The Story

Today’s smartphones certainly look fantastic but they are about as energy conscious as Sarah Palin hunting for oil by flying across Alaska – in a jumbo jet.

Juice Defender effectively helps you to hypermile your handset. It does so by automatically switching off power-sucking systems, such as GPS or wi-fi, whenever they are not needed in order to squeeze every last minute of life from the battery.

The real beauty here is that once you have set this up once, you won’t need to fiddle with it again in a hurry.

The Experience

The new version of JuiceDefender significantly improves its easy of use – no longer are you presented with alarming screen of  techno-gibberish. Instead, you have the option of chosing a preset profile or – if you dare – digging into advanced settings.

Once you have the app up and running (which takes a few minutes) you can switch onto “easy mode” and relax. This will, for example, turn off wi-fi or 3G connections when they’re not needed. Whenever you wake the phone up or ask it to check email, it automatically reconnects – albeit that this can take a few seconds. You can’t have it all, friend.

Upgrading to the full-flavour UltimateJuice! enables you to really get under the hood of your handset. You can read our review of UlitmateJuice here.

In all modes, a widget tells you just how much power you’re saving: x1.50 means you’re extending battery life by 50 per cent. And who said there was no such thing as a free lunch?

The Bottom Line

Must-have battery-boosting app – but it’s still worth upgrading to UltimateJuice

Additional Info

Version reviewed Evolution1.8.8beta

All Android versions
Latedroid.com