Latest news with #batteryLife
The Verge
14-07-2025
- The Verge
Microsoft has a new trick to improve laptop battery life on Windows
Microsoft has started testing a new feature in Windows 11 that will improve laptop battery life. A new adaptive energy saver mode will soon automatically enable or disable the main energy saver mode, based on your laptop's workload rather than just its amount of battery life left. The energy saver mode in Windows 11 typically dims a display brightness by 30 percent, disables transparency effects, and stop apps running in the background. Non-critical Windows update downloads are also paused, and certain apps like OneDrive, OneNote, and Phone Link may not sync fully while energy saver is enabled. This new adaptive energy saver mode, which will only be available on devices with a battery, will automatically enable or disable without affecting screen brightness. That will make it less noticeable on devices like laptops, tablets, and handhelds. 'Adaptive energy saver is an opt-in feature that automatically enables and disables energy saver, without changing screen brightness, based on the power state of the device and the current system load,' explains Microsoft's Windows Insider team. Microsoft has started testing this with Canary Channel Windows 11 testers recently, so expect to see it appear in Windows 11 later this year. While you won't be able to use this new adaptive energy saver mode on desktop PCs, Microsoft brought its main energy saver mode to all PCs last year, allowing even desktop PCs to save on electricity usage.
Phone Arena
08-07-2025
- Phone Arena
OnePlus Watch 3 43mm Review: The compact battery champ
How can you stand out in the smartwatch space where Apple Watches, Samsung Galaxy Watches, and Garmin devices already have their loyal fan base? OnePlus thinks it can do something better: a true smartwatch with double the battery life of an Apple Watch or a Galaxy Watch. And now, after first releasing that earlier with the 46mm OnePlus Watch 3, the company is back with the OnePlus 3 43mm, a much more compact watch that still retains its battery advantage. The OnePlus Watch 3 43mm is stylish and elegant, but it's also lightweight and compact, which you could not say about the larger version. The secret behind its longer battery life is a dual-engine architecture. The watch automatically switches between a low-power chip and a regular one without you ever noticing, maximizing battery efficiency. Add to that solid GPS performance, good heart rate accuracy, and all the essential workouts, and you have a very enticing Wear OS watch. Is that a recipe destined for success, or should OnePlus just not bother with smaller wearables? Stainless-steel case Elevated digital crown that rotates 354mAh battery (compared to 631mAh on 46mm model) Standard use battery life of 60 hours (vs five days on 46mm model) Lots of good-looking watch faces (but don't use them if you want the best battery life) Very fast charging (10 minute charge gives you 24 hours of use) The 43mm OnePlus Watch 3 comes in two colors: Silver Steel and Black Steel, with a matching color fluoroelastomer strap. The shiny stainless-steel body definitely elevates the look of this watch. The key here, however, is the smaller size and lighter weight. This is the perfect watch size for smaller wrists, and it is extremely comfortable to wear for longer periods of time, including sleep. As far as hardware specs go, here's what the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm gives you: OnePlus Watch 3 43mm and its accessories (Image by PhoneArena) Inside the OnePlus Watch 3 box, you will find the following: OnePlus Watch 3 Charging base Strap User Manual USB-C charging cable The new smaller-sized version of the OnePlus Watch 3 is a more compact and significantly more elegant take on the company's larger smartwatch. Measuring 43mm across and devoid of the rugged and more masculine aesthetics of the regular OnePlus Watch 3, this new arrival to the smartwatch scene is sleeker and more elegant, with a flat design that makes it appear significantly smaller than it actually is. Weighing just 59 gr with the stock strap, the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm is super easy to wear; sometimes you wouldn't even feel that it's on your wrist. Although it would fit male wrists nicely, this one wouldn't look out of touch on a female wrist, which is something I can't say about the original OnePlus Watch 3—that one was obviously a masculine smartwatch. The rotating digital crown is here, but the smartwatch lacks the elevated side bezel on the right, so the crown appears to be sticking out awkwardly a bit. The smaller-sized extra button is placed on the lower-right side of the case. The case is a stainless-steel one and doesn't have a large bezel like the titanium one on the bigger OnePlus Watch 3. Speaking of the screen, we have a slightly slanted 1.32-inch AMOLED display with a decent sharpness of 352ppi (way above what Apple considers "Retina," for example). There's no sapphire here, just regular 2.5D glass. The peak brightness is fine but is significantly lower than most other smartwatches, including the original OnePlus Watch 3. It maxes out at 1,000 nits, which pales in comparison with the 2,200-nit peak brightness of the larger model. This means you might have some legibility issues in very bright environments. Just like its bigger brother, the new OnePlus Watch 3 boasts an IP68 rating along with 5ATM water resistance. Missing here is the MIL-STD-801H shockproof rating that the OnePlus Watch 3 had. This means that you should pamper this one and try to avoid bumping into edges, corners, and boulders. The watch comes in Silver Steel and Black Steel, and the lighter version is definitely aimed at the more feminine part of the populace, while the darker version could be comfortably worn by men as well. OnePlus Watch 3 43mm in Black Steel and Silver Steel colors The OnePlus Watch 3 43mm doesn't introduce a new band attachment mechanism. It features standard 18mm lugs, allowing you to swap the stock fluoroelastomer band with any 18mm one you might have lying around. The stock band has a nice quick-release mechanism, and we see nothing wrong with OnePlus keeping things simple. OnePlus Watch 3 Software & Features Just like the OnePlus Watch 3, the smaller version also comes with two chipsets and two operating systems. In smart mode, the watch is run by a Snapdragon W5 Gen 1 chip with Google's WearOS 5 on deck. In this mode, you can use the watch normally, download apps, and enjoy all features on deck. When the battery level falls beyond a certain percentage, or if you deliberately enable the power-saver mode, the BES2800BP chip and the RTOS operating system take the reins. While visually the interface doesn't differ too much from the WearOS one, but you only have access to more rudimentary and basic functionalities. Most watch faces are replaced with basic ones, third-party apps and tiles are unavailable, some complications may fail to showcase data, SOS calls are unavailable, and most accessibility features are disabled. Only workouts and most health features are available, and you can still receive notifications. This mode extends the battery life up to a week here, which is pretty much unmatched. Back to smart mode, most of the features of the OnePlus Watch 3 are still available on the new version. For example, you get customizable new video/photo watch faces, while stock watch faces are way more customizable than on the OnePlus Watch 2 generation. Performance is pretty decent. In smart mode, the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm treats us to a fluid interface with more than enough responsiveness. There's 2GB of RAM and a generous amount of 32GB of storage, which is more than enough to store all your music, apps, and other data. The wearable is only compatible with Android devices, with the OHealth app acting as a software hub for all features and health-related data. As before, you can't use this smartwatch with an iPhone. The activity loadout is similar to the one on the OnePlus Watch 3, including more than a hundred different sports and activities, including eleven professional sports. Tracking each activity gives you a data-rich dashboard that can be customized with the type of data you wish to see. In running, for example, you get cadence, stride length, GTC (ground contact time), vertical amplitude, vertical stride, running power, and more. When tracking tennis, you get to see your swing speed, total strokes, serve, forehand, and backhand data. Swimming lets you track your 100-meter pace, number of laps, distance, swolf, and number of strokes. Walking lets you track your distance, number of steps, and cadence. The OnePlus Watch 3 43mm comes with a GPS that supports all the essential technologies, like Galileo, Beidou, GLONASS, QZSS, and GPS itself. The problem here is the fact that the GPS is a single-band one, which could introduce some issues when tracking your activities in dense metropolitan areas. The larger OnePlus Watch 3 comes with dual L1+L5 GPS, which is better-suited to accurately measure your activities in the city jungle. The omnidirectional antenna from the larger Watch 3 also seems to be missing here, probably due to space constraints. Sleep tracking Like its bigger brother, the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm comes with very detailed sleep tracking reporting. Your sleep gets broken down into the four main categories: deep sleep, light sleep, REM, and awake duration. Each category shows your result compared against the ideal length, which lets you identify issues with your sleep. For every one of your sleep sessions, you get awarded a Sleep Score, naps included. The smartwatch will also track your vital signs during sleep, monitoring your respiratory rate, and even identify breathing problems and detect snoring if you enable the respective feature. This watch lacks some of the core OnePlus Watch 3 health features, like ECG, Vascular Age, and 60S Health Check-in. That one required you to hold your finger on the digital crown for a minute to give you a complete report of all your health and wellness metrics, like hearth health, arterial stiffness, breathing issues, and more. The new feature coming with the smaller OnePlus Watch 3 is female cycle tracking. It can predict upcoming menstrual cycles and ovulation windows, while users can log in symptoms and other changes. I assume it works alright. Just like the larger watch, mental health monitoring is fairly important here. The watch will take your heart rate variability, heart rate, and your activity levels throughout the day to deliver an estimation of your physical and mental health. The interface of the respective Mind and Body tile is updated with more friendly graphics, making it easier to track your moods. I noticed that the new watch thinks I am way less stressed than its predecessor did, which is peculiar. I haven't had any major changes in my lifestyle, so it could either be a false positive or OnePlus has changed the algorithms, behind the feature; I shall report back if I notice a correlation. The 43mm version of the OnePlus Watch 3 comes with a 354mAh battery, notably smaller than the massive 631mAh one on the larger OnePlus Watch 3. Interestingly, battery life is halved across the board in comparison with the larger wearable. OnePlus says we should expect up to 60 hours in smart mode and up to a week of usage in power-saver mode, while the larger watch offers up to 120 hours in smart mode and up to two weeks when you enable the power-saving mode. This data is pretty consistent in my experience, and while everyone uses their wearables differently, I get around two and a half days out of the OnePlus Watch 3, with always-on display disabled and with all the sleep-tracking bells and whistles enabled. Don't get me wrong, the battery life is still great here, but it's less impressive than the OnePlus Watch 3. Still, regular Apple Watches and Galaxy Watches still can't hold a candle to this wearable. Charging is super fast thanks to the 10W VOOC wireless-charging puck. It takes just an hour to fully charge the wearable, but a quick 10-minute charge is more than enough to get you enough power to last through the day. Like the larger watch, you can make and take calls with the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm. Audio is fairly decent, with the quality sufficient and the loudness fairly good. The haptics are strong, but once again a bit too high-pitched and distracting for my taste. I miss the stronger thump of an Apple Watch or a Galaxy Watch here, but for the most part, the haptics are okay. Naturally, it's Samsung's smartwatches that are the most popular among the Android crowd, and rightly so: they pair friendly design with great health and wellness features. However, their battery life won't be comparable to the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm, which will most certainly have them beat. The upcoming Apple Watch Series 11 , on the other hand, also won't be able to match the great battery life of this here OnePlus smartwatch. An Apple Watch naturally fits extremely nicely into the Apple ecosystem, and has all the health and fitness features you might want. No two ways about it, the OnePlus Watch 3 43mm is a compromise in most areas, offering a slightly worse experience in comparison with the standard OnePlus Watch 3. The most essential feature of any smartwatch, the battery life, is halved here, mostly due to the design constraints. Some not-so-essential but still nice-to-have health features are missing, and the watch can't get as bright as its bigger brother, which is something you'd have to learn to live with. Then again, when you compare this OnePlus Watch against the non-OnePlus WearOS competition, it shines rather brightly. It has better battery life than most WearOS devices you might get, an equal feature and functionality set, and a design language that's super lovely! Another ongoing criticism with OnePlus' smartwatches is the lack of a cellular version for sale: regardless of what you do with your watch, you will need to have your Android phone close by; otherwise, you're left with a digital watch that merely tracks your steps. Would I recommend getting this one? Yes, despite its flaws, it's excellent value for money, especially if you're sick of super-large smartwatches.
Yahoo
06-07-2025
- Yahoo
iPhone Battery Draining Fast? You Might Need to Undo These 3 Settings
It's not just your imagination: Your iPhone's battery doesn't last as long as it used to. That's because every phone's battery gradually loses its ability to hold a charge. But even if your iPhone is a few years old, you shouldn't have to keep it in Low Power Mode all day. By making a few small changes, you can give your battery life a big boost. Whether you're using your phone to get directions, stream music or send that one last text, the last thing you want is for it to shut down at the worst possible moment. Instead of scrambling for a charger or switching on Low Power Mode every few hours, take a minute to check your iPhone settings. Turning off a few power-draining features could be the fix your battery desperately needs-and it only takes seconds to do. You can also keep an eye on your Battery Health menu -- it'll tell you your battery health percentage (80% or higher is considered good), as well as show you how many times you've cycled your battery and whether or not your battery is "normal." We'll explain three iOS features that put a strain on your iPhone's battery to varying degrees, and show how you can turn them off to help preserve battery life. Here's what you need to know. All the widgets on your lock screen force your apps to automatically run in the background, constantly fetching data to update the information the widgets display, like sports scores or the weather. Because these apps are constantly running in the background due to your widgets, that means they continuously drain power. If you want to help preserve some battery on iOS 18, the best thing to do is simply avoid widgets on your lock screen (and home screen). The easiest way to do this is to switch to another lock screen profile: Press your finger down on your existing lock screen and then swipe around to choose one that doesn't have any widgets. If you want to just remove the widgets from your existing lock screen, press down on your lock screen, hit Customize, choose the Lock Screen option, tap on the widget box and then hit the "—" button on each widget to remove them. Your iPhone user interface has some fun, sleek animations. There's the fluid motion of opening and closing apps, and the burst of color that appears when you activate Siri with Apple Intelligence, just to name a couple. These visual tricks help bring the slab of metal and glass in your hand to life. Unfortunately, they can also reduce your phone's battery life. If you want subtler animations across iOS, you can enable the Reduce Motion setting. To do this, go to Settings > Accessibility > Motion and toggle on Reduce Motion. Surprisingly, the keyboard on the iPhone has never had the ability to vibrate as you type, an addition called "haptic feedback" that was added to iPhones with iOS 16. Instead of just hearing click-clack sounds, haptic feedback gives each key a vibration, providing a more immersive experience as you type. According to Apple, the very same feature may also affect battery life. According to this Apple support page about the keyboard, haptic feedback "might affect the battery life of your iPhone." No specifics are given as to how much battery life the keyboard feature drains, but if you want to conserve battery, it's best to keep this feature disabled. Fortunately, it is not enabled by default. If you've enabled it yourself, go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics > Keyboard Feedback and toggle off Haptic to turn off haptic feedback for your keyboard. For more tips on iOS, read about how to access your Control Center more easily and why you might want to only charge your iPhone to 95%.
Android Authority
05-07-2025
- Android Authority
Why government red tape is draining your phone's battery potential
Robert Triggs / Android Authority You're not alone if you're pining for longer battery life from your latest smartphone. Despite emerging technologies like silicon-carbon cells, we've seemingly hit a ceiling just above the 5,000 mAh mark — at least for phones sold in the US and Europe. Meanwhile, glance over at models in China or India, and you'll spot far larger batteries in otherwise identical handsets. For example, the new Nothing Phone 3 packs a 5,150mAh battery globally, but bumps that up to 5,500mAh in India. The HONOR Magic 7 Pro goes from 5,270mAh in Europe to 5,850mAh in China, and the Xiaomi 15 Ultra stretches from 5,410mAh globally to a massive 6,000mAh in its domestic market. So what gives? Why can't we have these same huge battery capacities on the other side of the world too? Wouldn't you know it? Regulation and red tape are to blame Rita El Khoury / Android Authority If you've ever attempted to ship a phone by post in Europe or the US (and probably many other countries too), you might have been interrogated by the postmaster about the size of the battery and whether it's sealed in the device. That's because many countries treat lithium-ion batteries as hazardous goods, with strict rules on how they're packaged and transported. The same rules apply — often even more stringently — to commercial shipments moving by air, road, rail, or sea. Several major international regulations govern this. In Europe, there's the ADR (covering road transport), RID (rail), and IMDG (sea). For air shipments, carriers follow the International Air Transport Association's (IATA) Dangerous Goods Regulations (DGR) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) rules. In the US, there's also the Code of Federal Regulations, 49 CFR § 173.185, which lays out similar requirements, and other nations sometimes have their own rule variations. All of these regulations ultimately trace back to the UN's Model Regulations, which define lithium-ion batteries as either UN3480 (batteries shipped on their own) or UN3481 (batteries packed with or inside equipment). But the most important piece is UN Special Provision 188, which sets a threshold for what's considered a 'small' lithium-ion battery that can be shipped under simplified rules. That limit is 20Wh (watt-hours) per cell, and it's mirrored in the ADR, IMDG, IATA, and other international rules that govern global transportation networks. For context, there's also a 100Wh limit for a complete battery pack before stricter transport classifications kick in — but that's more relevant for laptops and power banks. International transport rules cap single-cell li-ion capacity at 20Wh, roughly 5,300mAh. A 20Wh cap might sound large, but it's tied to the battery's voltage. For a typical lithium-ion cell with a nominal voltage around 3.8 V, this works out to roughly 5,300mAh per cell — which is about where most modern smartphone batteries in Europe and the US max out. That's why you might notice slightly smaller battery capacities in these markets compared to some models sold in countries with fewer shipping constraints. While these rules might be annoying from a consumer product perspective, they exist for a very good reason. Lithium-ion batteries pack a lot of energy into a small space, which is what makes them so good for powering phones and laptops, but it also means they can pose a fire risk if damaged, short-circuited, or exposed to heat. We've all seen the exploding phone horror stories due to thermal runaway. Shipping regulations are designed to minimize these risks by limiting the size of batteries that can travel under simpler, less costly rules, alongside the UN38.3 altitude, vibration, and thermal tests that all lithium batteries must pass to prove they can be transported safely. By capping battery energy at 20Wh per cell for simplified transport, authorities reduce the chances of large-scale fires in trucks, ships, or aircraft cargo holds, which helps keep insurance costs down as well. Bigger batteries aren't banned outright, but they require more protective packaging, special documentation, and sometimes dedicated cargo handling to keep people and property safe. Why do some phones still have 6,000mAh batteries? Joe Maring / Android Authority Did you spot the lawyer's way out of this conundrum? The 20Wh rule applies to single battery cells, but you can skirt this restriction if you pack two (or more) batteries together inside a gadget. Some smartphones have sported split-cell designs for more efficient fast charging for a number of years now, most noticeably from BBK brands OnePlus and OPPO. Hence, you'll still find a colossal 6,000mAh battery stateside with the OnePlus 13, and the OPPO Find X8 Pro makes its way to Europe with its 5,910mAh cell intact. But that's not exactly a cheap solution; not only does it require multiple cells, but special circuitry to handle charging and discharging safely. Not every brand is willing to invest in that, which is one reason why Apple, Google, Samsung, and many others haven't pushed ahead with quite as large capacities as some of their Chinese competitors. Still, laptops have long used multiple smaller cells wired together to stay safely under the 100Wh pack limit, which is why we rarely see them run into shipping issues. Our smartphones will have to follow suit if we want to take another leap up in capacity. More expensive split-cell designs are one way to boost phone battery life to new highs. When it comes to phones manufactured and sold in China, the products move entirely internally, so many of the rules that govern international shipping don't apply or aren't enforced as strictly. Likewise, land transportation between China and its neighbours, along with localized manufacturing, helps explain why we occasionally see some larger capacity models make their way outside of China as well. If you really want bigger batteries in your gadgets, we will either have to pay the premium for split cell designs, fork out for the cost, liability, and insurance premiums for shipping bigger batteries, or start manufacturing them locally. That latter point obviously isn't going to happen, so we might be snookered, which will unfortunately reduce the scale of the battery-life breakthroughs being made by technologies like silicon-carbon batteries.
CNET
05-07-2025
- CNET
iPhone Battery Draining Fast? You Might Need to Undo These 3 Settings
It's not just your imagination: Your iPhone's battery doesn't last as long as it used to. That's because every phone's battery gradually loses its ability to hold a charge. But even if your iPhone is a few years old, you shouldn't have to keep it in Low Power Mode all day. By making a few small changes, you can give your battery life a big boost. Whether you're using your phone to get directions, stream music or send that one last text, the last thing you want is for it to shut down at the worst possible moment. Instead of scrambling for a charger or switching on Low Power Mode every few hours, take a minute to check your iPhone settings. Turning off a few power-draining features could be the fix your battery desperately needs-and it only takes seconds to do. You can also keep an eye on your Battery Health menu -- it'll tell you your battery health percentage (80% or higher is considered good), as well as show you how many times you've cycled your battery and whether or not your battery is "normal." We'll explain three iOS features that put a strain on your iPhone's battery to varying degrees, and show how you can turn them off to help preserve battery life. Here's what you need to know. Turn off widgets on your iPhone lock screen All the widgets on your lock screen force your apps to automatically run in the background, constantly fetching data to update the information the widgets display, like sports scores or the weather. Because these apps are constantly running in the background due to your widgets, that means they continuously drain power. If you want to help preserve some battery on iOS 18, the best thing to do is simply avoid widgets on your lock screen (and home screen). The easiest way to do this is to switch to another lock screen profile: Press your finger down on your existing lock screen and then swipe around to choose one that doesn't have any widgets. If you want to just remove the widgets from your existing lock screen, press down on your lock screen, hit Customize, choose the Lock Screen option, tap on the widget box and then hit the "—" button on each widget to remove them. If you're already low on battery, it's best to just switch to a wallpaper that doesn't have lock screen widgets. Screenshots by Nelson Aguilar/CNET Reduce the motion of your iPhone UI Your iPhone user interface has some fun, sleek animations. There's the fluid motion of opening and closing apps, and the burst of color that appears when you activate Siri with Apple Intelligence, just to name a couple. These visual tricks help bring the slab of metal and glass in your hand to life. Unfortunately, they can also reduce your phone's battery life. If you want subtler animations across iOS, you can enable the Reduce Motion setting. To do this, go to Settings > Accessibility > Motion and toggle on Reduce Motion. Visual tricks like the parallax effect are fun, but they can affect your battery life. Screenshots by Jason Chun/CNET Switch off your iPhone's keyboard vibration Surprisingly, the keyboard on the iPhone has never had the ability to vibrate as you type, an addition called "haptic feedback" that was added to iPhones with iOS 16. Instead of just hearing click-clack sounds, haptic feedback gives each key a vibration, providing a more immersive experience as you type. According to Apple, the very same feature may also affect battery life. Watch this: So Many iPhone Battery Complaints, but Why? 09:44 According to this Apple support page about the keyboard, haptic feedback "might affect the battery life of your iPhone." No specifics are given as to how much battery life the keyboard feature drains, but if you want to conserve battery, it's best to keep this feature disabled. Fortunately, it is not enabled by default. If you've enabled it yourself, go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics > Keyboard Feedback and toggle off Haptic to turn off haptic feedback for your keyboard. Every single time you type, you'll feel a slight vibration for each key you hit. Screenshots by Nelson Aguilar/CNET For more tips on iOS, read about how to access your Control Center more easily and why you might want to only charge your iPhone to 95%.
