Android-based devices are very lovely and powerful devices, but they 'come at a great price' - heavy data consumption! There are a lot of complaints about this issue, as well as many unanswered questions. So I'll take you through a step-by-step guide on how to control heavy data consumption on your Android-based phone or tablet PC.
How To Reduce Too Much Data Consumption On Android Devices
1. Use Data On-Demand:
Go to Settings > Wireless & networks > Mobile networks and disable (untick) 'Data enabled' or 'Use packet data' (or something similar). This will stop your android from accessing the internet without your permission.
2. Disable Background Data:
Also in Settings, go to Accounts & Sync > disable background data. This will stop auto-updates which eat heavy into your data plan.
3. Kill Unneeded Apps:
Leaving too many internet-requiring apps open could also drain your data. Go to Settings > Applications > Manage Applications > Click on a running app that you don't really need > 'Force Stop' it > put 'Clear Data' > If you really don't need it then uninstall it.
4. Check Your Data Usage History:
Checking your old bills is a great way to see your data usage over the previous months/years but it will always lag by a billing cycle. In order to check your current usage you want to monitor consumption from within Android. If your device has Android 4.0 or above you can check your usage via the OS. Navigate to Settings > Wireless & Networks > Data Usage. If your phone is not currently running Android 4.0 or above you'll want to download any good third-party monitoring tool. If nothing else, restrict app updates to Wi-Fi: One of the easiest background data hogs to strike down right out of the gate is the background data consumed by application updates. Updates are necessary and welcome both for security purposes and access to new features, but there aren't any updates so critical that you absolutely need to get at them before you connect to the next Wi-Fi access point. By default, any apps set to automatically update will do so over both mobile data and Wi-Fi. You can change this by launching the Play Store app, pressing the menu button, and then selecting Settings > Update over Wi-Fi only. Toggling this setting on will save you untold amounts of mobile data usage over the life of the phone.
5. Switch To Lightweight Browsers:
While the default browser in Android gets better with each release, it still leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to minimizing data usage. Fortunately there are several alternatives that feature data compression and optimization to help reduce usage, like Chrome and Opera Mini .
6. Watch What You Watch!
Watching 15 minutes of streaming video or listening to steaming music a day on your phone a couple funny YouTube videos or just half an episode of a sitcom on Hulu or Netflix is enough to add 1.25GB of data to your monthly usage. Stream some music while working out at the gym? Listening to Pandora for a daily 30 minute workout will add 800MB of data to your bill. Snap a lot of photos and sync them to your Dropbox account or Facebook Uploading a dozen high resolution photos a day can easily add 300-400MB to your usage. So cut down on unnecessary streaming!
SHARE THIS
0 comments: