Samsung reveals ‘wallpaper’ mistake killing your phone’s battery life – list of common display fails you must fix today
SAMSUNG has revealed some of the common display setting mistakes killing your phone’s battery life – including a major wallpaper fail.
There are plenty of quick ways to boost battery life if you’re always running out of charge.
Your phone screen is key: the display is a large and power-hungry part of any smartphone.
And surprisingly, the type of wallpaper you choose can impact your battery life.
In a special memo on phone charge, Samsung says: “Extend battery life by using a dark-tone wallpaper or theme.”
That’s because modern Samsung phones used a type of OLED display called AMOLED.
Traditionally, screens are made up of crystals that are lit up by a backlight so you can see an image.
With an OLED screen, the pixels illuminate themselves and don’t need a large backlight.
That means they can be switched off individually to show true blacks.
So if you pick a dark theme or wallpaper with lots of black, it means those portions of the display don’t need to be lit up.
And over time, this can lead to battery life savings.
SCREEN SAVER!
That’s not all: there are some other Samsung screen tips you should know about.
For a start, make sure to keep the screen off whenever you’re not using it.
Screen-on time has a huge impact on battery life, so limiting how much time it’s spent illuminated can make a big difference.
Secondly, change your Screen Timeout settings to be as low as possible.
You can set it to 15 seconds so that the screen will automatically time out quickly.
That can lead to good battery life savings if you’re not in a habit of closing it off yourself.
Samsung also recommends keeping brightness lower when possible.
Why do batteries get worse over time?
Here's what you need to know...
- Most gadgets run on lithium-ion batteries
- Over time, the amount of charge this type of battery can hold gets smaller
- That means you need to charge your device more often because they hold less charge
- Batteries have two electrode points – the cathode and the anode
- To charge a battery, the ions inside the battery are forced from the cathode to the anode
- When you use a battery, it moves in the reverse direction
- This process wears away at the structure of the anode, reducing its ability to function correctly
- But the process also builds up a kind of salt on the cathode when charging
- As this build-up grows, the battery will accept less charge over time
- It’s estimated that between 500 and 1,000 full charge-cycles will reduce a battery’s maximum capacity by roughly 20%
POWER HOUR
It notes: “The brighter the screen, the higher the contrast ratio, which leads to higher battery consumption.”
If you’re really struggling with battery life, you can activate the Power Saving Mode.
“Once ‘Power saving mode’ is enabled, background apps will be restricted from Wi-Fi and mobile data.
“And heavy battery-consuming features such as Always On Display will be disabled to extend battery life.
“You can select and adjust CPU speed, brightness level, and Always On Display to your preference.”
Just go into Settings > Device Care > Battery to turn Power Saving on.