BATTERY TIPS FOR YOUR SMARTPHONE OR TABLET

Smartphone or tablet battery life doesn’t last forever. The smart thing to do is to always have your charger handy. But life doesn’t always go according to plan. So if your charger’s at home and you’re not, how can you stall that powerless feeling for as long as possible? Here are few battery tips:

Carry a spare charger that doesn’t require an outlet

Even if you can’t be wired to a power outlet, you can still charge your smartphone or tablet battery with an accessory.

 Pamper your battery

Keep the contacts where your battery connects into your device clean. Don’t let your device get hotter than about 95 degrees Fahrenheit. For additional reassurance or to give your hot battery a break, you might consider carrying a spare that you can pop in when you’re caught in the red.

Upgrade your device

Newer smartphones have considerably longer-lasting batteries than older phones.

Economize

Turn off Wi-Fi when not in use. Wi-Fi gobbles a lot of power on all devices because it’s always looking for a signal. You can also turn off 4G LTE if you happen to be somewhere without a strong signal. Keep the screen as dim as you can stand it, and close apps when you are done with them so they don’t run in the background. Extend the refresh time: Set your email to get new messages every 15 minutes or even longer rather than as soon as they arrive on the server. And whenever possible, put your device to sleep.

Turn off push notifications

You want to know breaking news as soon as it happens or keep up with Facebook comments the instant they are posted to your wall, but these notifications require power. Turn them off when you need to conserve energy and disable location-based services when not in use.

Change your settings

Change the display settings on your phone so that your screen time-out is at a lower setting. Make sure Bluetooth is turned off when not in use so your device isn’t trying to pair with an accessory that isn’t there.

Do some digging

Look for apps like Battery Graph that help you monitor your battery use.

Don’t turn it off

Your tablet or phone will use more juice powering back up than it will quietly napping.

Charge it

Please charge your smartphone or tablet but not too often. For optimum performance reboot your battery whenever you can by waiting to charge until the battery is down to about 10 percent. Then, fill ’err up to 100 percent and don’t overcharge it. Overcharging actually reduces a battery’s capacity, and every rechargeable battery can only go through the cycle a limited number of times.

Drain the tablet battery regularly

For optimum battery performance in a tablet such as the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition, once a month, let your battery drain completely before recharging. It appreciates the exercise.