8 ways to extend your Samsung Galaxy phone’s battery life
Smartphones come with larger battery capacities than they did a few years ago. Samsung’s Ultra smartphones, for example, have cells so massive that you rarely have to worry about draining to zero before it’s possible to recharge. However, the same can’t be said for regular Galaxy flagships and mid-range devices. Depending on your usage, you can get anywhere from poor to decent battery life. If you’re looking to improve this, there are a few actions you can take.
1. Turn off or modify Always On Display
Android devices have hadAlways On Displayfor some time now. As the name implies, it keeps your Samsung device’s screen on, showing the time, date, battery percentage, unread notification icons, and a fancy animation — albeit in a low power state. It’s a great way to tell the time and see your unread or missed notificationsat a glance, but it negatively impacts battery life.
Disabling Always On Display will significantly improve your Galaxy device’s battery life. Simply navigate toSettings>Lock screenand toggle off the feature. However, if you want the best of both worlds (better battery life with Always On Display enabled), you can change the settings from Show always to Tap to show for 10 seconds. That means the display will only turn on after you touch the screen. You can also set it to show merely when you have new notifications, orschedule it, just as you can with dark mode.
2. Switch the display to 60Hz and HD+ resolution
Samsung offers several display settings that can you can tweak for a better viewing experience. On Galaxy flagships, you get motion smoothness and screen resolution options, while mid-rangers like the Galaxy A72 andGalaxy A525G offer the former. Setting Motion Smoothing to Standard and screen resolution to HD+ should give the best battery life if you don’t mind the poorer visuals.
Navigate toSettings>Display>Motion smoothnessand selectStandardto change the screen refresh rate to 60Hz. For resolution, head toSettings>Display>Screen resolutionand tapHD+.
If you own aGalaxy S21 UltraorGalaxy S22 Ultrawith an LTPO display, you won’t have to worry much about battery consumption from the high refresh rate. Both phones can adapt between 10–120Hz and 1–120Hz respectively, depending on what you’re doing.
3. Use dark mode
Samsung is widely regarded as the king of smartphone displays.Its OLEDsare crisp-looking, punchy, and beautiful, to say the least — especially when paired with a 120Hz refresh rate and a Quad HD+ resolution like on the Galaxy S22 Ultra. Apart from all that screen viewing goodness, OLEDs can also help save battery life.
Unlike LCDs, OLEDs don’t have a backlight and, as a result, draw less power when displaying dark-colored pixels. That said, the difference in battery saving may not be noticeable at lower brightness levels. However,if you use your screen with the brightness cranked up, you’ll get a significantly longer battery lifeonce you’ve made the switch. There’s also the advantage of improved readability and reduced eye strain. Enable dark mode by heading over toSettings>Displayand tapping theDarkoption at the top.
4. Use Power Saving Mode
Nothing can maximize battery juice on your device like the power-saving mode. Once enabled, it’ll limit background network usage, syncing, and location checking and change the refresh rate to 60Hz. If you’re not entirely satisfied with that, you can further extend battery life by toggling on options to:
it’s possible to turn on Power Saving Mode by navigating toSettings>Battery and Device care>Battery>Power saving. You can also use the Quick Settings panel to enable it faster.
5. Put unused apps to sleep
Samsung’s Power Saving Mode imposes several limitations across various aspects of your device. If you want something more specific, the Sleep Mode for apps is an option. Once turned on, the system automatically places unused apps to sleep (they’ll run minimally in the background) or deep sleep (they won’t run in the background at all). you’re able to also manually add apps to either.
The sleeping apps will remain in your app drawer or home screen and will only leave that state when you open them. Simply head over toSettings>Battery and Device care>Battery>Background usage limitsto enable it.
6. Uninstall or disable unused apps
Some apps run background processes that can take a toll on battery life. Sleep mode is great, but uninstalling might be the best option if you have apps that you often don’t use. You can do this by:
Samsung is still big on bundling in-house and even third-party apps with your smartphone. Unfortunately, some of them cannot be uninstalled (at least not directly). However, you can disable them to improve battery life. Simply go toSettings>Apps> select an app>tapDisable.
7. Disable Nearby Device Scanning
Nearby Device Scanning causes your Samsung phone to periodically search for devices within reach and show a notification when it detects one, so you can connect your phone to them. This feature can be useful, but it’s not all that necessary for an enhanced user experience. Plus, it could make atinydent in battery life.
If you’ve already paired your commonly used accessories like wireless headphones and speakers to your device, you might as well turn off Nearby Device Scanning to improve battery life. Simply navigate toSettings>Connections>More connection settingsand toggle off the feature.
The benefits to disabling this feature probably won’t be huge, but if you want to do everything it’s possible to to save power, it’s an extra step you can take.
8. Use Bixby Routines to save battery
Most people don’t likeSamsung’s Bixby, and it’s not hard to see why. While it’s great for offline functions and in-device searches, it’s not as sophisticated as theGoogle Assistantin terms of intelligence and context.Bixby Routines, on the other hand, are a different matter. They offer certain useful triggers for automating tasks.
Speaking of automation, you can set up a Bixby Routine to automatically activate Power Saving Mode at night if your device isn’t plugged in. You can also set it to decrease screen timeout, or turn off mobile data or Wi-Fi. You can even set specific routines based on your daily commute or when traveling — the possibilities are endless. You can access Bixby Routines in your Galaxy device by heading toSettings>Advanced features>Bixby Routines.
Some of these suggestions, such as those relating to dark mode and Always On Display, apply to most recent Android phones, while those involving Bixby Routines are Samsung-specific. Regardless of which Galaxy device you own, you can use these tips to improve your battery life and get more out of a single charge.
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