9 ways to extend the life of your smartphone.
9 ways to extend the life of your smartphone
Your smartphone’s warranty period has just ended. A month later you find that your phone starts to break down, but the warranty no longer applies. You know it? Probably yes.
If you want to maximize the life of your smartphone, we recommend following these 9 tips to enjoy it as long as possible.
Of course, most of us are slaves to novelty, and probably some of us are even relieved that the phone has broken – after all, we can buy a new model without remorse. But what if the release of the eagerly awaited model is weeks or months away? Or you just happen to be short of funds in your account?
The average lifespan of smartphones is not impressive and is 18-24 months. 2 years is therefore the average maximum we can get out of our device. After that, we’re in for a string of lags, unexpected hangs or shutdowns, not to mention drastically short battery life.
If you want to avoid this and keep your smartphone alive a little longer, we recommend following these tips.
1. Look for the hidden culprit.
When we grab a smartphone dozens of times a day, we don’t think too much about how much action its memory absorbs. Many of the applications can run without our knowledge. It’s worth looking into your phone’s settings from time to time to check. How many apps are running in the background and how much memory they consume.
On Android phones just go to Settings → Apps → Running, on iPhones’a – Settings → Main → Usage. It’s also worth checking that you have the latest version of the operating system installed, to keep up to date with updates that can positively affect performance.
2. Uninstall the apps you don’t use.
Since the amount of space in our phone’s memory has increased dramatically, we tend to install applications that eventually turn out to be unnecessary and remain in the phone’s memory completely useless. We often forget about the apps we don’t use, or we give the lazy win when we just don’t want to uninstall them. Without hesitation, delete apps you don’t use or do so drastically infrequently – also remember to delete additional files that the app leaves behind – they too take up valuable space.
You will save CPU work by avoiding their accidental launch (they can run in the background without your knowledge).
3. Turn off apps that track your location.
Many apps, such as Google Maps, Twitter, Facebook or even the camera, track your location all the time. It’s another energy eater. So it is worth disabling location tracking completely, or disable it only for certain apps.
4. Turn off background app refreshing.
If you have an iPhone’a running iOS 7, this feature is enabled by default. This option allows the app to run in the background when performing multiple tasks on the iPhone at the same time. By disabling this option, you can definitely extend battery life.
Go to Settings → Main → Background app refresh to turn it off.
5. Extra life for the battery.
Several startups have recently emerged, including m.in. Mophie, which has created phone cases that provide an extra power source for smartphones. Hidden in the case is a black hour power reserve, which will allow the battery to last a few extra precious minutes of operation.
You can also get a portable charger that works when plugged into a mini-USB port or a car charger.
6. Airplane mode
If you want to extend the life of your smartphone in emergency situations, switch your phone to airplane mode, when you can afford to temporarily cut off the network without having to turn off the phone completely. This will save your battery. Also, if you charge the phone switched to airplane mode, the battery will recharge much faster.
7. Update whenever you can.
Updates to the operating system and some apps are meant to help your smartphone, not hurt it. With updates, vulnerabilities in the system are fixed. Downloading an update to an aging phone may seem like a risky step, but it can actually do more to help than harm your phone.
8. Do a hard reboot.
When the phone slowly stops functioning and all its functions slow down extremely, give it a hard reboot. Sometimes a simple reboot of the phone will increase the phone’s free space and performance. A more drastic way is to reset the phone to factory settings, but this will erase all data from the phone and is a step rather for the desperate.
