Our latest app report shows the worst battery-draining apps for Android phones of late 2016. Is your favorite app among them? Find out.
Your phone’s about to die after lunchtime? Then you should check whether you have one of these top 10 battery drainers installed. Our latest App Report for Q3 2016 used anonymous statistics from millions of mobile users around the world to mark out Android’s biggest battery draining apps. These are the apps that sit on your phone and drain your battery whether you use them or not – apps like Facebook or Google Maps.
The most common battery draining culprits are apps which:
Display graphics and animations: the more advanced the graphics are (games, videos, photos, animations…), the harder the processor and graphics chip in your smartphone have to work – with a huge impact on battery life.
Make heavy use of notifications: Your phone tries to go to “sleep” (or as the pros call it: lower power modes) as much as it can to conserve power. However, it will never get there if you receive a load of notifications from Facebook, Twitter, Pokémon GO or Super Mario Run.
Use GPS or the Camera: Got a map app or a game (Pokémon GO!) that uses GPS and/or the camera a lot? Those are huge drainers, too, and should be avoided.
So who are the worst offenders for battery life?
First, let’s look at the ones that you actively launch on a daily basis (we’ll look at the ones you might not know about later).
The number one spot continues to be occupied by Samsung WatchON, a remote TV app for your Galaxy phone which probably isn’t too big of a deal since you’re usually near an outlet when you’re using it, but it's still good to be aware of its electricity sucking abilities.
Australians beware: the old TelstraOne is one of the top battery hogs for our friends down under, even though all it does is redirect to the new Telstra 24 x 7 app.
Also in our list is OLX Free Classifieds, which helps you sell and buy items in your area. Its location features and use of heavy imagery make it a major battery drainer.
Now onto hidden apps, the ones that might drain your phone without you actually using them. 
Topping the list is Samsung’s Link app, which allows you to sync your phone with your PC and remotely cast your display on to a TV via wi-fi. As it’s being discontinued, it should no longer appear in our next reports going forward – but still worth checking and deleting on your phone!
Interesting and quite ironic: 2 of our Top 10 battery draining apps (rank 8 + 10) are actually supposed to save battery life, not kill it.
Also be careful when you’re using the Pedometer app. While it might accurately measure how many steps and what distance you walked, it does so at the cost of a nonstop power drain.
Check out our free AVG Cleaner for Android, which detects these power drainers on your phone, lists them up nicely for your and allows you to get rid of the ones you really don’t need.
Sure, it’s a shameless plug, but it actually works.
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