So you have finally made your choice in choosing between HTC Sensation and  Samsung Galaxy S II? Found yourself having to recharge your new Android device every 8hours? You’re not alone. Some users reported to have a poor battery performance for their Android phones. Older device ranging from HTC Desire, Motorola Droid, Samsung Galaxy S, Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 to the latest dual-core Android phones; LG Optimus 2x, Motorla Atrix, HTC Sensation, and Samsung Galaxy S II, are not sparred with complains of poor battery life. However, Android itself is not a power hogger, or call it battery juice sucker if you like. Many users were able to get their Android device up and running in a single charge up to 3 days(gosh I missed the good old Nokia 3310-era).There are many factors in leading to poor battery life. The very main reasons are the display and unnecessarily turned on features, which some users don’t have a clue in turning it off. If you are happened to be one of the Android users not happy of the current battery performance, or you simply just want to improve the extra mileage of your Android device’s battery performance, here are some tips in improving the battery life of your Android phone.

For those who missed my previous How to optimize and speed up to make Android phone run faster article, just click and have a read about it. Most of the tips there works and saved the juice on your Android as well. But some of the most relevant tips will be reposted here.

• Switch to 2G network if u dont need the speed

Obviously, the slower 2G networks EDGE and GPRS uses much less power than 3G. If you only use your phone for sending Whatsapp messages, reading text-only news or simply put, you don’t need that extra speed, just switch to 2G-only settings. How to set 2G-only setting? Go to Settings > Wireless & networks > Mobile networks >Network mode.

• Disable automatic backlight adjustment

Disabling automatic backlight adjustment saves up the CPU for having to adjust the backlight according to the available surrounding ambient light. This translate into less power to do processing which also leads to less usage of battery on your Droid. Go to Settings > Display > Brightness , and untick Automatic brightness. For Sony Ericsson Android owners, you must use the power widget to disable it.

• Disable live wallpaper

Live wallpaper is not free. I mean, not free on your CPU and GPU of your Droid. This eye candy taxes the CPU and GPU on your Android device. I know, it gives you a level of decoration on your Droid which is not possible on iPhone. But hey, if you are looking at this article, you should disable it by setting a static wallpaper to your Android instead.

• Do not use any task killers

This tip was taken from XDA. ”Taskillers are supposed to speed your phone by killing tasks when the Memory is ‘full’ or above a defined limit. The problem is that it interferes with Android built-in (and efficient) memory management. You have to understand that what can slow down your phone is not Memory saturation (because Android will start closing apps on its own before reaching this situation), but CPU usage. You can still use a taskiller to see which app are eating CPU cycles and close them. But again, don’t let any 3rd-party app manage your memory. It will only bring you force-closes, battery drain, and various unpredictable issues.”

Since Android 2.2 Froyo, Android has an effective memory management build into the OS itself. For those using Android 2.2 Froyo and above, you can forget about any task managers that you can find from the Android Market.

• Use Juice Defender

Download Juice Defender
Like its name says, it defends the juice of your Android. For me, the Free version of Juice Defender is good enough. It turns off your 3G/Wifi everytime you turn off your Android screen and turns on when you turn on your screen again. The marvel of this Juice Defender is, it somehow also turns on the data periodically to check for push messages and emails. I discovered this when I installed Juice Defender, I still able to see messages pushed to my phone during the night when I woke up the next morning. I don’t have to do any manual sync to retrieve messages and email at all.

However, Juice Defender renders my ebuddy unusable at all. It disables the data plan when I screen off. Anyway, it isn’t much of an issue as I uses my instant messagers only when I was travelling. And the best part? After using Juice Defender for 2weeks, I’d notice a better battery performance by as much as half day longer for every single full charge. From the app itself, it reported that it saves up as much as 1.6times of battery life for me. I dunno how it did the calculations, but half day longer battery life is more than good enough for me.

• Disable vibration

Vibration eats out your battery life. If you’re not in a meeting or cinema, disable it by going to Settings > Sound > unticks the Vibrate setting

• Follow lithium battery saving tips here

I have written a detail guide of prolonging the life of your lithium battery, be it a mobile phone or your laptop battery. Following it makes your battery last longer on a single charge and not only that, you’ll learned the tips of prolonging the lifespan of your phone battery.

• use SetCPU or Daemon Controller to adjust your cpu speed ( for rooted Androids only )

Download SetCPU here
Download Daemon Controller here
These CPU controlling apps can be set to reduce clock rates while in different states. Pretty useful to save up juices on your battery. For Daemon Controller, you’ll need the correct kernel for your device (which available on XDA of course). While SetCPU works for any rooted Android phones.

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