The Samsung Galaxy S5 is chock full of features, and limted on battery. A 2800 mAh battery is likely inadequate for heavy users, and plugging in can be a pain. Swapping batteries is always an option, but then you have to carry round extra kit. The company may have found a happy medium, though, offering three new features to help with battery life in their device.
There are three features, which come to the GS5 by way of a company named Lucid. The first, NavExtend, helps your device when it’s running on GPS. NavExtend will gauge the right amount of GPU to use for the map features you’re taking advantage of. Essentially, it throttles your GPU when you don’t need a high refresh rate, say when using Google Maps navigation on a highway.
The second is called WebExtend, which saves you a bit of battery life when using the browser. Again, it’s a GPU clocking manager, and throttles the refresh rate when you’re using simple websites. Think of those sites with obnoxious ads that flash or change frequently — those could be calmed down, saving your battery quite a bit with heavier usage.
GameExtend is already in use with the Galaxy Note 3, but is new to the Galaxy S lineup. The feature takes your gaming experience to as simple a level as it can handle, but doesn’t ruin the experience. Once again, the GPU is where the concentration lies.
GPU throttling is not an area may focus on, and Samsung may be onto something. With a simpler interface where we can withstand it, I think we can all agree that a touch more battery life is well worth it. Though these features claim to save up to 25% on battery performance, we’ll have to wait for a review device before we can verify that.
Via: GforGames
