Android Tips and Tricks Get the Best Out of Your Phone

Onavo Lite - Data Cost Control

Unfortunately, many of the phone companies these days don't give you very much in the way of a data plan, often restricting you to 500MB per month. If you are on such a plan you will need to control your 3G usage to avoid a large bill at the end of the month, and this is what Onavo Lite claims to help you with.

Onavo provides you with alerts and monitors your Android phone to show you which apps are consuming the most data. Once you know which apps are eating the most data you then have the ability to restrict that app so that it only uses data when you are connected to WiFi. This all seems very good but some users have reported incorrect bandwidth use information, so just bare that in mind if you try this free app.

Startup Cleaner 2.0

Startup Cleaner is designed to stop apps before they start up, so preventing the slowing down of your phone with the running of unnecessary processes. It is becoming more common for phone companies to add their own software to the new Android phones they sell, if you don't need these apps most of the time you can use Startup Cleaner to prevent them from running and wasting battery life.

Android Booster

Android Booster is a free app which has a widget that allows one touch switching on or off of WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS. The app also allows you to optimise your phone to reduce battery drain and increase performance.

If you know of other useful Android apps or have something to say about the ones listed, let us know.

How to Increase Battery Life on Your Android Phone

Reduced battery life with Android phones seems to be the biggest problem users have regardless of the make of phone they have. A couple of the apps I mentioned above may help the problem but their are some other ways to increase the time between charges.

• Turn off WiFi when not needed - there are lots of apps which do this I use 'WiFi OnOff'
• Turn off mobile Internet - I use '2G-3G Onoff' which takes you to the 'mobile network settings' page only
• Turn off Background Data and Auto-Sync - even if you aren't connected to the Internet the phone may still try to sync which uses loads of battery power for no reason

If you aren't doing the things I have mentioned above you should see a big improvement if you turn those functions off. I also have the screen brightness turned down to the minimum although it is still too bright for me when indoors.