Boost Crappy Battery Life

It's to the point with smartphones now that just getting through an entire day without needing to charge your phone is an accomplishment. Fortunately, it doesn't have to be. Here are a few ways to maximize your battery life: Get a phone with a large battery: Yes, advising someone to "get a new phone" to fix an annoyance is generally a jerk move, but this is one area where the very best way to improve performance is better hardware. Phones like the MAXX line of Motorola phones, Samsung's Galaxy Note series and others with very large batteries can typically last longer than your average handset. Buy an extended battery: If you don't have the cash to drop on a whole new handset, extended batteries are the next best thing. You can either buy a backup battery to swap out when you're done (though this requires keeping two batteries charged instead of just one), or get a larger capacity battery (which might add a bit of heft). Of course, this only works if your phone has a removeable battery. Rein in battery usage with apps: If you find that your battery is draining when you're not even using your phone, Greenify can put overactive apps into hibernation when you're not using them. JuiceDefender goes a step further by disabling things like your data connections (mobile and WiFi) or turning down your CPU speed. If you're not someone who needs up-to-the-minute updates from your phone, you can set it to only reconnect every five to ten minutes or so, drastically reducing how often your phone is reaching out to connect to cell towers. Uninstall battery hogs: Our own Whitson Gordon found that the best way to reduce unnecessary battery usage was to get rid of some of the power-sapping widgets he had installed. Obviously this won't work in all cases, but if there's an app you don't really need (or if there's a less power-hungry alternative), try uninstalling them. You can check to see what's sucking down your juice in the battery usage monitor in your device's settings. Frequently, the culprits are live wallpapers, oft-updated widgets (like RSS feeds), or apps that constantly check your location (including Google's own). Use airplane mode in emergencies: If you're down to 12% battery and still have three hours to get home, you don't have time to mess around with clever tricks. It's time for the big guns. Airplane mode kills all communication and, as long as your display is off, it will reduce battery consumption to near zero. It can also help you charge your phone a bit faster.