Smartphone Repair – Genius Cell Phone Repair, Still Genius!

Battery Life Optimization

Smartphones everywhere are draining battery quickly. Some of the things to check to prevent and remedy battery drain are screen brightness, apps running in the background, and battery age.

Battery age is measured in charge cycles. Charge cycles are counted when the battery has used enough power to equal one full battery  capacity.

Screen brightness is a major one, and turning down the brightness setting even 10% can have impacts on battery consumption. Apps are constantly running in the background until we close them. Make sure to check for background running apps which can spike the performance of the smartphone and cause battery to drain.

Protecting your Smartphone

Protecting the phone is essential to longevity of the device. Selecting good protection for the body such as a Cell Helmet branded Fortitude case, which has dual-layer drop protection, and high quality screen protection such as the 9H Genius Lifetime Tempered Glass can go a long way towards keeping the device in good condition. Additionally, for those times when the outer protection is not enough to prevent damages, device protection plans are essential to low cost repairs.

Device protection plans such as Genius Protection+ have a low monthly payment which enables a low repair deductible cost for those circumstances when the damage to the device busts through the protection accessories. Smartphones with a significant value should be evaluated for these protections because replacing the phone is more expensive than repairing the damages, which are minimized by protective outerwear.

Wi-Fi Calling and Dead Zones

Every cell phone service provider or carrier has dead zones. Dead zones are places where the cell service just cannot reach either due to weather, terrain, or distance from a cell service tower.

Smartphones are designed to detect low signal and adjust accordingly, but when there is no service available then it’s time to consider Wi-Fi Calling. Wi-Fi Calling is a feature on most modern smartphones which allows the use of a Wi-Fi internet connection to connect calls and texts to the carrier service. Using Wi-Fi Calling can be a lifesaver in a pinch because even in a cell service dead zones, as long as there’s an active Wi-Fi internet connection the smartphone will make and receive calls, texts, and video. Make sure you turn on Wi-Fi Calling in your settings to enable this feature.

Viruses on Smartphones

Android phones are more susceptible to viruses than their iPhone competitor. Partly because Androids do not have the same strict and stringent guidelines for app development. It’s a double-edged sword; loose guidelines enables a host of feature-packed software developed for the user base, but the same loose guidelines make for shady apps and information theft as well as prank software and viruses. On smartphones, viruses must be downloaded, side-loaded, or somehow installed into the phone.

Once these viruses take hold, it is best to factory reset the phone and change all of your passwords to any website or service that you may have used. There are anti-virus programs for the smartphones which can help prevent the virus infection such as Malware Bytes for Android. It is recommended to have some sort of antivirus program on your smartphone to prevent major loss of data due to viruses.

Jailbreaking and Rooting Android Phones

While it may be advantageous in some ways to jailbreak or root your android smartphone, it is not advised. Jailbreaking or rooting smartphones is typically done to bypass the security restrictions built into the smartphone and load a custom operating system to the phone. Custom operating systems allow for more user control and customization but have their own vulnerabilities. Once a smartphone has been rooted or jailbroken, it is largely susceptible to any computer because the security checks are bypassed.

Information can be gotten easily just by plugging in a charging cable to any computer USB. The benefits of rooting and jailbreaking are usually piracy of paid content and the ability to load cracked apps, which bypass other security checks. The risk is just too great, and the rewards are slim, plus it is mostly used to download illegally cracked apps and content. We do not recommend rooting or jailbreaking your android. It already has plenty of feature-packed apps available for free download and a whole slew of them available with subscription payments.

Software Updates

All smartphones have regular updates, either quarterly or annually, which improve upon crashing bugs, performance, or features. It is ideal to update the smartphone immediately because it could prevent a major issue coming down the line. Many times the updates solve things such as overheating, crashes, software glitches, information leaks, or throttled performance.

Updating the phone could make it faster and more streamline. These software updates usually require a stable Wi-Fi connection, could involve a phone restart, and take some time to download and then install. You can put off the update for a while, but eventually it will go through. It is best not to fight the update and just let it happen. The sooner you allow it to happen, the sooner it will stop popping up notifications.

Internal Storage and External Storage

Android phones generally have at least one external storage port where a micro-SD card can be inserted to enable additional storage. This expands the capacity of the phone’s storage significantly. However, only certain information can be put on the micro-SD card; pictures, music, videos, and downloaded files can go on the external storage micro-SD card. Some apps can be transferred to the external storage as well, but only a small portion of apps actually allow this to happen.

The internal storage is mostly where apps/applications will exist and not very many of them allow being stored on the external storage. Because of this factor, it is still very important to choose a smartphone with plenty of internal storage and rely on the external storage to hold pictures, music, and videos. When purchasing a phone, use this mindset to ensure there are fewer complications later regarding storage capacity and data. Once a phone is completely full on internal storage, apps must start getting deleted or else the smartphone can start having serious issues with basic functions such as calling, texting, or browsing. The smartphone needs some storage space to enable these basic functions and if the phone is too full it may even start bootlooping or become unusable.