Questions about Battery life (how long each charge last) or/and Battery Durability (how long until it needs to be replaced) should use this tag.
What is this tag for?
The name is a little ambiguous, and could refer to...
- overall lifetime of a battery (how many years until I need a replacement / how many charges / ...)
- how long does a battery last with a single charge (and how to improve this)
This tag is valid for #2 -- #1 rather is an Android independent phone question and as such off topic here (see our FAQ). If your issue is about that, please refer e.g. to this Wikipedia article.
Multiple criteria have influence on how long a battery can run with a single charge:
- capacity of the battery
- device hardware and usage. A few examples:
- a heavily accessed Class-2 SDCard eats more battery than a Class-6 with the same access (for comparision of classes, see e.g. Wikipedia)
- a larger display eats more battery than a smaller display of the same type
- a screen turned to 100% brightness eats more battery than a screen at a lower brightness level
- the camera also uses a lot of power. If not used at all, the battery lasts longer, obviously.
- external hardware attached e.g. via OTG eats additional power
- apps usage. Example topics:
- all kind of apps running simultaneously (background processes, for example) may cause battery drain -- so uninstall what you don't need.
- apps might request Wake-Locks (see: wakelock). Inefficiently used (or forgotten to release), this is a huge factor for battery drain, as the device cannot enter an energy-saving mode (see: standby). See e.g. How to deal with (orphaned) WakeLocks? and How to tame "Phone Idle" battery drain on unrooted device? Of course there are solutions to track things (What is eating my battery?), which is also covered by this tag.
Recommended readings on this site
- General
- What can I do to increase battery life on my Android device?
- How can I tell what is really draining my battery?
- How can I monitor the device battery consumption?
- How to deal with (orphaned) WakeLocks?
- Does constant charging harm my Android cellphone?
- Is power consumed from battery to run the phone when charging? (has several very good answers on "using the device while charging", including a thorough research)
- Networking related
- What is Cell standby and how can I keep it from eating my battery?
- Does 'poor' reception deplete the battery quicker?
- 2G versus 3G: Does it really save battery?
- Is it more battery-dispendious shutting down or leave 3g on?
- How does power usage for data over WiFi compare to data over 3G? (Ignore LTE for now)
