How to Get Better Moto X 2014 Battery Life 

It’s almost hard to imagine that at some point we didn’t need to charge our smartphones every day. In recent years, smartphone makers have done better with battery life. Sometimes they’ve offered bigger batteries inside. Motorola opted for a different approach to getting battery life with the Moto X 2014.

The Moto X 2014 has a small battery relative to its screen size. Instead of making the device thicker, Motorola opted for battery saving software features and some extras related to charging. Here’s how to get better Moto X 2014 battery life.

Prevention

I like to thank of the Moto X 2014’s battery features in terms of how they solve the problem. First, there’s the prevention stuff. These features don’t suddenly mean you have a battery with bigger capacity. Instead, they’re software tricks, little things that you can use and toggle to make your Moto X 2014 use less battery power.

Moto Display

The key to getting battery life with the Moto X 2014 is being willing to take advantage of its key features. Nothing can prevent you from having a depleted battery at the end of the day like Moto Display, a feature that was included in the original Moto X and in the Moto X 2014. Nothing pulls down battery life like a fully lit display. The Moto X 2014 has an AMOLED display that consumes less power when whatever is on the screen is black.

Make sure Moto Display is turned on inside the Moto app on your Moto X 2014. If it is, the Moto X 2014 will display relevant notifications on a predominately black screen. This saves you from powering the screen on fully and depleting your battery faster. Thanks to Moto Actions you can wave your hands and check for pending notifications without turning on the display too.

Open the Moto App from the App drawer at the bottom of your screen. It’s under the letter “M”.

Adjust Screen Brightness and Network Settings

This one isn’t unique to the Moto X 2014, but if you’re short on battery life, it’s not a bad idea to adjust your settings accordingly. Place your finger on the top edge of your screen and slowly drag your finger downward to reveal the Settings area.

Turn your screen brightness down if you’re in a dark room. Tap your Wi-Fi or Bluetooth radio to save the battery power that those take up too.

Monitor Apps for Battery Usage and Then Force Them To Stop

One of Android’s biggest strengths is its openness. Developers are allowed to do a lot of things in their apps behind the scenes. Most of the time that’s good. For battery life it’s usually bad. Go to the Settings and tap on Battery to look at what apps are killing your battery and by how much.

If its an app you used, say you streamed Netflix for an hour, its not unusual for it effect battery life. Look for strange things, like an app you haven’t opened draining your battery even though you haven’t done anything. Place your finger on any app you’d like to stop from running in the background and tap Force Stop. That’ll keep it from taking up any more battery life until the next time you restart.

Turn on Battery Saver

Always remember that your Android phone is doing things for you in the background like loading your email, checking for notifications and getting your latest voicemails. All of that takes battery power. With Android Lollipop, Google added a Battery Saver mode that kills a lot of what’s going on in the background in order to save you battery life.

Go to the Settings app and search Battery Saver. There you can manually turn Battery Saver on whenever you want. You can also configure Battery Saver to turn on when you are running low on power automatically. Whenever Battery Saver is on, a bright red border will surround your screen. It does this to let you know that some of your apps aren’t being updated because of it trying to save on power.

Cure

Finally, there’s what I consider to be the cure. Naturally, charging your Moto X 2014 saves you from being out of contact. What’s unique about the Moto X 2014 is that it comes equipped with Turbo Charging. That’s a fancy way of saying, your Moto X 2014 can be charged extremely fast. Turbo Charger costs $34.99 directly from Motorola and boosts battery life by 8 hours after a 15 minute charge.

The Power Pack Micro from Motorola is also a great way to keep the Moto X 2014 charged on the go. It fits on your key ring and acts as a finder when you have your Moto X 2014 but can find where you left your car keys. The Power Pack Micro costs $39.99 and comes in a few different colors.

Good luck extending the amount of time you’re able to go in between charges with your Moto X 2014.