The most useful thing about
Android 5.0 Lollipop isn’t the
new look: it’s the improvements
that mean your device’s battery
will last a lot longer. Here’s why
Lollipop will last for ages.
Android L lollipop interface
pink lol
Android 5.0 Lollipop delivers
real improvements in battery
life. / © ANDROIDPIT
Mobile technology is getting
faster, cheaper and more
impressive every year - the tech
in a Google Wear smartwatch
would have seemed amazing in
a full-sized smartphone just a
few years ago - but the Achilles'
heel of any mobile device
remains the battery. It’s not that
battery tech isn’t improving; it’s
that our ever-growing list of
demands (faster broadband,
bigger screens, MOAR PIXELS
and so on) cancel out those
improvements.
That’s why most smartphones
still need to be charged every
day, why smartwatches are
lucky to last until it gets dark
and why tablets are essentially
enormous battery packs with
touch screens glued to the front
of them.
Wouldn’t it be great if
upgrading your operating
system gave you a better
battery too? That’s exactly what
Android 5.0 Lollipop promises.
It turns out that Android’s
codenames are pretty accurate:
where you can lick all the
chocolate off a KitKat in no time
at all, Lollipops can be licked for
an awful lot longer.
Power to the people:
Android 5.0 Project Volta
projet volta android l
economiseur batterie
Project Volta set out to make
Android much less power
hungry. / © AndroidPIT
The most significant change in
Android 5.0 is Project Volta, the
successor to Project Butter
(which was designed to make
Android’s interface run more
smoothly) and to Project Svelte
(which was designed to make
Android work with less RAM).
This time the focus is on battery
life, and there are several key
changes that should make your
device less demanding.
One of the things Google
discovered about Android was
that just waking a device from
sleep for a single second
burned through two whole
minutes of standby time. That’s
because waking didn’t just turn
the screen on: the processor
wakes up too, and the radio
goes on to check for incoming
data. Project Volta created a
new “JobScheduler” API that’s
designed to reduce that by
scheduling housekeeping and
low-priority tasks more
efficiently.
ART for ART’s sake
nexus4 androidl battery
In tests, the Android 5.0 L
preview delivered 36% more
battery life than KitKat. / ©
Google, ANDROIDPIT
The second important part is
ART, the new runtime for
Android apps. ART is faster and
more efficient than the Dalvik
runtime it replaces, and of
course that means the device
doesn’t have to work as hard -
which in turn means it requires
less power.
The excellent Ars Technica
website decided to test Google’s
claims with the Android L
Developer Preview, and they
found that for once, a tech firm
wasn’t telling big fibs. With
Battery Saver disabled - more
about that in a moment - and
Android L running on a well-
used Nexus 5, battery life was
up by a very impressive 36%.
That’s a whole two hours more
battery life.
The reason Ars didn’t enable
Android L’s Battery Saver was
because it has an effect on
overall performance. When you
enable it and your battery
reaches 15% (or if you prefer,
5%), Battery Saver essentially
applies the brakes to your
device to eke out more battery
life: it dims the screen, limits
vibration and disables most
background data so that apps
don’t automatically update.
Google reckons that on average,
upgrading to Android 5.0
Lollipop and leaving Battery
Saver on (it’s enabled by default)
should give you an hour and a
half of extra battery power.
Android 5.0’s big bad
battery bug
Nexus5 Android5
Android's battery bug was bad
enough to delay the launch on
Nexus devices. / © Google
Given the many improvements
to Android 5.0’s battery life, it’s
a shame that the launch was
almost immediately
overshadowed by reports of a
big battery bug: with Wi-Fi
enabled on a Nexus 5, the bug
would start sucking battery
power like a thing that sucks
things very hard. The good
news is that the bug was
reported as fixed on 6
November.
Doing it for the devs
One of the most important
battery bits of Android 5.0 L is
the one you won’t see unless
you’re a developer: it’s called
Battery Historian, and it gives
app developers detailed
information on how their apps
will affect particular devices’
battery life. The hope is that
instead of ignoring that
information, developers will
then ensure that their apps
aren’t unnecessary power hogs.
*cough* Facebook! *cough*
Other ways to boost
battery life in Android 5.0
Lollipop
IMGL9157
Messaging apps can be
particularly heavy on battery
life. / © ANDROIDPIT
Android itself can only do so
much: the biggest effect on
battery life is of course the apps
you use and how often you use
them. Facebook isn’t the only
battery botherer, although it
tops the list of battery-draining
Android apps put together by
security firm AVG:
manufacturers’ own apps tend
to be battery hogs, as are social
networking apps and games.
AVG would quite like to sell you
an app to help solve that
problem, although of course
you can address it yourself by
being really selective with the
apps you install (or keep, in the
case of pre-installed ones) and
what you let them do.
What do you think? If you’ve
upgraded to Lollipop, has it
delivered on its power
promises?

Source: http://www.androidpit.com/android-5-0-battery-life

NICE!!!