While smartphones and tablets gain in performance over the years, battery life suffers and remains almost unchanged. For so-called “normal” use, it is now necessary to count a day or even half a day of battery life, far from the week of basic phones.
Even if most of the applications in this selection are effective, they do not work miracles and increase battery life tenfold. To do this, it is advisable to follow a few tips such as uninstalling energy-intensive applications, reducing the brightness of the screen and its standby time or even disabling certain consumer network services.
Whether on Android and iOS, there are a host of applications to improve battery life and especially its use, they often offer one-click optimization, widgets, task managers or even algorithms based on research. Here is an overview of the free applications available on the different stores.
GSam Battery Monitor: to know (a lot!) more about the battery
GSam Battery Monitor is a useful, efficient and intuitive application to know all the information about the battery usage. In short, a very good way to prevent and learn more about problems related to the battery and its autonomy.
Available for free on Android and iOS, GSam Battery Monitor is the perfect app for viewing a plethora of detailed information on battery consumption and battery life. It is intended for users who are looking to diagnose problems related to the battery or excessively consuming applications.
The app thus offers statistics and numerous graphs on the charge, capacity and temperature of the battery, on its use by mobile data, screen, Wi-Fi, telephone or by installed applications. This last point is useful and allows you to view the ratio and consumption of each app and service installed.
Our opinion: one of the best solutions in this selection. Simple and useful, it allows you to consult a wealth of advanced and detailed information. A good means of prevention!
McAfee Mobile Booster & Cleaner: Optimize the device from top to bottom
McAfee Mobile Booster & Cleaner is an effective and simple Android application to optimize your phone or tablet in the blink of an eye. Even if advertisements are invited, all the tools are rather effective for cleaning!
This optimization solution helps improve battery life and device life. It offers one-click optimization that uses its four main tools: improving RAM, power consumption, disk space, and mobile data tracking.
It is thus possible to consult the most consuming applications and to interrupt them. The app also offers to delete unnecessary and bulky files or to set a daily restriction of mobile data.
Our opinion : Mainly dedicated to beginners, the McAfee application is efficient and very easy to use for performing quick maintenance on your Android device.
Battery Doctor: one of the most complete apps
Battery Doctor is a very good free app that allows you to extend the battery life of an Android device. We particularly appreciate the analysis of energy-consuming apps, the different energy modes and the optimization at a glance. Big downside, the unwanted advertisements are too numerous and are even found on the lock screen!
If saving battery is not an easy task, the editorial staff recommends one of the most complete applications in the field. Only available on Android, Battery Doctor is one of the most popular applications on Google Play for its ease of use and its many features to extend the autonomy of your device.
The app features one-click optimization that disables all “power-hungry” apps as well as a 3-stage charging mode for better charging performance. The user can also know the temperature of the battery in real time and the applications likely to cause it to heat up, an original and welcome feature. Battery Doctor also provides lots of detailed information about battery status and capacity.
Our opinion: a simple and pleasant app to use, which still has an annoying flaw: the advertisements that appear quite frequently (and probably consume a lot of battery, a shame…)
DU Battery Saver: optimize the battery in one click
Despite heavy advertisements, DU Battery Saver is a good Android battery saving app. Among its strengths, the application is very easy to use and offers a widget to set a new energy saving mode.
DU Battery Saver is an Android application dedicated to saving power and maintaining the battery life of the device. The application offers in particular the optimization as well as the cooling of the battery in one click. The most resource-intensive apps and processes are then automatically terminated.
DU Battery Saver also offers a 3-step charge manager as well as a calendar to view previous charge cycles. Also noteworthy is the integration of an efficient widget to optimize energy consumption in one click and to switch from one saving mode to another.
Our opinion : with its user-friendly interface, DU Battery Saver is very easy to learn and use on a daily basis. However, just like Battery Doctor, the incessant advertisements are a bit prohibitive…
Avast Battery Saver: or how to gain autonomy and space
Avast offers here a simple and intuitive application to save battery life and space on the device. A special mention to the different battery saving modes and in particular to the Urgent mode. Download for free on Android smartphones and tablets!
Security giant Avast has also dabbled in battery saving. Like the two predecessors, it is aimed at users who are looking for a quick and efficient solution to gain battery life.
To do this, Avast Battery Saver offers a one-click optimization tool whose purpose is to interrupt all excessively consuming running applications.
This solution is particularly appreciated for its various predefined and customizable energy saving modes. An Urgent mode comes in handy in situations that require maximum battery saving. Note in passing the integration of a utility in charge of saving space on the disk.
Our opinion: the app is intuitive, easy to use but only available in English. It’s still hard to ignore the pop-up ads…
Carat: an app dedicated to research
Carat is a good app that makes research available to users. Thanks to big data and machine learning, it is possible to know the most battery-consuming applications on your smartphone or tablet.
Available on both Android and iOS, Carat is a very good free application that allows you to learn more about the applications that consume the most resources and therefore energy. For the record, it was developed as part of a research project carried out within the University of Helsinki, which gives it an educational and collaborative aspect.
In fact, the app needs to run in the background for several days before getting accurate reports on which apps are using the most battery. The user is then free to stop the most consuming apps, called Bugs and Hogs. The statistics are based on the analyzes of other users and allow to attack the source of the battery problems.
Our opinion: this application does not offer any advertising but requires several days of use before obtaining reliable results. Highly recommended!
Doze: cut network communications from other apps
Doze is an Android app that handles network communications for other apps installed on the device. Beyond extending battery life, it allows you to keep an eye on your mobile data plan and avoid high bills.
Basically, when Doze is open and the device’s screen is off, network communications from other apps are automatically interrupted. So apps that receive or send a lot of data in the background will be muted for significant battery saving.
Among its options, the user can define a whitelist of applications authorized to communicate and automatically deactivate Doze when the device is charging or connected to Wi-Fi.
Our opinion: a good app that comes in prevention and effective so as not to exceed its data plan on mobile.
Greenify: hibernate other apps
Greenify is a good Android app to hibernate other apps to extend battery life. It thus greatly reduces the impact of unwanted or resource-intensive applications. To test urgently!
In the animal world, hibernation allows you to regain strength while saving resources, Greenify is inspired by it to offer a serious solution to save the battery of your Android device.
The user can thus know which applications consume the most RAM and put them into hibernation. The latter thus prevents any application from running in the background, performing periodic tasks or sending notifications.
Thanks to its automatic hibernation and its great simplicity, it is easy to manage the different applications and to deactivate hibernation on an ad hoc basis.
Our opinion: a good application, simple, devoid of advertising and effective for saving battery power and better seeing the impact of certain apps.