How To Improve Your Nexus 5’s Battery Life – Part Two
Let’s face it, the Nexus 5 is a one of the best Android smartphones you could buy at the moment. Co-developed in partnership by Google and LG Electronics it is also very cheap, especially compared Apple’s iPhone line. The Nexus 5 is a lot less expensive than the iPhone 5S for example: the basic Nexus 5, with 16 GB of storage capacity has a price tag of $349, while the Nexus 5 with 32 GB of storage capacity has a price tag of $399. The Nexus 5 features a 4.95 inch display capable of rendering in at a resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels (also known as 1080p). Due to the size and resolution of its display, the Nexus 5 features a very high pixels per inch density of 445, which is a lot more than even Apple’s famous Retina display.
However, as you all know, a large display and a very powerful CPU are the two factors that drain the battery the most. The Nexus 5, features not only a large display but also a quad core Snapdragon 800 System on Chip clocked at 2.3 GHz; that is why it needs a very large battery to power it. The Nexus 5 has a 2,300 mAh battery, but depending on how you use it, it may not be enough. You may remember that we already did an article teaching you how to improve your Nexus 5’s battery life, so you may be wondering, is another article necessary? Well, we’ve got more tips for you.
Turn On Android Runtime
Not many people know about this, but enabling Android Runtime will improve your Nexus 5′s battery life. The reason behind this is very simple. When the Android Runtime is enabled, it simply runs the apps on the Android based smartphone it is enabled on.Until now, Android based smartphones used Dalvik (and they still are using it, until Google decides to implement Android Runtime)o run apps. Anyway, to spare you the tech talk, it has to do with how the runtime compiles the app and the end result is that Android Runtime can run apps faster. It is this faster opening time that helps your Nexus 5′s battery life as the smartphone will require less processing power to open the app (which is now stored, in part, internally).
So why is not Android Runtime already on by default in the Nexus 5? The answer is simple: it is, at the moment, nowhere near as stable as Dalvik (the current runtime used to run apps on Android devices), so of course Google does not want to risk with an official implementation just yet. Also, note that while the odds are low that it will damage your smartphone, we do recommend that you know what you are doing before enabling Android Runtime. To enable it, navigate to Settings, from there to About Phone and there make sure you click on Build Number seven times. After you’ve followed the exact instruction, you will see a new Settings options will be available, named Developer Options. Navigate to Developer Options and from there select Android Runtime.
Adjust Sleep Mode For Your Nexus 5
If you own a Nexus 5 you probably know that the main factor that drains your smartphone’s battery is its 4 inch IPS LCD. While it does offer a sharp, high image quality (as it is able to render in Full High Definition at 1080 x 1920 pixels) the Nexus 5′s display drains battery life like crazy. What you can do to increase your Nexus 5′s battery life is navigate to Settings, from there choose Display and there choose Sleep. In here, you will have to adjust the amount time before your Nexus 5 screen times out. For the better battery life, we recommend you choose thirty seconds. Another important tip is to make sure you enter your Nexus 5′s display in sleep mode yourself (with the power button) before putting it in your pocket. The reason is simple: if you let it enter sleep mode by itself, it will consume more battery life.
Sometimes A Factory Restore Can Help
When know how it is when you get used to a smartphone and have tinkered with its settings until to match your preference; having to do all the settings again can be a chore. However, if you have got an over the air (OTA) firmware update from Google recently, then you should do a factory reset, even if you will have to adjust your Nexus 5 again.
There have been many reports, from many users, about the over the air update bringing lots of issues to their Nexus 5 devices; one of these issues is that you won’t be able to know exactly how much battery life there is left for your Nexus 5 and that’s a pretty big deal if you ask us. A factory reset will fix the issue, but as you probably know, it will also delete absolutely everything you have on your Nexus 5, including any files you have stored on the smartphone’s internal storage. So if you have important files (such as all your pictures, video files, music etc.) that you want to keep, make sure you make a backup, before doing a factory reset.
To perform a factory reset on your Nexus 5, you will have to go to Settings, from there choose Backup & reset and then choose Factory data reset; choosing this option will restore your Nexus 5 to factory settings. You may have the surprise to notice that a factory reset of your Nexus 5 also fixes some GPS related bugs, besides fixing the aforementioned issue.
Disable Location Reporting
A thing that not many of you know is that Android knows where you are not just thanks to GPS; Android has another way to find out where you are at any given moment and that is by scanning for any WiFi routers that are in your vicinity. This involves your Nexus 5 (or any other smartphone running Google’s mobile Operating System for that matter) continuously scanning for WiFi hotspots; this in turn drains the smartphone’s battery life as you’d expect.
In order to stop your Nexus 5 (or other Android based smartphone) from continuously scanning for WiFi hotspots, you will have to navigate to Settings, then to Location and then choose Google Location Reporting. There you will have to turn off not only Location Reporting but you will also have to turn off Location History. There is a downside to turning Location Reporting off: the Find My Android feature won’t work anymore, so only turn Location Reporting off if you don’t mind this. It is a risk only you know if it’s worth taking and hopefully you won’t lose your smartphone after turning the feature off.
No Signal? Make Sure You Enable Airplane Mode
When your Nexus 5 (or any other device that runs Android) is inside an area where it has no (or almost no) signal, it will continuously search for a signal and you guessed it, this process drains battery life like crazy. So if you find yourself in such a place (and there are many such places, even in this day and age), using Airplane Mode will help a lot with the battery life of your device as it will stop draining the battery to continuously look for a signal.
Don’t Use Haptic Feedback
One last important tip for saving your Nexus 5′s battery life: don’t use haptic feedback. Haptic feedback makes use of the sense of touch in an user interface design in order to offer information to the user. Haptic feedback drains battery every time it’s being used, so if you don’t care about haptic feedback you can turn it off to increase battery life. We hope you found this article helpful.
