This article provides some simple tips to help you lengthen the time between charges. Your battery's capacity will decrease as it gets older too, so these tips will help maintain that capacity for longer.

New phone, charge it first!

When you get your new phone there may be some residual charge on the battery which allows you to power your phone on. In order to achieve the longest battery life it's recommended that you fully charge your phone before proceeding with regular usage. This is also applicable for any new battery.

What can I do to make my battery last longer?

There are some basic settings that you can adjust that won't impact on how you use your mobile but will decrease battery use.

• Screen brightness - If there's an option for auto brightness, switch it on or simply lower the brightness of your screen.
• Screen or Auto lock - Shorten the time until your phone locks, so the screen turns off sooner.
• Connections - if you're not using them, switch them off
  
  • Bluetooth
  • GPS
  • Wi-Fi
  • Mobile data
• Background tasks - things like Facebook updates, emails, calendar updates can all be scheduled so think about how often you need (or want) to get those.
• Background apps - not using them? Quit them!
• Features - live wallpapers, parallax effects, vibrations etc will all use your battery, if you don't need them, switch them off. For examples, set your phone to silent but keep in view in case of an incoming call.

Quite a few of these tips are built into power-saving settings already available - check for your mobile in our online Device Guides to find out how to set up power saving options.
It's worth noting that some things such as video calling will put a big demand on your mobile's display screen and its processor. As a result, Video Calling typically draws power at 5 times the rate of a voice call.

Apps that might help you save battery life

You might get more life from your mobile battery by reducing background phone usage with these helpful apps:
Android: Battery Defender, which is FREE to download from Google Play
iOS/iPhone: Battery Doctor, which is FREE to download from the App store

Check your network coverage

Your mobile phone continually sends small packets of information to local phone towers, known as cell sites, in order to keep itself active on the mobile phone network. If you're in an area of bad coverage, your cell phone will send this information more frequently. In essence this is making your device work harder to maintain the connection which can result in increased battery use. You can check network coverage where you are on your mobile .