Android 10 isn't the biggest platform update, but it has a good set of features that can be tweaked to improve your battery life. Coincidentally, some of the changes you can now make to protect your privacy also have knock-on effects in saving power as well. Here's how you can maximize your battery life with a few simple changes on Android 10.
Samsung also has Adaptive Battery, but the interface doesn't really look like it does on other phones and more closely follows its similar settings from Android 9. You can find it in the battery settings next to everything else, and it's a simple toggle to turn on and let it do its thing automatically.
However, Samsung also augments the regular Adaptive Battery settings with additional "advanced" settings to put unused apps to sleep (which is ostensibly what Adaptive Battery does, but whatever). When you turn this on, apps that haven't been used in several days will be put to "sleep" so they won't run in the background until you've opened the app and reset the sleep counter. You can see a list of apps that have been put to sleep, and then also whitelist specific apps so they're never forced to sleep.
Customize Power Saving Modes
Samsung, of course, has a battery saver mode like every other phone, but its version offers a few more tweaks and options as it has for several versions of its software.
By default your phone will be set to "optimized" for everyday use, but when you need to save battery you can toggle to either "medium" or "maximum." Medium power saving mode is the most similar to other phones; it reduces performance slightly, turns off always-on display and reduces the phone's brightness. You can still use your phone normally, but it'll be a bit more conservative about power drain. Maximum power saving mode goes all-out and restricts a whole bunch of background processes, limits all apps that are in the background, and turns off mobile data in various cases to really save power — your phone will last a couple days on a charge without fail, but it won't be enjoyable to use.
You can turn on either power saving mode from the battery settings, or from the notification shade. Like the Pixel, you can also let the phone choose when to change the power saving mode based on your usage — just toggle the "adaptive power saving" option in the settings, and it will drop the phone into medium, or even maximum, power saving mode if it tells that your phone's going to die before you typically charge it based on your usage.
Change Always On Display settings
Samsung was one of the earliest pioneers of always-on display tech with its OLED screens, and it has a ton of settings to customize when it's shown (and using battery). You can find always-on display settings under the lock screen settings menu.
The biggest thing you can do to save battery is switch your always-on display from "show always" to either "show as scheduled" or "tap to show." The former will let you turn it on for specific times — perhaps just your working hours — while the latter saves the most battery because you have to specifically tap the screen to show it. You can also adjust the brightness of the always-on display to be set at a low percentage, which will also save battery over the auto brightness mode but will make it incredibly difficult to see in bright lighting and sor tof defeats the purpose of an always-on display.
As is the case with other phones, your always-on display will turn off whenever the phone's in a pocket or a bag, so you don't have to worry about that draining your battery.
Battery-saving tips for all Android 10 phones
Uninstall unused apps
Using Battery Saver to restrict background app usage is useful, but the best thing you can do is not have a ton of apps on your phone you're not using in the first place. The system does a decent job with restricting battery usage through Adaptive Battery, but you can take it all into your own hands by uninstalling apps you know you're not using frequently.
Scroll through your apps and ask yourself when the last time was you actually cared to open many of them and when you expect to realistically use them again. You can always re-install apps — all of the apps you've installed stay in your "library" on the Play Store, so you can go back and find them quickly later.
Restrict background location access
Android 10 has a great new permission system that lets you choose whether apps have access to your phone's location. Rather than making it all on or all off, you can choose a middle setting of only giving location while the app is being used. This is obviously a win for privacy because, honestly, most apps just shouldn't have access to your location, and you should have control over that.
Luckily, fewer apps having access to your location in the background is also a battery saver. Android does a good job of coalescing location requests, but still, it drains a little battery every time your phone gets your location in the background and apps wake up to access it.
Head into Settings, Privacy, Permission manager, and then Location (this may differ slightly from phone to phone) to see a list of every app that has access to your location. Chances are most of your apps have full location access. You can tap into each app and change to "Allow only while using the app" if you want to restrict it. If there's an app you feel shouldn't ever have your location, you can deny it entirely.
There's a chance that some apps may not behave properly if you deny their location access, and it could be in ways you didn't expect. For the most part, apps can handle this restriction just fine, and in return you get the peace of mind of knowing they can't see where you are — and you can save some battery at the same time.
Charge faster, charge easier
Ultimately, no matter what you do you're going to have to charge your phone. And even if you have a phone with great battery life, you want to maximize your charging time with a wired charger, wireless charger, or portable battery that gets your phone charged and back out as quickly as possible
