Battery Stretch, get More Battery Life from your Android Device
by Jonathan Lonczak
May 23, 2011 3:00 PM –
Install
Battery Stretch. Tired of having to constantly charge your Android phone? Extend your battery life with Battery Stretch for Android. Battery Stretch extends your battery life by intelligently managing data connections which often use up your battery when you’re not even using your phone.
Price: Free Trial, ~$2.44 for Full Version
Tested on: Samsung Fascinate, HTC Thunderbolt, Galaxy Tablet
Content Rating: Everyone
Pros & Cons:
Pros
- Increases your battery life by managing your mobile data and Wi-Fi connectivity!
- Easy to set up!
- Intuitive Interface!
- Sleep mode to save battery during night time!
- Application has option to disable itself when headset is plugged in to allow for music or podcast streaming!
- Only turns on data when screen is unlocked, preventing you from wasting battery while checking the time!
Cons:
- Application is slow to re-enable mobile data.
- Seemed to cause issues with HTC Thunderbolt mobile data connection, even after disabled.
- Less options then competitors for higher price.
- Noticeable battery savings required a 30 minute or higher data sync schedule.
Features:
Battery Stretch is a battery saving application for Android. It attempts to save battery power by automatically managing your mobile data and Wi-Fi connections. When you are using your phone it turns the Internet on. When you have the phone in your pocket it turns the Internet data off. Battery Stretch allows you to set up a sync window in order for your applications like Email, Facebook, and Twitter to stay updated. This can be done in as little as 15 minute intervals and as long of a period a time as 3 hours. Battery Stretch also allows you to set up a sleep schedule for your device. This allows you to turn off the data connection completely while you are asleep at night, but then turn on in the morning before you get up to retrieve your emails, weather, and the news. This feature is useful if you are stuck without a charger for the evening and want to use your phone as a alarm for the next morning and don’t want to worry about the battery dying overnight.
Two other unique options that this application has are “Wait until unlocked” and “Disable when headset is plugged in”. The “Wait until unlocked” option stops the application from turning on data when you turn on the screen to view the time. Instead the application turns back on your phone’s data connection only if the phone is actually unlocked. The other option, “Disable when headset is plugged in,” is meant for music streaming. This feature disables the Battery Stretch application when a set of headphones is plugged in to your device to allow you to stream music through applications like Pandora or Slacker without interruption.
Finally, Battery Stretch has the option to graph your battery usage over time. This feature shows on a graph how your battery drains over time and during periods of usage to determine what activities you engage in use the most battery.
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Battery Stretch Main Screen
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Battery Stretch Connection Management Options
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Battery Stretch Options
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Battery Stretch More Options
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Battery Stretch Battery Graph
Usefulness:
Battery Stretch is useful on the devices it supports to save you on battery if you do not use the Internet features of your phone very often. I had serious issues running this application on my HTC Thunderbolt where it did not save me on battery life, but I also lost my data connection for an 8 hour period and the only way I was able to recover 3G signal was to flash a completely different ROM on my device. 
Even a hard reset could not fix the issue. It is possible this was a network issue, but I had never experienced a glitch like this before installing Battery Stretch and Verizon Wireless had no known issues with 3G Signal at the time.
So personally I would stay away from this with your Thunderbolt until it is better tested on LTE devices. On my Samsung Fascinate the application functioned well, and I did notice a difference in battery life especially during the time the device was on standby. One gripe I have with this application is the speed of restoring your mobile data connection. It takes much longer to restore data then JuiceDefender which is my go to application for saving on battery life. I am an extremely heavy user of data services so when I unlock my phone, I want to be able to use data right away. On a positive note, the option to have Battery Stretch disable itself when a headset is plugged in is excellent. It allows a heavy data user and music streamer such as myself to stream music without any hitches or additional set up. Definitely an innovative idea.
Ease of Use:
Another great thing about Battery Stretch is that it is extremely easy to set up. When you launch the application it walks you through the basic set up of the application. This was extremely easy to do and took about 30 seconds. The rest of the options for the application can be accessed under its settings tab. A suggestion to the developer would be to incorporate all of the options of the application in to that initial set up screen, then allow you to edit your decisions later through options. I think this would let users take better advantage of the full functionality of the application, and would also give the developer an opportunity to fully describe each option to the new user. It would also allow the new user to understand the full capabilities of the application without having to delve in to other menus.
Frequently Used:
Battery Stretch is not an application I would use frequently. After trying it out on multiple devices, the slowness of re-establishing data connections is a dealbreaker for me. Also the issue I had using it with the Thunderbolt was somewhat scary. To be fair to the developer the issues with the Thunderbolt could have been a network thing so if you don’t use the Internet alot you may find this application works well for you. Personally I would use JuiceDefender to do the same job this application does because it is better at managing my data connection, it is faster, it has more features and it is free.
Interface:
The interface for Battery Stretch is one of it’s strong points. It is very ease to use, and the interface is minimalistic and intuitive. However, the developer should readjust the initial set up screen to showcase some of the applications unique features. The developer should continue to come up with more specialized features in order to be a serious contender against JuiceDefender, and some special features for root users couldn’t hurt.
Tags:
Android App,
Android Apps,
AndroidTapp.com App Review,
Battery Life,
Battery Power Saving App,
Battery Stretch,
Battery Stretch Trial,
Juice Defender,
Utility
Categorised in: Productivity, Tools, Utilities
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