8 ways to extend the battery life of Samsung Galaxy phones

However, if you want your phone's battery to last longer and work more efficiently, follow some of the tips below.

1. Disable or modify Always On Display

Android devices have had Always On Display for a while. As its name suggests, it keeps your Samsung device's screen on, displaying the time, date, battery percentage, unread notification icons, and fancy animations – albeit at low energy state. Thanks to this feature you can tell the time and get a quick look at unread or missed notifications, but it negatively affects battery life.

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Turning off Always On Display will significantly improve your Galaxy device's battery life. Just navigate to Settings -> Lock screen and disable the feature. However, if you want the best of both worlds (better battery life with Always On Display enabled), you can change the setting from Always on to Touch to Show for 10 seconds . That means the screen will only turn on after you touch the screen. You can also set it to show only when you have a new notification or schedule it, like you can do with dark mode.

2. Switch the screen to 60Hz and HD+ resolutions

Samsung offers several display settings that you can adjust for a better viewing experience. On Galaxy flagships, you get customizations for screen resolution and motion smoothness, while mid-range models like the Galaxy A72 and Galaxy A52 5G offer the former. Setting Motion Smoothing to Standard and screen resolution to HD+ will deliver the best battery life if you don't mind a worse picture.

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To change the setting, go to Settings -> Display -> Motion smoothness and select Standard to change the screen refresh rate to 60 Hz. For the resolution, go to Settings -> Display -> Screen resolution and tap HD+.

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If you use Galaxy S21 Ultra or Galaxy S22 Ultra with LTPO display, you won't have to worry much about battery consumption due to high refresh rate. Both phones can adjust between 10-120Hz and 1-120Hz respectively, depending on your needs.

3. Use Dark Mode

Samsung is considered by many to be the king of smartphone screens. At least, its OLED screen looks sharp, powerful, and beautiful – especially when paired with the 120Hz refresh rate and Quad HD+ resolution found on the Galaxy S22 Ultra. In addition to the good visibility of the screen, OLED can also help save battery.

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Unlike LCD, OLED has no backlight and therefore consumes less power when displaying dark pixels. That said, the difference in battery savings may not be as noticeable at lower brightness levels. However, if you use the display with the brightness up, you'll get significantly longer battery life wrong when making the switch. There is also the advantage of improved readability and reduced eye strain.

To turn on dark mode, go to Settings -> Display -> click on the Dark option.

4. Use Power Saving Mode

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Nothing can maximize battery life on your device like power saving mode. Once enabled, it will limit background network usage, sync and check location, and change the refresh rate to 60 Hz. If you're not completely satisfied with that, you can extend battery life even further by enabling options to:

1. Off Always On Display
2. Limit the maximum CPU speed to 70%
3. 10% brightness reduction
4. Limit apps and the home screen (limit background activity, adopt a simplified home screen, limit available apps, and disable the Edge panel).

You can enable Battery Saver Mode by going to Settings -> Battery and Device Care -> Battery -> Battery Saver. You can also use the Quick Settings panel to turn it on faster.

5. Put unused apps to sleep

When sleep is enabled, apps on your phone are automatically put to sleep (they run in the background minimally) or deep sleep (they don't run in the background). You can also add apps to either manually.

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To enable this feature, go to Settings -> Battery and Device Care -> Battery -> Limit background usage to turn it on.

6. Uninstall or disable unused apps

Some apps run background processes which can affect battery life. Sleep mode is also great, but uninstalling might be the best option if you have apps that you don't normally use. So you can remove the apps you don't use from your device by: Long press on an app on your home screen or app drawer.

Tap the Uninstall icon, then tap OK.

Or you can also disable the app by going to Settings -> Apps -> select an app -> tap Disable.

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7. Turn off scanning for nearby devices

Nearby device scanning makes your Samsung phone constantly search for nearby devices and display a notification when it detects one, so you can connect your phone to them. This feature can be useful, but it is not all that is needed to enhance the user experience. Plus, it can reduce battery life.

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If you've paired frequently used accessories like headphones and wireless speakers with your device, you can also turn off Scan for Nearby Devices to improve battery life. Just go to Settings -> Connections -> More connection settings and disable this feature.

The benefits of disabling this feature probably won't be great, but if you want to do everything you can to save power, you can take it one step further.

8. Use Bixby Routines to save battery

Most people don't like Samsung's Bixby and it's not hard to see why. While the feature is great for offline functions and in-device searches, it's not as complicated as the Google assistant. On the other hand, Bixby Routines is another matter. They provide certain useful triggers for automating tasks.

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Speaking of automations, you can set up Bixby Routines to automatically activate Power Saving Mode at night. You can set this to reduce screen timeout or turn off mobile data or Wifi. You can even set specific routines based on your daily commute or while traveling. To enable this feature, go to Settings -> Advanced features -> Bixby Routines.

If you apply these ways, your Samsung Galaxy phone's battery life will be significantly improved. Try it and feel the results.

Lesley Montoya

Update 02 March 2022