How To Increase Samsung Galaxy S2 I9100 Battery Life

How To Increase Samsung Galaxy S2 I9100 Battery Life

Samsung’s flagship device was announced by the South Korea-based company on February 13th at Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona. Since May 2011 when Samsung Galaxy S2 hit the market, the Asian phone shipped millions of devices. But many of the Galaxy S2 owners have complained about the battery life of their device.

Samsung Galaxy S2 features a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display protected by Gorilla Glass coating, a dual-core 1.2 GHz Exynos Cortex A9 chipset, 1 GB of RAM, 16/32 GB of internal storage extendable with up to 32 GB via microSD. Galaxy S2 also features an 8 megapixel camera with autofocus, LED flash and full HD video recording capabilities, while the secondary user-facing camera has a 2 megapixel optical unit.

The battery meant to keep the Samsung Galaxy S2 awake is a Li-Ion 1n650 mAh unit. Fortunately there are some tricks that can help you improve the battery life of the Samsung’s Android-powered flagship smartphone. Here’s what you will have to do in order to improve the battery life of your Samsung Galaxy S2.

Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 Big Battery Eaters

The high-end smartphones, like Samsung Galaxy S II I9100, have a lot of features that eat a lot of battery. Functions like Camera, 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and Sync are the biggest battery eaters of Samsung Galaxy S II I9100, but fortunately there are some simple ways of stopping them drain your battery fast. As you’d probably expect turning them off is the best option if you want to increase your Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 battery life.

We recommend you to choose the GSM only option for your Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 and activate the 3G only when you are using it. Also don’t choose the automatic network mode, as the battery will drain even faster, mostly because your device will constantly search for 3G network availability. To switch your Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 to GSM only you will have to go to Home > Applications > Settings > Wireless and Network > Mobile Networks > Network Mode and choose the GSM only option by tapping on it.

Also turn off the WiFi when you are not using it, as its a major battery eater, too. Go to Home > Applications > Settings > Wireless and Network > Wi-Fi settings and uncheck the “Wi-Fi” option to disable it. Do the same with the GPS, as your Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 will constantly try to lock up your location if enabled, reducing your battery life. Disable GPS by going to Home > Applications > Settings > Location and security and tap on the “Use GPS satelites” option to uncheck it.

Also try not to use the Camera too much, as it drains the battery pretty quick. Also remember to always close the camera application after you use it. We also recommend you not to use the Camera when your Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 is low on battery, because it will soon eat the rest of it.

Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 Display Brightness

The brightness of your display is another factor that drains your battery. Even though Samsung said that they optimized their Super AMOLED Plus for Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 and now it is 18% more battery efficient, the display installed on your device drains about 40% of the overall battery life. As you probably know, the brighter the screen the more battery is drained, so keeping your screen brightness to a minimum should significantly extend your Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 battery life. The “Automatic brightness adjustment” setting is not the best for your Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 battery life, as your device will have to constantly set the screen brightness lower or higher depending on light conditions. Choose the screen brightness manually and try setting it as low as possible. To do so go to Home > Applications > Settings > Sound and Display > Brightness and choose the brightness level you desire. Also make sure that you uncheck the Automatic brightness adjustment option.

Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 Android Power Widget

Fortunately Android OS offers some ways to increase the battery life of your smartphone. And becaus Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 is running on Android 2.3 Gingerbread, you will be able to use Android widgets to control the major battery eaters. One such widget is the Power Control widget, which will help you manage functions like WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, Sync and Brightness. The Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 Power Control Widget is easy to use and will help you enable or disable the big battery eaters with a simple tap. To install Power Control Widget, long press a clear area on any of your homescreens. The “Add to Home screen” window should appear on your Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 display. Now go to Android Widgets and locate the one called Power Control. Tap on it and place it on any of your homescreens.

Say No To Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 Live Wallpapers

I know that you like your Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 looking cool and the live wallpapers help a lot. But the live wallpapers also drain your battery faster. So, if you want to improve Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 battery life all you have to do is set a picture that is not animated as wallpaper. But lighter wallpapers also eat more battery, because your Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 will have to light up more pixels in the bright areas of the pictures, which will automatically drain your battery faster, so the darker the wallpaper the better the battery life of your device.

Do Not Use Third Party Task Killers

As you probably know Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 comes with multitasking, and sometimes the users keep lots of applications running in background. Fortunately, Android comes with a built-in task killer which will help you close all the apps running in background. The latter Android firmwares were optimized to automatically kill the unused apps in multitasking that drain your battery and fill your RAM. On the other hand the third party task killer apps are constantly checking the applications running in multitasking, a process that makes your battery drain faster.

Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 Battery Maintenance

Most of the smartphone users neglect the battery maintenance aspects. But keeping your battery in proper shape will increase the battery life of your Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 and also keep it healthy on the long run. Here are some tips that will help you maintain the Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 battery in proper shape:

• All the batteries have some golden metal parts at one end, which are the contacts that send power from the battery to the device. Clean the Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 battery contacts with a dry cloth once in two month.
• Try not to pull out Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 battery too often, as this will loosen up the contacts, and the power will not be sent to the device with the maximum of efficiency.
• Use the original AC charger. If by some reasons you are buying a new charger for your Samsung Galaxy S II I9100, go for the genuine AC chargers, as they are optimized for your device’s battery model.
• Do not charge your Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 using the USB data cable, as this might spoil your battery. The power voltage in your computer’s USB slot is alternating and this is why is not recommend to use it for charging your device.
• Always charge your battery when the battery level drops below 10%, as the batteries are built to store the maximum power when bellow the 10% threshold.
• Don’t place alien objects in the Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 battery compartment. The battery emits heat, so this makes the battery expand, and it will need room for this.
• Try not to expose your Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 battery to extreme temperature conditions. Whether it’s extreme cold or heat, doing so will ruin your battery right away.

We hope that the information on how to increase Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 battery life were useful to you. After running some tests on a Samsung Galaxy S II I9100 we managed to extend the battery life with about 30-40%. Anyway choose the advices that suit the way you are using your Samsung Galaxy S II I9100. Please let us know how the tutorial worked for your device’s battery life in the comments section below.