wouldnt it be?
I believe number 11 has been proven untrue in the fact that killing tasks that the phone will reopen soon after actually reduces battery life hence the reason task killers are bad. Also the captivate only has a single core processor.
Other than that nice work it should help people out.
If you use a stock ROM with no voodoo color built into the kernel, then use full brightness, I do and I get great battery life, the screen isn't the biggest battery life sucker.... this isn't the greatest battery saving thread from what I can see.
Sent from my SGH-I897 using xda premium
Generally good tips, but definitely a few holes here and there.
For example, GPS doesn't drain when 'on', only when certain apps use it, making it pretty safe to keep toggled on all the time.
You can go further with SetCPU and other similar apps but underclocking during screen off, and I think that's helping me save battery in my personal experience.
Having a black wallpaper is good and all, but I feel that doing that is a bit too far in optimizing battery life. What's the point of having a pretty decent screen when all you do is use a black wallpaper?
Or flash Darky rom 10.2 Extreme Edition.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using XDA App
Thank you all for the highlights & suggestions. Just wanted to see what I could do to help those out there with battery drain issues.
Samsung Captivate - ICS 4.0.1
b-eock said:
If you use a stock ROM with no voodoo color built into the kernel, then use full brightness, I do and I get great battery life, the screen isn't the biggest battery life sucker.... this isn't the greatest battery saving thread from what I can see.
Sent from my SGH-I897 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then what is the biggest battery sucker on your phone?
watsa said:
Then what is the biggest battery sucker on your phone?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
on ICS PORT soon to be CM9, android OS is.
Sent from my SGH-I897 using xda premium
b-eock said:
on ICS PORT soon to be CM9, android OS is.
Sent from my SGH-I897 using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is no good, considering the screen should be taking most of the power.
You either arent using your phone or you are crushing batteries in hours.
No I'm using it, Android OS process in ICS includes more than what they do in GB. It last all day (~15 hours with %40 left)
Sent from my SGH-I897 using xda premium
Yeah I have the ICS port, build three, and the battery sucked the first day due to all the downloading and cpu usage, but after that and a full charge and battery diagnostic wipe it was a great life with decent usage on apps and data and messaging with auto brightness
In Point 11, Captivate uses single processor....and killing system apps causes more battery drains....
My limited experience with roms suggests that as roms are works-in-progress their battery life can vary widely. Serenity6.1 has really seemed to be a long life rom.
These steps do make a big difference, also the Beta 2 build for ICS solves a lot of issues that users had with ICS battery life. Honestly if you want even more battery life grab the 3500 mah extended battery off amazon for $10.
jeromechrome1 said:
1.Reduce display brightness of your screen
Although Samsung Galaxy S come with Super AMOLED which is supposedly to reduce your battery consumption but ironically it is one of the biggest battery life eater of your phone. Try to disable Automatic brightness and set it to the lowest level will improve your battery life a lot.
2. Remove unused widget in the menu
You must always remember that the more widget you have, the more battery life will be consumed up especially those widgets that use data connection and auto sync based on schedule. PS: only keep those widgets that you really need.
3.4. Turn off Bluetooth, GPS when idle
Only turn on Bluetooth and GPS when you need it, otherwise please disable it as it will consume your battery resources. Or please ensure that the charger is hook on your device when you turn on the GPS in the car.
5. Turn off 3G data connection, use Wi-Fi instead
Always gets connected with Wi-Fi when available. 3G data connection consume more battery compare to Wi-Fi connection. Turn off both of them when not needed.
6. Ensure you phone have a good signal as poor signal consume more battery life
When the phone is at the poor receiving end it will tend to use more power than usual to increase its signal strength with the communication tower. So it is always good to make sure that your phone has a good signal reception. You can try to switch to 2G if 3G connection signal in your area is poor.
7. Try to disable / reduce auto-sync whenever possible
All you have learned, data connection does consume lot of your battery life. By disabling the background scheduled auto-sync applications like Facebook, Gmail and Twitter can save your phone lot deal of battery life. If you really have to turn on the auto-sync feature in the phone try to reduce the frequency of auto-sync will also help to improve your phone battery life.
8. Disable new Samsung Apps notification
You can turn off new Samsung Apps notification if you not using it.
The configuration can be access through ~ >Settings >Application > Samsung Apps > Off
9. Turn off motion sensor
Only enable the Samsung Galaxy S Motion features that you using and try to disable those you not using like turn over, tilt, panning and double tap, turn them off as it might save your some battery life.
10. Use solid black static wallpaper and no live wallpaper
Most of the phone including Samsung Galaxy S Super AMOLED will tend to use less power on just solid black wallpaper than a lively solid white color based wallpaper because there will be almost no backlight on the screen. Please do bear in mind that a lovely animation live wallpaper will even cost you more battery life as ~ CPU power = battery life.
11. Fully close application that not use
Samsung Galaxy S is a super multitasking mini computer that come with dual-core processor but running a lot of applications at the background can actually increase your battery usage because they all require your phone CPU processing power. So it is advisable to fully close all the background applications that you not needed.
12. Freeze unused bundle applications
Too many original bundle software running in your Samsung Galaxy S? Freeze them… Titanium Backup Pro provide a way for you to freeze away all the stock application like Social Hub, Email, Maps that are running and utilizing your phone processing power even when you’r not using them. Ps: Your phone need to be rooted before you can use the Titanium Backup Pro.
13. Undervolt and underclock You 800Mhz GHz CPU
Aside from display, Samsung Galaxy S′s powerful CPU is one of the reason why your battery life eat up so fast. You can just underclock and undervolt it with SetCPU if you don’t need that much of processing power. Ps: Your phone need to be rooted before you can use the SetCPU.
14.Download and install JuiceDefender
With an amazingly over 5,000,000 downloads recorded so far in the Android market, JuiceDefender will definately extend your the battery life of your Samsung Galaxy S. JuiceDefender pack with powerful and easy to use power manager app that specifically designed to extend the battery life of your Android device. It can automatically and transparently manages the utilisation of your S battery like when to enable and disable the 3G/4G connectivity and WiFi.
JuiceDefender is available in the Android Market for free and if you would like to have a more powerful (customisable) version you can download the add-on JuiceDefender Ultimate for a small fee of $6.83.
15. Use custom ROM / firmware
Custom ROM / firmware offer a lot of optimization and tweaks to improve the performance of your battery life. You can try it out if you feel that after you have tried out all the tips above and your battery still draining too fast. But please be reminded that flashing a custom ROM / firmware will be voiding the warranty provided by Samsung.
Please let me know if there are other tips and tweaks to improve battery life of Samsung Galaxy S/Cappy that I have missed out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Basically dont use your smartphone as a smartphone. Thats what you're saying by turning off all the good features of the phone.
1, 3, 4, 11 are like NO DUH!!!
5. Are you saying use EDGE? It will save some battery, but you have to consider it may take longer to load something, and thus the screen might be on longer, negating savings. Plus, it's a PITA to change back and forth.
6. Other than switching to EDGE, not really in your control.
7. That's stupid. It defeats the whole purpose of having a smartphone.
9. As long as you lock orientation. I doubt it saves much though...
15. YES, that can be HUGE.
Jeffu said:
Having a black wallpaper is good and all, but I feel that doing that is a bit too far in optimizing battery life. What's the point of having a pretty decent screen when all you do is use a black wallpaper?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree. I think a compromise is a better idea. A lot of ROMs have black wallpapers with a small % of extremely brightly colored random or geometric designs, or green android-ish swirls or something that look AMAZING on the AMOLED screen.
Thank you all for your feedback.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
thanks, great guide!
So I recently downloaded SetCPU for my HTC Vivid and I was playing around with it. I was wondering what you guys think about using it for battery savings? Any specific profiles you guys use that work great? I'm trying to prolong the battery life of my device. Flashing a new ROM has helped a lot, but I want to squeeze as much as I can out of it. Is SetCPU really worth using for battery savings or will the extra processing it does to change around the speed cause it to not help me that much?
Idk if this goes in Q/A or not I never had a Q/A section as I came from the amaze but anyway. What battery savers do you guys find best? I Use Batter Defender but doesn't seem to really extend it. Would i be better of not using one at all?
I use 3 programs to help me maximize my battery life.
1) Badass Battery Monitor to figure out what's sucking juice, how long I've left, and how long until I'm full.
2) 2x Battery to manage background data. This probably saves me the most battery by disabling that data transfer a lot of the time.
3) Lux Auto Brightness to tweak my screen brightness. It's pretty much on "dark" now all the time aside for when I'm in really bright light.
JuiceDefender
I use the free version and it's very good!
I think the most effective battery saver is to flash a kernel that has become voltage control features and undervolt the cpu.
Sent using Tapatalk
klin1344 said:
I think the most effective battery saver is to flash a kernel that has become voltage control features and undervolt the cpu.
Sent using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not a fan of under volting the CPU. Mainly because if my understanding of Ohms Law is correct, it's pointless. And my personal experience with it seems to corroborate my feelings.
Under volting the CPU in my experience just introduces stability and reliability issues. I've personally never seen any battery savings from it, especially since the CPU should, theoretically, just draw more current (I) to compensate for the lower voltage (E). It's watts (P = ExI) that matter, and the CPU, if I understand correctly, is going to demand the necessary P for the frequency requested. So under volting either starves the CPU (it can't get enough P), or over currents it (it draws more I to compensate for less E). There are slight variations in each CPU, obviously, which may allow for a margin of under volting to be possible without issue, but the battery savings of this, I feel, are so small, any you notice are most likely a placebo effect. Your screen, and apps constantly polling the CPU or network are your biggest source of battery drain to worry about IMHO.
Sent from my H1S using XDA Premium.
I use Power Controls widget.
Unless I'm actively using internet, I make sure to turn 4G data to 2G. That alone saves so much battery. If I want further battery saved, I disable internet completely with a touch of a widget. Now my phone will last a week just by what phones do best: Making phonecalls and texting.
I'm on 2.1 GHz overclock processor and when battery goes below 30% it goes to 1ghz I can see the battery being saved
Sent from my HTC One S using xda premium
k1llacanon said:
I'm on 2.1 GHz overclock processor and when battery goes below 30% it goes to 1ghz I can see the battery being saved
Sent from my HTC One S using xda premium
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
With an higher frequency the phone will use more power, like a pc processor when you overclock it so this is natural, but overclocking/downclocking has nothing to do with undervolting, MadJoe is right.
With JuiceDefender for example you can set your 3g/4g to shut off when you don't use the phone, it activates 3g/4g when you use your phone and at regular intervals in backgroud so it can fetch emails etc.
All automatic so you don't have to switch off and back on network connection every time.
As network connection is one of the services that consumes the battery a lot this is really effective and really improves battery life!
I've read a lot of complaints about these PowerManagement Apps using more battery life then they safe.
I don't know if this is right.
At the moment I'm running CM9 with modified auto-brightness options, auto-sync and 2G/3G/WIFI always on.
I'm really happy with the battery life I get, so I don't see why you would need a Battery Saver app with this phone.
rickyoon.vegas said:
I use Power Controls widget.
Unless I'm actively using internet, I make sure to turn 4G data to 2G. That alone saves so much battery. If I want further battery saved, I disable internet completely with a touch of a widget. Now my phone will last a week just by what phones do best: Making phonecalls and texting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Heh, so why did you get a smart phone. Some older nokia's that can only talk and text can last for weeks on one charge, if you want a model # I can look it up 4 u.
There isn't much to be said about a less potent battery on CM10/AOSP based roms. Having just started to play with them, I know sync settings, GPS, and wifi sleep policy seem to help me improve battery life. What do you guys do?
Of you have custom kernel, I use setCPU to set two profiles. Screen on and screen off. Avg values for CPU usage/speed when screen on and then minimum values for when screen off. Then the normal, data off when at the house, no Facebook app, auto sync off... all the normal. I usually get decent battery. I'm also using MIUI.
Sent from my One X using xda premium
Hey guys, just interested in everyone's tips and tricks on saving battery life on the S4, both Octo-Core and Quad core variants!
Tips i know:
-Power Saving mode
-turn of Gestures like air view and etc.
-Bluetooth and wifi turned off when not used
-LTE turned off (my carrier doesnt have lte )
-underclock cpu little
Any suggestions?
technolust109 said:
Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Buy a spare battery
Doubles your battery life for around $20!
no money at the momen! haha!!! also would i be sacraficing NFC if i buy a cheap one of ebay? :S or the nfc chip is on the back like the note 2?
turning display brightness down & using the screen less will save battery life.
this thing has a monster battery anyways. im not worried too much about it myself
I prefer using the phone at its full potential so a spare battery would be the best for me.
For normal users:
- Set "Keep WiFi on during sleep" to never.
- Install JuiceDefender app from PlayStore.
-Turn off motion sensors like air view, air gestures.
-Set a dark wallpaper
For rooted users:
-Install the Greenify app from PlayStore. It hibernates app when phone is in deep sleep.
-Underclock your phone
-Wait for someone to make a special kernel on this phone like people did on the Galaxy S3 so you can do many customizations.