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Tests show that the battery improvements in Android L are incredible

Published Jul 2nd, 2014 12:38PM EDT
Best Android L Features Battery Life

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We’ve seen that battery life has became a huge factor when it comes to choosing a smartphone and Google has smartly made improving battery life a key goal of its upcoming Android L release. Ars Technica decided to put Android L to the test and found that the same phone with Android L had 36% more battery life — or about two extra hours of run time — than it had when it was running Android 4.4 KitKat.

What makes this result particularly impressive is that Ars disabled the Android L “battery saver” feature that drastically cuts down on a phone’s power consumption by lowering its screen brightness and killing off background data once the battery hits 15%. This means that Android L is going to reduce your phone’s battery consumption significantly without forcing you to put up with a subpar experience on your device.

How is Android L able to deliver so much extra battery life, you ask? Well, the company last month revealed it’s been working on something called Project Volta that will give users a “Battery Historian” that will tell them which applications are acting as the biggest power hogs. Project Volta also gives developers the option to schedule their apps’ tasks to only run when a phone is charging, which should obviously save users power without forcing them to dim their displays or reduce their devices’ performance.

Be sure to check out Ars’ full battery test results by clicking the source link below.

Brad Reed
Brad Reed Staff Writer

Brad Reed has written about technology for over eight years at BGR.com and Network World. Prior to that, he wrote freelance stories for political publications such as AlterNet and the American Prospect. He has a Master's Degree in Business and Economics Journalism from Boston University.