We talk about extending
battery life all the time because, let's face it, no one is putting big
enough batteries in their smartphones, except perhaps for Lenovo.
Despite the impressive battery life of the HTC One (M8) and the awesome Ultra Power Saving Mode of the Galaxy S5,
most other devices struggle to get you through a day of solid usage. So
we asked you: what could you live without to get better battery life?
Now, there are all
kinds of things that we tend to do to save battery life, from having GPS
off pretty much all the time, to force closing or uninstalling apps
running excessive background processes, to having our display brightness
dropped so low that we can barely see it or using any manner of apps
that allow us to turn our screen on as little as possible. But as many
people have noted, this is basically crippling the functionality of our
Androids. So, if manufacturers can't magically make our phone batteries
last longer, what would we be willing to live without for that extra bit
of juice? A lot, it seems.
1. Apps
I'm the first to admit I was surprised by number one: having to manually install all apps.
Sure, we all hate pre-loaded bloatware, but adding everything yourself
seems like a pretty big step (let's assume everyone would be happy to
have at least the Play Store
and Google Play Services already on their phone). Still, the amount of
savings it would bring in terms of partition space and background
processes would be significant. Of course, since KitKat was introduced, only pre-installed apps are able to write to the microSD card
with ease, so there are some sacrifices that would need to be made. But
if any OEMs are listening: take note, nobody wants your pre-loaded
apps!
2. User interfaces
Second place goes, naturally enough, to heavy manufacturer skins like TouchWiz, Xperia UI,
Sense and Optimus UI. Although, with Android's pushing of as thin a
skin as possible, and Motorola's impressive update speed since they
dropped Motoblur and went for a near-stock user interface, it clearly
shows that there are big benefits to dropping heavily made up Android
skins. After all, users can theme and modify their phones as much as
they want after the fact anyway. So having near-stock skins would be
great for not only speed and storage space again, but also save you the
power demands of running a skin you may not even like. If you want it,
it is easy to grab a theme from the Play Store.
3. Software features and 4. Display brightness
In third and fourth spot, respectively, are software features and the
sometimes over-the-top display brightness available on some Android
devices. It's interesting to know that a whole third of respondents
could do without motion gestures and other software features on their
phones when it is quite often those features that sell us on a
particular device. Screen brightness is also a little surprising,
considering how often dim screens are criticized in tech reviews and
user feedback.
What does this all mean?
To sum things up, it seems that what most of our readers want is a
Nexus device or Google Play edition device, with a super thin (or
non-existent skin), no pre-installed apps (including Google apps, by the
sound of it) no added bells and whistles on the software front and a
display that is bright enough without being able to signal outer space
with it. If Google dropped a stock Android device, with better battery
life, only the Play Store on it and a lower max brightness they may just
win over every Android user that hates the battery life we're currently
putting up with.
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