Phone Battery Problems: Top Phone Battery Zappers Identified - Facebook Tops List; Here's How To Fix Problem
Is your phone or tablet losing battery power so fast it would seem there's a monster inside feeding on it?
If your answer is yes, this could be a sign that indeed your device is harboring a monster, or even monsters, in the form of performance-draining apps.
A recent study by the security firm AVG shows that the battery life of Android devices is being sucked out by several power-hungry apps.
The company says it analyzed the devices of more than a million AVG Android users, measuring battery life, data consumption and storage among other factors.
The hands down biggest battery-life drainer is Facebook, appearing in three of the four categories. This is largely because of the social networking apps' constant background notification checks, which run even when you're not using your phone.
Real-time news apps also fill up a lot of Android storage space, with the New York Times' breaking news app topping the list of storage eaters. This is because the Times' app caches articles including photos and videos behind the scenes
Pre-installed apps from manufacturers like Samsung are also some of the biggest Android performance drainers. Three Samsung pre-installed apps made the Top 10 list of auto-starting battery draining apps including ChatON and Samsung WatchOn.
But all these apps are no match to the hungriest monsters inside your phone – the game apps. The AVG study showed that users spend 62 percent of their time playing games on their Android tablets or smartphones. King, the maker of Candy Crush Saga and other top Android games, has four entries in the top 10 battery draining games.
Based on its study, AVG came up with four categories of top battery-draining apps. Here are the "hungriest performers" in their respective categories:
Top 10 Non-Game Battery Drainers
1. Facebook
2. Path
3. 9GAG Funny Pics & Videos
4. Instagram
5. Spotify Music
6. BBM (BlackBerry)
7. QQ (Tencent Technology)
8. textPlus Free Text & Calls
9. Wattpad Free Books & Stories
10. iFunny : )
Top 10 Battery Drainers -- Run at Start Up
1. AllShareCast Dongle S/W Update (Samsung).
2. ChatON Voice & Video Chat (Samsung)
3. Beaming Service for Beep'n'Go (Moheam)
4. magicApp: Free Calls (magiclack VocalTec)
5. Samsung WatchON Tablets
6. Facebook
7. Path
8. PPS for Mobile
9. Vault-Hide SMS Pics & Videos
10. Al-Moazin Lite Prayer Times
Top 10 Storage Eaters
1. NY Times -- Breaking News
2. Tango Messenger Video & Calls
3. Spotify Music
4. Facebook
5. Chrome Browser
6. 9GAG Funny pics & videos
7. Instagram
8. LINE camera -- Selfie & Collage
9. Vine
10. Talking Angela
Top 10 Battery-Draining Game Apps
1. Puzzle & Dragons (GungHo Online Entertainment)
2. Hay Day (Supercell)
3. Candy Crush Saga (King)
4. Minecraft -- Pocket Edition (Mojang)
5. Cookie Jam (SGN)
6. Pet Rescue Saga (King)
7. Clash of Clans (Supercell)
8. Bubble Witch 2 Saga (King)
9. Farm Heroes Saga (King)
10. Angry Birds (Rovio Mobile)
What to Do
But of course these "monsters" in our phones can be tamed.
One of the simplest solutions is to turn off background data and notifications in apps which you suspect are zapping the life out of your device. You can identify the apps draining your battery in the settings menu, go into the offending app's settings and manually set the permissions. For example, in the Facebook app settings you can disallow the app from using GPS or push pop-up notifications.
The AVG study found that just scrolling through your timeline on Facebook for 60 seconds produces more than 5MB of temporary files. Watching a 20-second video in the New York Times app can create a cache of 10MB.
You can remove all these background data clogging up your device by going into the app manager in the settings menu, selecting the relevant app, and pressing "clean cache."
In case you're still confused on what to do to tame the "monsters" inside your device, then you can simply uninstall the offending apps.
