Here’s How to Extend your Battery Life in your Phone
Before You Replace the Battery — Try These
If your phone isn’t making it through the day on a full charge, there are a few things worth trying before concluding the battery needs replacement. Some of these can add hours to your daily battery life without any hardware work.
Find the Drain: Check Your Battery Usage
iPhone: Settings > Battery > Battery Usage (last 24 hours / last 10 days). This shows you exactly which apps are consuming your battery. Surprising culprits often include social media apps running in the background, location-based apps pinging GPS constantly, and email apps checking too frequently.
Samsung: Settings > Battery and Device Care > Battery > Battery Usage. Same concept — sort by usage and identify anything that seems disproportionate.
Background App Refresh Is Often the Culprit
Apps refreshing in the background account for a significant amount of battery drain that most people don’t realize is happening.
iPhone: Settings > General > Background App Refresh. Turn this off globally or selectively for apps that don’t need to update in the background.
Samsung: Settings > Apps > [App Name] > Battery > toggle off “Allow Background Activity” for high-drain apps.
Location Services
GPS is one of the highest-drain features on a smartphone. Apps that use location services constantly — even when you’re not using them — add up.
iPhone: Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services. Review which apps have “Always” access and downgrade them to “While Using” unless you have a specific reason for always-on access.
Display Settings
The screen is the single biggest battery drain. A few adjustments:
- Lower auto-brightness baseline — adaptive brightness often allows the screen to run brighter than necessary
- Reduce your screen timeout to 30 seconds or 1 minute
- On OLED phones (iPhone 12 and later, most Samsung flagships), a dark theme saves real battery because OLED pixels producing black use no power
When the Battery Itself Is the Problem
If you’ve implemented all of the above and your phone still can’t get through the day, the battery is genuinely degraded. On iPhone, Settings > Battery > Battery Health is the authoritative check. Below 80% is the replacement threshold.
Battery replacement at Mobile Lizard typically takes under an hour. We replace batteries on all iPhone and Samsung Galaxy models. See iPhone battery replacement and Samsung battery replacement. Call ahead at 443-863-9738 to confirm your part is in stock.
Related Reading
- Signs Your Android Battery Needs Replacing
- Is Low Power Mode Slowing Down Your Phone?
- Swollen Phone Battery — What It Is and What to Do Right Now
- What’s Actually Draining Your Phone Battery?
- The Complete Guide to Phone Battery Problems
- Cold Weather and Your Phone Battery
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