Smartphones are getting increasingly expensive by the day. It would cost from about N25,000 - N600,000 to get a smartphone today, and hence care is of the essence.
Paying attention to your smartphones cannot be overemphasized, as they have now become an integral part of our day-to-day lives.
It is no gainsaying that a couple of us carry in our hands' smartphones that sometimes have proven to be smarter than us, owing to the fact that we often do not explore appropriately the many functions and possibilities of these mobile devices. As for a few who do the aforementioned, they sadly and most often than not, overdo it.
Mobile phone users have over the years developed some bad to dangerous smartphone habits. habits both injurious to the user and the phone alike. Many complain of malfunctioning phones, but hardly know they are the causes of these malfunctions.
1. Draining Battery Completely:
Don’t wait for your phone battery to drain completely, charge it periodically to make your battery storage capacity run at its best. Running down to 0 a lot will reduce the service life of the battery.
It's true that if you drain the battery to 0% as the phone reports it, you won't damage the battery immediately. But if you make a habit of this, you will see the battery life deteriorate more quickly than if you regularly start recharging around 20-30%. Considering that most batteries are not user-removable, it's a good idea to avoid regular deep discharges.
2. Installing more than one security application:
Paying attention to your smartphones cannot be overemphasized, as they have now become an integral part of our day-to-day lives.
It is no gainsaying that a couple of us carry in our hands' smartphones that sometimes have proven to be smarter than us, owing to the fact that we often do not explore appropriately the many functions and possibilities of these mobile devices. As for a few who do the aforementioned, they sadly and most often than not, overdo it.
Mobile phone users have over the years developed some bad to dangerous smartphone habits. habits both injurious to the user and the phone alike. Many complain of malfunctioning phones, but hardly know they are the causes of these malfunctions.
1. Draining Battery Completely:
It's true that if you drain the battery to 0% as the phone reports it, you won't damage the battery immediately. But if you make a habit of this, you will see the battery life deteriorate more quickly than if you regularly start recharging around 20-30%. Considering that most batteries are not user-removable, it's a good idea to avoid regular deep discharges.
2. Installing more than one security application:
If you feel installing a security application on Android device is useless then you are wrong. To keep your device protected from threats you need to run an antivirus application. However, this doesn’t mean you install multiple application. If you do so your phone will not be able to use even one properly and these applications will take up resources like RAM and memory.
Therefore, you should run only one which performs all the basic and advanced task.
3. Improper Phone Charging:
Always charge your phone with the actual charger rather than charging it using the USB port on your computer.
A phone that is not charging properly or worse not charging at all can be a real pain. While most of us run to the service centres at the first sight of the problem, the solution could actually be a lot simpler than you think.
The issue could be that the phone is charging very slowly or it might not be charging at all. Phone charging is affected when the insides of the USB port and the charger do not connect or come in contact properly. Continuous inserting and removal of the charger into the port can lead to minor hardware defects that might lead to an improper contact.
While the issue might sound serious, after all, we are saying the defect lies in your phone rather than its accessories, it is in fact very easily rectified. Switch off your phone and take out its battery. Once this is done all you need to do is take a toothpick and manoeuvre the little tab inside your device’s USB port a little higher. More often than not, your battery charging problems would be miraculously solved when you restart your phone.
Another common problem is any kind of an obstruction present in the USB port. This could be as small as a piece of lint from your jeans pocket or the inside of your purse. This can create a physical barrier against proper contact between the charger and the USB port. A simple blow of air to your USB port can get rid of the problem.
4. Installing Apps from Unknown or Untrustworthy Sources:
Make sure you only install apps from trusted sources (Like Play Store). That’s because APK files can be easily compromised and a malicious code can be added to them. Therefore, installing an app from untrusted source is like inviting the hacker to invade your privacy and steal your data.
5. Manual Cache Clearing:
Cache data is important for the quick functioning of the app. Even if you delete the cache it will be again created once you use the app. Therefore, we should not clean cache often. However, if you are using it occasionally to clean leftover cached data from uninstalled apps or deleted media files, it is fine.
6. Rooting:
Rooting a device is not wrong but you should know why you are doing and what you’re doing.
Smartphones come with certain restrictions to protect your device being attacked. Rooting a device will remove those restrictions and will make your phone vulnerable. Meaning if any malicious app tries to access your device you won’t be notified and Android won’t be able to protect you from being attacked.
7. Using Public Wi-Fi Networks:
Most users keep their Wi-Fi enabled so that whenever there is a public Wi-Fi enabled they are automatically connected to it and can save mobile data. But doing so they forget that the information sent and received on an open network is visible to those who have access to the network. Meaning if hackers have hijacked the network then they have access to all the information transmitted. Therefore, to stay safe avoid using public Wi-Fi or make sure you use Wi-Fi that is password protected. If you can’t avoid the temptation of using a Free Wi-Fi disable the Wi-Fi and use your mobile data network.
8. Not keeping phones software up to date:
Getting an alert to update operating systems and computer software always seem to happen at the most inopportune times. Maybe you’ve got to send that quick email first or write up that report? More often than not, you’ll probably put off downloading the latest updates for your computer until the next day, week, or even month.
It may seem tempting to delay downloading update software, but failing to do so leaves you open to huge security risks and means you’ll miss out on improved functionality.
Prepare your phone to fight against threats, update it periodically or when an update is released. Avoiding or missing an update may make you a victim of cyber security attack. Don’t avoid it due to the misunderstanding that update occupies space. Updating your phone is a must as it protects your phone from being attacks and lets it perform better and efficiently.
9. Keeping phone screen unlocked:
It may be irritating to unlock the phone each time you want to make a call or want to perform any job. But this doesn’t mean you can leave it open, treat your phone like your bank account and never make the mistake of leaving it unlocked.
As an unlocked smartphone is a treat for prying eyes and for those who want to take undue advantage of your data. Lock your phone with a password, pattern, voice, fingerprint and even with your Face.
10. Not taking data backup:
Mobile phones have been an integral part of daily lives: you need to use them to store personal information, important work files, medical information, photos, music, videos, or any other file that is of utmost importance to you. All in all, we can say that you need the phone for everything in the daily life, such as personal connections, work-related activities, entertainment, and even monetary transactions.
However, it's certainly impossible to know just how much your phone means to you until it gets lost or damaged in unavoidable circumstances. When such tragedies occur, you may not be able to retrieve critical data as your phone will have been wiped out clean. So in this article, we would like to explain why you need to back up phone data regularly from different aspects.
11. Ignoring phone overheating:
Sometimes smartphones overheat. It’s natural for mobile devices to warm up during use, especially if they’re on for long periods of time. But when smartphones overheat, they could potentially become damaged. Overheating affects your phone’s performance, and can eventually lead to owning an expensive paperweight. While not overly common, overheating phones have been in the news recently. Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7 incident reminded the public that overheating phones can have real consequences. Smartphones will warm up from the moment you switch them on; this is unavoidable and mostly safe. But phone overheating can be a serious issue, damaging devices and affect performance.
Phone’s battery life decreases if it gets heated therefore you need to cool it off. To do so, slip off the cover (if you have it on and let it get some airflow). Plus, avoid sitting in direct sunlight when using the phone as this also heats up the device.
Don’t test your phone, as you can’t work in pressure same way your phone can’t perform efficiently when heated. But to cool it down don’t put it in a freezer.
12. Manually Killing Apps or using Task Killer:
Most of us even after using Android for long isn’t aware of the fact that using task killer application or manually cleaning running apps harm performance of our Android. When we open the application part of the data is stored in RAM. Meaning when you open the same application later it will be loaded faster because the data is cached.
If we remove app the same process has started again meaning we are indirectly decreasing the phone’s performance. Plus, as technology advances Android has become smarter, it automatically feeds RAM by killing fewer priority apps, when required. As an idle sitting RAM is wastage of resources. Not only this it even kills non- responding apps and the ones consuming battery (like music and video apps).
Therefore, the user doesn’t need to kill apps manually or via a third-party app. Certain apps need to run in the background to work efficiently and if we kill them we would interfere with their working.
I hope this was some good information?
Ref: The Wordsmith Blog, Trickvile, Voice