Although iPhones have become more sophisticated, powerful, and easier to use, they are still plagued by battery problems. An iPhone’s processor is much faster compared to other conventional smartphones available in the market and as such, they are power hungry devices. It’s not uncommon to charge an iPhone two or sometimes, three times a day.

But there are certain methods of increasing the battery life of an iPhone; here are 5 tips to follow if you want your iPhone to last throughout the day.

1.    Enable Low Power Mode

The ‘Low Power Mode’ is the main feature of iOS 9, so you will need to upgrade to iOS 9 if you want to avail this handy trick. According to Apple, with this mode turned on, your iPhone’s battery will last up to 3 hours longer. It degrades the performance of the phone by switching off a few visual effects, mail fetch, background app refresh, and automatic updates and downloads, etc.

When turned on, the battery meter becomes yellow. When your phone’s battery reaches 20%, an on-screen prompt appears asking you to activate the function. Of course, you can do it manually as well by going to settings, battery, and then enable ‘Low Power Mode’.

2.    Lower the Brightness

The more brightness you set on the screen of your iPhone, the more power it consumes, draining the battery quickly. Therefore, this is a primary reason why the batteries on most iPhones don’t last long; to avoid this, turn down the brightness by going to settings and then to display and brightness.

Alternatively, you can turn on auto-brightness so that your iPhone will ensure that you don’t use up more of the battery then you should. It utilizes a sensor that will adjust the screen’s brightness automatically relative to the environment’s ambient lighting conditions.

3.    Turn Off Location Services

Location services enable the GPS in your iPhone; this is useful when you are navigating or when you want your friends or family members to know where you are in case of an emergency. On the other hand, keeping this functionality on drains your battery considerably; instead, turn it off when you are not using it.

4.    Switch Off Push Mail

Unless you are on the go or if you are a really busy person, you should turn off the push mail feature. A great battery drainer, it provides you with the ability to receive new emails to your phone’s inbox as soon as they arrive on the mail server. If it is on, it will keep prompting the server for any new mail, regardless of whether your phone is connected to a network or not. Those constant prompts use the phone’s processor and they will drain your battery sooner than you think.

5.    Reduce or Turn Off Background App Refresh

The background app refresh is similar to the push mail feature, but it works with apps. When turned on, it monitors the apps you use the most and keeps checking for new content; whether you are connected to a Wi-Fi/cellular data network or not, it will continue prompting the server for updated information. This drains the battery and as such, you should either turn it off or limit it to only those apps which you use frequently.

In order to do so, go to setting, general, and then you will see a tab labelled ‘Background App Refresh’. Tap it and then select the appropriate option.

*The information in this blog is designed to provide helpful information on the subjects discussed. Please seek a professional for expert advice as we can not be held responsible for any damages or negative consequences upon following this information.

4K Ultra HD, 4K UHD, or just plain old 4K. These have all become stock phrases you have probably seen or heard shouted loud and proud from ads and promotions for the latest TV sets. But what exactly do they mean, and why should you get excited about them?

Technical jargon has a way of worming itself into our collective vocabulary without much thought about whether everyone really understands what the terms mean or not. 4K Ultra HD is a classic example. Over the last few years, it has become marketing shorthand for “this TV provides amazing picture quality - don’t settle for any less when you are bingeing on your favourite series or cheering on your favourite sports team!”

And that’s as much as the average person in the street would be able to tell you - 4K UHD means brilliant picture quality. But what is the difference to, say, plain old HD? And is 4K really the best of the best if you are on the hunt for the perfect picture?

Screen resolution explained

Let’s start by going back to basics. HD, of course, is shorthand for high definition, which is a term used to describe the resolution, or picture quality, of a screen. Resolution is a technical feature defined by the number of pixels on the screen. The basics of it are, the more pixels you have on a screen, the more detail you are able to render and so the better the picture quality.

Prior to the arrival of HD in the late 1990s, the standard definition for TV sets (SDTV) had been 720x480 pixels - or close to 350,000 pixels in total. When HDTV arrived, it improved on this in two phases, first of all with ‘HD ready’ sets with roughly one million pixels (1366×768 was a typical resolution of early HD ready LCD screens), then ‘full HD’ - 1920×1080, or approximately two million pixels.

This is where the naming conventions of screen resolutions starts to get a little confusing. Full HD is often known as ‘1080p’ - describing the number of pixels you get in a single vertical column on the screen. At the same time, you may see it referred to as ‘2K’ - because full HD screens usually have around 2000 pixels in every horizontal row.

It is this latter (though probably less common) convention that the ‘4K’ part of 4K Ultra HD has followed - UHD screens have roughly 4000 pixels in every row. A typical Ultra HD resolution, for example, is 3,840x2,160. The mathematically minded amongst you will have spotted that that works out as more than eight million pixels in total - so four times the resolution of a full HD screen.

So if you’re looking for the best picture quality available, surely it’s a no-brainer - you have to go for 4K UHD, right?

Well, yes and no. There’s no doubting 4K looks great, it’s a marked improvement even on full HD, and 4K screens are no longer even that expensive. But whether you need 4K UHD is another question. To get the best picture quality on the biggest screens, for example - certainly anything upwards of 40 inches - you want as many pixels as possible, so 4K should be your starting point. But if you are content with a much smaller screen - for secondary TV screens in bedrooms, for example - you might not notice much of a difference between full HD and UHD.

Another consideration is that to get the true Ultra HD experience, TV programmes and movies have to be shot in UHD as well as broadcast/played in UHD. Although production companies are now responding to increased demand for 4K, there is still a lot of TV and video content out there that is made for lower resolution playback. Put simply, video filmed below 4K doesn’t have the detail to fill all those pixels on a UHD screen. Your Ultra HD set therefore has to adjust to fill in those blanks, and some people complain they don’t like how that looks.

Finally, while 4K Ultra HD has become the de facto standard for new TVs and film making, it is no longer the hottest prospect in town in terms of picture quality. If you really want to crank up the picture quality - and have the deep pockets to match - 8K UHD next generation screens are available, packing a massive 32 million-plus pixels, or four times the resolution of 4K.

Whether you decide to play it safe with a budget full HD TV or splash out on a next generation 8K set, make sure you insure your TVs with Row.co.uk’s fabulous value TV insurance, starting at just £1.49 a month.

*The information in this blog is designed to provide helpful information on the subjects discussed. Please seek a professional for expert advice as we can not be held responsible for any damages or negative consequences upon following this information.