Boost Android Battery Life
Discover the Real Battery-Life Killers on Your Android Phone
Your Android phone, such as the Samsung Galaxy S25 or Google Pixel 8, shouldn’t need a charger by 3 pm. If it does, the problem is almost certainly not what you think. Most battery advice points you to screen brightness, suggesting you dim it down, use dark mode, or turn off Wi-Fi when you’re not near a router, such as the Virgin Media Hub 4. However, these solutions only scratch the surface.
There are quieter and harder-to-find settings that are doing the most damage. While your screen is off, these hidden features are constantly pinging servers, scanning for devices, and silently draining your battery. They’re also settings that are switched on by default on most Android phones, including the OnePlus 11 or Oppo Find X6. Spend five minutes changing them, and you can reclaim hours of standby time.
1. Turn Off Background Activity
Android gives every installed app permission to run in the background by default. This means that your photo editing app, games like Fortnite or PUBG, and a shipping app you downloaded for a one-off discount coupon are all refreshing themselves in the background. Go to Settings > Apps, pick any app, tap Battery/Power, and set it to Restricted. This significantly limits its ability to run in the background.
2. Check Which Apps Have Location Permissions
It’s easy to think of location as something your phone uses when you open Google Maps. But a lot of apps have permission to access it constantly, including when they’re closed and you haven’t used them in weeks. Go to Settings > Location > App location permissions, then tap: “Allowed all the time/Apps that can always access location.” Set them to “Only while using” and they’ll work exactly the same when you open them.
3. 5G Uses More Battery Than You Realise
The 5G modem draws more power than the 4G LTE modem. Research from Ookla puts the average battery drain increase at between 6% and 11% compared to LTE. If you spend most of your day indoors, switching to LTE is worth doing. Open Settings > Network & Internet > SIMS > Preferred network type, then select LTE.
4. Always-On Display Should Sometimes Be Off
It’s showing you the time and your notification count, so your brain registers it as earning its keep. However, it’s keeping a portion of your screen active whenever the phone is sitting face-up and idle. Go to Settings > Lock screen > Always on display. Turn it off for a week and see if you miss it.
5. What’s Your Refresh Rate?
Most current Android flagships default to adaptive refresh rate, which scales between 1Hz and 120Hz depending on what’s on screen. Go to Settings > Display > Refresh Rate. If it’s set to a fixed 120Hz, switching to adaptive costs you nothing visually.
6. Switch On Battery Saver Earlier Than the Default
Stock Android prompts you to enable Battery Saver at 15%. Go to Settings > Battery > Battery Saver and set it to activate automatically at 30% or 40%. This restricts background activity, location accuracy, and sync frequency, which are what’s been running down your battery all day anyway.
