It’s a bit of a tough time to be a Note fan, as the whole series is in a bit of a limbo. Since the Note 7 recall, the brand has yet to see a new family member and until the Note 8 arrives this fall,
that leaves fans with the Note 5 as the most “recent” option. We say
recent very liberally, as the Note 5 is now nearly two years old. Still,
despite its age, it still remains one hell of a smartphone, and two
years later we still stand behind our original Note 5 review.
Being both a large 3,000 mAh battery, and being one of the last
removable batteries offered from a Samsung flagship, there’s a lot to
love here. Still, if for those that are looking to get the most out of
their smartphone’s battery, this guide intends to help you maximize Note
5 battery life even further.
Use Samsung’s Power Saving Mode
Let’s start by telling you one of the most obvious ways to save
energy. Samsung has included its own power saving modes to the Samsung
Galaxy Note 5 (as well as all its other popular phones). And I happen to
be a fan of Samsung’s Power Saving Mode. I have always stood on the
side of users who would rather have their phones die before sacrificing a
good experience, but this feature actually does a very good job at
keeping the phone enjoyable.
What Power Saving Mode does is limit the CPU, reduce screen
brightness, lower the frame rate, deactivate haptic feedback, turn off
the touch key lights and reduce screen timeout. It also won’t make a
drastic change in battery life, but it will be enough to extend it by a
bit. And if you really want to save battery you can just move over to
Samsung’s more extreme solution.
Samsung’s Ultra Power Saving Mode
Samsung does have a mode for those of you who want to be able to
take your handset to trips and have it last the whole time on a single
charge. It literally takes you back to the good ol’ Nokia days! Previous
tests have shown a Samsung Galaxy S5 can last up to 7 days on Ultra
Power Saving Mode, for example.
Impressive, right? But there is definitely a catch with this one.
It pretty much does revert the phone’s capabilities to the good ol’
Nokia days. The screen will turn grayscale, WiFi will go off, as will
Bluetooth, and data will be killed whenever the screen goes off. Users
can also expect to be restricted from using most apps, keeping them
locked to only a few messaging and calling essentials.
Reduce that brightness!
That Samsung Galaxy Note 5’s 5.7-inch QHD screen is big,
beautiful and bright. The only problem is that it is also a resource
hog, and those are exactly the reasons why. If you really want to expand
battery life, you should watch out for that screen. One way to continue
enjoying your phone and save energy is to reduce brightness. It’s easy
to do. And unless you spend a lot of time outdoors, chances are you are
overdoing the brightness, anyways.
Set a shorter screen timeout
Let’s face it, we can be a bit lazy and sometimes our lives are
amazingly busy. Very rarely do I manually turn off my smartphone screen;
I usually just let the screen timeout option do its thing. This will
waste a lot of battery in the long run, so go into Settings > Display > Screen timeout and set a lower option if you want your screen to go off sooner during moments of inactivity.
Check for ‘abnormal battery usage’
Samsung’s supersized phone has a pretty cool feature in its
‘Battery’ section, under the settings. Look for an option that reads
“Abnormal battery usage” to check if any of your apps have been using
more juice than they should. Many apps misbehave and start causing havoc
around your gadget, so check this neat little feature often and deal
with rogue apps as soon as possible.
Super AMOLED: more blacks, less whites
The Samsung Galaxy Note 5 sports a gorgeous Super AMOLED
screen. Colors are vibrant and blacks are super deep. This also means
the screen uses much more energy to reproduce lighter colors. In
addition, picturing the color black will use no energy, as the pixel
will technically be turned off (this is how AMOLED panels achieve such
deep blacks).
It probably won’t make a huge difference if you don’t use the
screen all the time, but any extra minutes you can get are worth it,
especially for the little effort required from you. Just set a dark
theme, try to avoid white colors and use a black wallpaper.
Turn off unnecessary connectivity
You are not always using things like WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC, GPS
and location services. If left on, these antennas will always be working
in the background and trying to find a connection, which ultimately
means to more wasted power. These can all be turned off easily, straight
from the notification area, so just give them the boot when you are
done using them. After all, you won’t always be navigating, or listening
to your tunes through a Bluetooth speaker.
Remove or disable apps you don’t use
How many of you are app hoarders? I know I am. It’s easy to
download and keep all those awesome apps in your phone, which is great
if you use them all, but that is hardly ever the case. Look through your
applications and uninstall whatever you don’t need. If you can’t
uninstall them (bloatware), just disable them from the app manager.
Turn off all those fancy (and often gimmicky) Samsung features
Samsung is known for its overbearing software, or at least it was back in the Note 5 days.
Take a look at capabilities like Smart Stay, gestures, Briefing
(Flipboard-based home screen page) and all those extra gimmicks that
most of us rarely even use. Just do yourself a favor and turn those
things off, unless you actually care about them.
Take advantage of charging capabilities
And of course, the most obvious way to keep your phone alive is
by charging it regularly. The good news here is that Samsung (along with
many other manufacturers and companies) has been able to speed up
charging times significantly. Samsung has its own quick charging
technology, which they call “Adaptive Fast Charging”. The company claims
this charger can take your phone from 0% to 50% in just 30 minutes.
Additionally, the Galaxy Note 5 supports wireless charging. You
can buy some wireless chargers and just place them wherever you spend
more time, like your office, kitchen or room. I love the effortless way
in which one can charge phones with wireless charging. You don’t even
have to think about it – just leave the Galaxy Note 5 there and let it
juice up whenever you are not using it.
Wrapping up
So there you have your 10 tips for keeping that Samsung Galaxy
Note 5 alive for longer. Some may argue that a few of these tips will
affect your experience. But then, having a dead phone does as well. It
just depends on your priorities.
Which of these tricks do you guys actually take advantage of? Do
you have any other tips for your fellow Samsung Galaxy Note 5 users? Hit
the comments and let us know!
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