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Power saving tips: does an HTC One X+ differ from iPhone 7?

Discussion in 'Techno-Magic' started by SlickRCBD, Mar 19, 2021.

  1. SlickRCBD Gems: 29/31
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    My mother is complaining about the battery life of her iPhone 7, and she took it to Apple but they tested it and say it is fine, she doesn't need a replacement.

    I was going to give her some tips on how to make the battery last longer that I searched for and figured out through trial and error for my HTC One X+ towards the end of it's life. However, I'm mostly familiar with the tricks for that phone, how do they differ from an iPhone 7? I don't own an iPhone, but my mom isn't very tech savvy. She asks me for help and half the time I have to figure it out on my own or search with my own android phone.

    (I replaced that old HTC with a Samsung Galaxy S9 when they were on closeout and haven't really had battery issues yet, unless you count streaming the Inauguration at work and seeing I'm at 40% after an hour and a half, which I responded to by jacking into the USB port on a nearby computer as fortunately I had a USB-C cable handy).
    I'm not sure if all the same tricks even work the same or as well on my Galaxy S9 as I haven't had problems yet.

    Basically things I'm going to suggest to her:
    #1. Turn off mobile data when you don't absolutely need it.
    I've already told her this for other reasons since she only gets 1gb/month of bandwith to force her to use wifi.
    #2. Turn off wifi when you aren't using the internet.
    This was the biggest power saver (though I'm not sure how #1 affected things as I did it anyways to prevent apps from leeching bandwith from the start as my initial plan had only 500mb/month back when the HTC was new).
    #3. Turn off GPS when you aren't using navigation.
    #4. Turn off NFC.
    #5. disable unneeded apps (I already did that, so skip this) and uninstall what you can.
    #6. Always put the phone in standby when you are done, don't just leave it to turn off on it's own. Especially since you had me set the screen blank to 10 minutes. (She was complaining it kept blanking on her when she was leaving an e-mail with instructions or directions out while doing something)
    #7. use Task Manager to stop background apps before putting the phone away (This is probably obsolete, too complicated, and I don't think it exists on my Galaxy S9 as it has an app dedicated for this feature called "battery health that is built in system app. Probably Android Only).
    #8. Turn off Bluetooth when not using it. I would have put it higher, but she uses Bluetooth for her hearing aids, so I'm not sure if she can even do this without them getting screwed up.

    Those are the biggies I can recall off the top of my head. If there were more, they were things I did once and left alone, and have now forgotten about them as it's been over 5 years.

    So, what differs in this advice for an old HTC One X+ and that for somebody not as tech savvy as me using an iPhone 7 for making their battery last longer? The phone often runs out of power at night.
     
  2. Tarrasque

    Tarrasque Whoever said Paladins had to be charismatic? ★ SPS Account Holder Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    If she's got the more recent versions of iOS, then there is an inbuilt battery health check under Settings, Battery, Battery Health. Might be worth having a look at that to see what that says.

    Other things that might help are dropping screen brightness down - although that can occasionally make it hard to see dependent on ambient light. If she has email on the phone, change them from 'Push' to 'Fetch' at an appropriate interval. Turn off Background App Refresh for any apps that really don't need to be running when she's not using them. Also turning off Analytics under Privacy might help.

    Edit: I have found that batteries on iPhones do seem (for me at least) to have ~2 years life before they do start showing signs of reduced capacity.
     
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    The battery health app says it is fine, Apple said it is fine when she took it to the Apple Store at Woodfield a couple weeks ago, but she often runs out of power in the evening, between 6pm-8pm after charging it every night when she goes to bed.
    Even my old HTC One X+ wasn't that bad until it was over five years old, and it was noted for having poor battery life, although they didn't start on the reviews saying that until two months after I bought it. Heck, I used to use the thing to listen to the FM radio or MP3s all day at work.
    I could listen to internet radio for a good chunk of the day in later years at a different job (where radio reception inside was crap, but they had free wifi. There was an issue using the wifi outside in the loading area for some scanners they never solved so it was something about the walls. Wound up going back to the old scanner that didn't depend on wifi but had to sync with a computer later).

    My new Galaxy S9 that I replaced the X+ with can go three days without charging, and that was when I used it quite a bit at work.
     
  4. Tarrasque

    Tarrasque Whoever said Paladins had to be charismatic? ★ SPS Account Holder Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    I'll have to spend a day without charging mine and see how it drains - I use it for Spotify in the car for my commute via a data/power cable so it does tend to get a top up charge then. Although saying that, it is never <50% at the end of my working day, so that is ~9.5 hours for less than half drain.
     
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