The big screen and fast processor of an Android smartphone drain its battery pretty fast. Here are a few tips to help you get the most out of your phone’s battery

Amajor issue faced by Android smartphone users is its battery drainage. With its big screen and fast processor, the phone consumes a lot of battery power. With access to umpteen applications, your download and upload frequency increases too. You are lucky if you get 24 hours out of its battery. Here are eight tips for saving your phone battery:

1. Find out applications and components that consume more power. The first step to increase the battery life is to find out the apps and components that consume the most power. Press ‘Menu’ key, go to ‘Settings,’ scroll to the bottom of the settings menu and tap ‘About Phone,’ and tap ‘Battery Use’ to know about the battery consumption.

2. Use the screen wisely. The big display of Android phones puts the maximum load on its battery. Make sure that your phone goes into sleep mode when you are not actively using the device. To set the screen time-out time, tap ‘Display’ in ‘Settings’ menu, click ‘Screen Timeout’ and set the time.

The brightness of the screen can also be controlled. The ‘Display’ menu has the option to select brightness levels. You can either select constant screen brightness or enable automatic adjustment to suit the ambient light. Choosing the ‘Power Saving Mode’ enables variations in the brightness level depending upon the picture. Im- mediately lock the keypad once a work is over, to instantly turn off the screen.

3. Turn off the features that you’re not using. Radio interfaces eat up a lot of battery. You can drag the ‘Notification’ bar down to toggle Wifi, Bluetooth and GPS. Keep such services off unless you are actively using these. Turn on the GPS just before you need it.

4. Quit applications properly if not in use. It is a common practice to use the home button for getting out of any application, but this actually leaves the application open in the background. In order to save the battery, quit applications properly by pressing ‘Back’ or ‘Exit.’

5. Resist using a lot of widgets. Widgets are useful, but many of these like news tickers or weather forecasters need a lot of processing time and data downloads for regular updates. Keep away from having too many widgets on your home screen. You can instead create application shortcuts and run these when required.

Similar is the case with Android’s live wallpapers. These look good but can drain the battery constantly.

6. Get rid of checking e-mails often. Checking e-mails very often eats up a lot of power, but many a times it can not be avoided. Get started with Android’s Email app and go to an account. Press ‘Menu’ key, click ‘More’ and choose ‘Account Settings.’ Tap ‘Email Check Frequency’ and choose ‘Every Hour,’ then repeat for other mail accounts as well. You can enable the settings for social media applications like Tweetdeck too.

7. Avoid too many videos and games. Android phones have great radios, music or movie players, but video playback drains the battery fast. So be restrictive when you use your iplayer, play Angry Birds or Stair Dismount. Overuse can leave you powerless!

8. In an emergency. Android devices warn about low battery mostly when only fifteen per cent charge is left. As soon as you see this alert, head to the notifications bar and turn off as many applications as possible. Also, hold in the power button and turn off data network mode. Make sure that you exit all non-essential apps, return to the home screen and turn the screen off. In short, it is advisable to use your smartphone as a phone only in case of low battery.