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Do Android battery saving apps work?
- Thread starter rockitdog
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Most don't make any significant impact. If they do, it is because it is limiting the functionality of your device. There will always be trade offs.
The best thing is a different kernel. But even then a lot of the times it won't make a substantial difference. On my Nexus 4, I tried stock, trinity, matr1x, Faux, and franco. Not a single one made a substantial difference with the phone in use. The only noticeable difference was idle time. And even idle time wasn't huge. But what I was most worried about was screen on time (SOT). But again, no option really makes a substantial difference in relation to SOT.
The only thing you can do is limit the phone. Turn off NFC, Bluetooth, wifi, 3G, LTE, GPS, lower the brightness, turn off Google Now, and essentially turn your smartphone into a dumb phone. Then you will see a big difference.
The best thing is a different kernel. But even then a lot of the times it won't make a substantial difference. On my Nexus 4, I tried stock, trinity, matr1x, Faux, and franco. Not a single one made a substantial difference with the phone in use. The only noticeable difference was idle time. And even idle time wasn't huge. But what I was most worried about was screen on time (SOT). But again, no option really makes a substantial difference in relation to SOT.
The only thing you can do is limit the phone. Turn off NFC, Bluetooth, wifi, 3G, LTE, GPS, lower the brightness, turn off Google Now, and essentially turn your smartphone into a dumb phone. Then you will see a big difference.
This, exactly. Well said.
And def, never, ever pay for a 'battery' app. Juice Defender is a classic example. When Android was back in the days of Gingerbread and Froyo, the OS was not what you would call battery friendly, nor optimized. These apps helped back then. Now, they are a waste of money.
I use advanced task manager pro. It kills only unwanted apps (free apps with ads or games) after the screen goes off.
This helps a lot as I found apps with ads do linger on in the background for sometime consuming cpu time and battery before being unloaded by os. So it is best to kill these apps.
This helps a lot as I found apps with ads do linger on in the background for sometime consuming cpu time and battery before being unloaded by os. So it is best to kill these apps.
I Can vouch for greenify and battery guru. The best thing about those apps are that they inform you on what exactly is eating your battery and allow you full control on how to deal with it. Sometimes that's all you really need to know to improve your battery life. Not that it's going to magically make your battery better 
Juice Defender etc. do work but it's by limiting the functions of your device to only allow internet access every half an hour (or other set time) for a minute or two for your apps to sync, turning wifi/bluetooth on and off automatically depending on your location, and "hibernating" apps you're not using. Nothing you can't do yourself really.
Not sure about something processor specific like BatteryGuru, it might do some kind of "magic" to save battery life, but other apps don't.
Not sure about something processor specific like BatteryGuru, it might do some kind of "magic" to save battery life, but other apps don't.
Here's a thread from XDA on battery saving tips. I hibernated Google Play Services using Greenify (paid version) and so far, my idle drain had been gone down drastically.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2357417
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2357417
I'll third this. Juice Defender did help with my battery life, but the trade off in functionality was not worth it to me. I just keep a charger at work, at home, and in the car.