One of the most-awaited supposed features for the Android Q is that it will have a system-wide dark mode. While a lot of apps now have a dark mode option, it’s still different if you have that option for your entire smartphone. So while it may not look all that pleasant (well, if you prefer your phone to be more bright and cheery), there are a lot of benefits to having a darker interface and one of those is saving up on your battery consumption.
Obviously, we can’t test out Android Q’s dark mode feature just yet but the folks over at Phone Arena did a simulation to see how much battery consumption we will actually be able to save if indeed we get this. They used a Google Pixel 3 to do the test and for the baseline, they set it to 200 nits fixed brightness, which seems to be the typical average value. For the simulation, they used the dark theme built in to the Android 9.0 Pie and then for those that aren’t applicable, they used the “invert colors” accessibility option.
To measure it as accurately as possible, they used the Basemark Power Assessment Tool. For the test with stock apps like opening the phonebook, dialer, recent calls, app drawer, settings menu, etc, the Pixel 3 consumed 30% less power when the dark theme was applied. But if you display screens where white was dominant in regular mode, you get as much as 50% savings on power if you apply the dark theme.
With the test where third-party apps were used, mostly with the “invert colors” trick since not all of them have dark modes, they were able to save up to 14.8%. With apps that have a dominant white background like Messenger, the savings go up to 20% when switched to the invert colors mode.
Remember that these are just simulations so having a system-wide dark mode may significantly change the numbers. But suffice to say, the short version is that not only will you lessen your eye strain and have your phone not be scandalous in the dark, but you’ll also be able to save a significant amount of your battery life.
SOURCE: Phone Arena
