[AT&T Samsung Galaxy S 4 General] mpsrent:
S4 Great Battery Peformance

Long read warning! S4 Owner with Great Battery Performance!

Learning from my experience tweaking the best battery performance out of my old S2, I’ve had great success in obtaining even better performance from my S4. My phone is used for a combination of business and personal use. The phone starts at 6:00 a.m. and is shut down at 10:00 p.m. My daily usage generally amounts to a significant number of push emails, a few phone calls and text messages and some web browsing, research or tool use. I’m not a gamer and my social media usage is minimal.

Following is a description of my setup using novice terminology as I am far from an expert:

1.	I rooted the phone to install Titanium Backup Pro, a must have tool in my world. I buy Smartphones for the features that they offer, so turning everything off to save battery power doesn’t make sense to me. Thus, I only turn off features that are of no benefit to me yet are likely to consume battery power. For each of us it is a personal choice as to which apps you freeze with TB. Apps such certain games, Chaton, or Google Play Books/Movies/Magazines are of no use to me, so I freeze them.

2.	I went through each setup item to identify power saving opportunities. For example, auto screen brightness will consume less power than a phone set at the full brightness setting. Ask yourself if you really need background sounds for your keyboard inputting? For me it’s nuisance so it is set to silent.

3.	Account Syncing: My business email is push whereas my personal email is set for manual syncing. Many of our accounts are power hogs, so make sure the auto syncing is turned off for photos, music, books, etc. unless this is a feature that you value. For all the cloud work I do, manual syncing works for me.

4.	Program Syncing: How often do you need push updates or are you willing to sync upon opening an app? Do you need weather updated hourly or can you hit the refresh button? Do you need push news services or manual sync? Each time you turn auto syncing off you save power. Alternatively, sometimes there are situations for which you prefer live up to date information. It’s all about adjusting your phone to meet your needs.

5.	Google Maps and GPS: While a great feature, running GPS service and Google Maps can drain your battery at an alarming rate. I only turn the features on when I need them, otherwise they are off. Conversely, unlike older phones, I don’t find wifi or Bluetooth to be power hogs so I leave them on all the time.

6.	Social Media: While a casual user, I don’t feel the need for instant updates. My Facebook account settings are all set to manual sync. As with Google, Facebook lover power.

7.	ROM Toolbox Lite is a great app that includes an AutoStart Manager that allows you to turn on or off receivers which amount to certain criteria under which a program is automatically started. I suggest that you receivers on a program by program, receiver by receiver basis. For example, I have most of the Facebook receivers turned off. Some programs such as YouTube may not respond if you turn too many receivers.

8.	Android’s own power saving feature, don’t forget to activate this option in settings.

I hope this information is of help to others. As my screen shots illustrates, almost 8 hours into my business day and my phone is at 92% due to the fact that for most of my day my phone has been in deep sleep mode. My last suggestion is an app named Better Battery Stats which is available for free on XDA. BBS is a great tool for identifying what’s consuming your power and how often your phone is awake. Ask anyone with great battery performance and they will attest to the fact that deep sleep is what saves battery power. While the app takes a little bit of time to comprehend how it works and what information it is offering, once mastered it is a great tool for resolving power issues. I’ve suffered in the past from the dreaded power hog issues that BBS identified for repair.

Good luck and I sincerely hope this information helps someone. Please click on thanks if this post is of benefit to you.