How to get more battery life out of your Android tablet

Let's face it — no one enjoys a gadget's dying on them in the middle of using it. Getting the most out of your battery is a huge part of using your Android tablet, whether you're rocking a Galaxy Tab, a Motorola Xoom, or some other tablet entirely.

Know your battery vampires
Before you can preserve your battery power, you need to know what functions are draining it. Your first and most useful tool for extending battery life is the Settings app. A variety of battery-sucking — and battery-saving — preferences live under your Settings and can be tweaked to strike a balance between functionality and longevity.

You will also find your battery monitoring options under Settings > Applications > Battery use. This screen lists every item that's sapping your battery. From the battery use screen, you can select any of the listed items to view operating details and available actions for that item. Apps will have options to force a stop, report issues, and view details, while features such as wifi have a settings button.

Necessary connections only
Ever notice how your smartphone or tablet's battery seems to last a lot longer when it's in airplane mode for a flight? Network connections require juice! Having your data connected means that your tablet is constantly sending little check-ins back and forth with whatever it is connected to for data (a wireless tower or wifi access point). And don't forget your bluetooth or GPS — when constantly looking for connections, either will tap your battery fast!

How can you fix this? Put your connections on hold when needed. When you get home, turn on airplane mode to disable all your network connections at once, then individually switch on wifi while using your tablet. To restore all your connections, just turn airplane mode back off. Airplane mode and wifi can quickly be toggled on and off by tapping the clock in the bottom right corner of your display, selecting the little sliders icon beneath the time, and hitting the on/off button next to each setting.

Want to disable a single connection while leaving the rest on? Under Settings > Wireless & networks, uncheck the box next to wifi, bluetooth, and GPS in the same window. Your mobile data connection requires one more step to turn off — under Wireless & networks > Mobile networks, uncheck the box next to "Enable Data access over mobile network."

Well-lit mobility
The backlight on your tablet is your most consistent battery drain. Think about it — if the tablet is in use at all, the backlight is going, and going, and going some more. You must be wondering how you can do anything about this when the light is in such constant and necessary demand.

Fortunately, there are two pretty simple fixes to reduce the amount of drain your display requires. The first is to adjust your brightness. While having the brightness up to max is great for a sharp, vivid picture, it is also huge battery drain. Go back into your mini settings window by tapping the clock in the bottom right corner and selecting the sliders icon. The brightness setting is not initially obvious; look for the little sun icon that's half shaded-in. Play with the slider to dim or brighten your screen, and find a lower setting that is comfortable.

If you're just not feeling a dimmer display, test drive the Automatic brightness setting. This adjusts your tablet display's brightness based on the amount of light around you — the less light, the brighter the tablet display. On the same line as the brightness slider, tap Auto to enable this option. You should see the screen adjust a bit automatically. Go at least a day to see if you like the dynamic brightness changes.

Next, look at your screen timeout setting. This automatically shuts off your display after a certain amount of idle time. Just go to Settings > Screen > Timeout, and pick the setting best for your usage. Are you the quick email-and-go type? Choose a shorter number such as 15-30 seconds. Do you use your tablet to read ebooks or follow recipes while cooking? Consider a slightly longer window such as two to 10 minutes. Note that you won't actually lose whatever you’re working on when the display turns off; the backlight is just taking a bit of a breather.

Kill unnecessary apps
Yes, we know, you bought your tablet to be used. But are you really benefiting from opening 20 apps, then spending an hour cleaning up your Gmail account? Of course not.

When trying to save yourself some battery life, keep your running apps to a minimum. The fastest method of cleaning up running apps is to use Advanced Task Killer. Open the app, tap the checkboxes next to everything you don't currently need (including Advanced Task Killer — it will close itself in the cleanup process by selecting it), and hit Kill selected apps at the top.

For advanced users, we recommend Gemini App Manager. This app lets you get into the nitty-gritty of your tablet by optimizing your current memory use through app cleanup. However, it also lets you flag a particular app with a "Don't kill" so that if you intend to use the bundled Taskiller widget (which performs all the cleanup in one screen press), you won't kill something you leave on all the time.

Naptime for gadgets
Last and most importantly, put your tablet to sleep when not in use. Letting your device sleep means putting it in a lower power state, thus extending battery life. Sleep mode (as opposed to a display timeout) pauses all your network connections and running apps. Letting your display time out means your backlight is no longer draining power, but everything else is running and using juice! Just press your tablet's power button quickly to put it into sleep mode.

Of course, the ultimate battery saver is powering your tablet off (we know, we know... inconceivable!). However, using the handy steps above should extend the happy hours you spend surfing the information highway, catching up on your Netflix instant queue, or sitting down with an ebook on your Android tablet.

Leave a comment