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The Google Pixel Fold has pretty decent battery life. It’s not the best on any smartphone nor any foldable on the market. But it should get you through the day. However, that will all depend on how you use your Pixel Fold. While I was hitting about 8 hours of screen on time pretty often on the Pixel Fold during the review process, others were only getting about five to six. So it all depends on your usage.
But what about getting better battery life and improving it? There are some ways that you can improve the battery life on your Google Pixel Fold, and that’s what we’re going to go over today.
Adaptive Battery
The first thing you should do is turn on Adaptive Battery. This should be turned on by default. If not, just head to Settings > Battery > Adaptive Preferences. This will adapt your battery life, based on how you use your Pixel Fold. So for instance, if you use your phone generally the same every day, the Pixel Fold will know how it can better stretch that 4800mAh battery that’s inside.
It does generally take a week or so for the Pixel Fold (or any Pixel really) to get a hang of how you use your phone. So you may not see much of a difference here right away.
Turn off Smooth Display
The Google Pixel Fold has a 120Hz refresh rate on both displays. And while it can automatically go up and down to conserve battery life, you can also turn this off entirely and get better battery life. If you do turn this off, it will stick to 60Hz all the time. Depending on how much time you spend on your phone, you might see a big increase or just a minor one. That’s because the Pixel Fold does already move between 60Hz and 120Hz for different things.
In my experience with the Pixel Fold, I was able to get about another hour of screen on time by turning off Smooth Display, but that might not be the case for everyone.
To turn off Smooth Display, head to Settings > Display > Smooth Display.
Turn on Dark Theme
This is a tip that we include in every post like this, but it’s a good one still. Turning on Dark Mode will help conserve battery life too. This is because the Pixel Fold is using an OLED display for both displays. So what that means is that each individual pixel is lit up. So using dark mode means the display will use less battery, and it’s also easier on the eyes.
Out of the box, the Pixel Fold should have dark mode scheduled. Basically, it will turn on dark mode from sunset to sunrise. So when you’re in, what is usually, darker environments, you’ll have a darker UI. I prefer this option myself, as I do like to be able to see my phone outside, and with dark mode on, it’s almost impossible. You could also add a toggle to your Quick Settings to quickly turn it on and off throughout the day.
You can change the settings for Dark Mode by going to Settings > Display > Dark Mode.
Adjust your Screen Timeout
Something that is often overlooked when it comes to battery life is, your screen timeout. This is the amount of time from the last time you interacted with your phone til it turns off. Now, most of us likely turn it off when we’re done with it, but not everyone does that.
To do this, head to Settings > Display > Screen timeout. From here, you will see a number of options available from 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes and 30 minutes. Now, I typically keep this on either 3 minutes or 5 minutes depending on the phone (the options are different on different phones). Otherwise the phone will turn off while I’m in the middle of reading something.
Speaking of which, there is also a feature called “Screen Attention”. If you turn this on, it will use the front-facing camera to make sure you are looking at the display and will prevent it from turning it off. Now this does use some more battery, but depending on your use, it’ll likely be a very small hit on the battery.
Battery Saver and Extreme Battery Saver
Like most modern Pixel devices, Google has added two battery saver modes. There’s Battery Saver and Extreme Battery Saver. Now Battery Saver is the one you’d likely use the most.
To access both battery saver modes, head to Settings > Battery > Battery Saver.
What is Battery Saver?
Battery Saver is a lighter version of both savers. It will turn on the dark theme, limit or turns off background activity, some visual effects, certain features and limits some network connections (basically favoring WiFi or mobile data a bit more).
With Battery Saver, you can set this on a schedule. You can set this based on your routine or based on percentage. If you choose to do it based on your routine, it will turn on automatically if your battery is likely to run out before your next typical charge. That’s where the Adaptive Battery preferences really come in handy. Now if you choose based on percentage, it will turn on when you hit a specific percentage of battery left. You can set it in increments of 5% from 10% to 75%. We’d recommend using it if you are around 20%. Otherwise, it limits your phone to much.
What is Extreme Battery Saver?
Extreme Battery Saver is exactly what it sounds like, a more extreme version of the Battery Saver. According to Google:
“Extreme Battery Saver pauses most apps and notifications. Select your essential apps so you don’t miss any important notifications or messages.”
On this screen, Google let’s you choose essential apps that you want to get notifications from. Recommended ones would be messaging apps, maps and maybe Uber or Lyft if you are waiting on a ride to get home.
Extreme Battery Saver is so extreme that it can save your battery and make it last for up to 72 hours, according to Googel.