What are some of the main email sending habits around the globe? What notorious mistakes do people make when reading and sending emails and how does it affect email delivery? What things may induce email recipients hit the “Spam” button and what can email marketers do to increase their email deliverability rates? What are the pitfalls of designing marketing emails without mobile email usage in mind?

You will find the answers to these and many other questions related to email as a means of communication in the Email Security & Usage Around the World infographic created by the SampleEmails Team.

This infographic is shared by Sample Emails. Designed by Infographics.

A good review and a “quick look” video of the EmailTray email client were recently posted on FindMySoft.com on March 28, 2013. EmailTray was reviewed by George Norman, a news editor and software reviewer at FindMySoft. Based on the user interface, features and complexity, Findmysoft rated EmailTray 5 out of 5 stars, naming it Essential.

The review outlined the most prominent features of the EmailTray email client:
“Wonderful functionality is provided for free by EmailTray: be notified about new messages, read the messages you received, efficiently sort all your email messages, send out emails, mark messages as important, rescue messages from the spam folder, and more. Access to all this functionality is done via a user friendly, quite good looking interface. So to recap, we have a properly good email client with a nice interface and with no price tag. Again, if you’re looking for an email client, you’re well advised to get this one.”

Here are a few words about the EmailTray software’s functionality:
“From a functionality point of view, EmailTray has a lot to offer. Here’s a quick look at its main features and functions: monitor multiple accounts, notifications for new emails, configure the EmailTray notifications, check for new messages every X minutes, set up custom email rules, back up your mail database, restore mail database from backup, create custom signatures, group emails based on their priority, rescue messages marked as spam, send email messages.”

You can read the full FindMySoft Editor’s Review of the EmailTray email client at emailtray.findmysoft.com. Make sure to share it with your friends on Google and Facebook, and download EmailTray if you haven’t yet done so!

It is always interesting to explore the email spam trends across a large period of time, so this time we’ll compare spam rates within the last 12 months, from October 2011 to October 2012. Here comes the good news: the last month stats revealed an unprecedented drop in the email spam rate.

According to Symantec.Cloud data, the global spam rate dropped by more than 10%, from 75% of email traffic in September, down to 64.8% in October 2012. Please see the chart below to track the email spam trends from October 2011 to October 2012. As you can see, the last month’s spam rate is very similar to the “dead months” in 2011, March and April, when the percentage of spam messages went down to 64.52%.

Reasons for the Sudden Drop of the Email Spam Rate in October 2012

As suggested by the editors of the latest Symantec Intelligence Report, one of the reasons for the sudden decline in email spam rates in October 2012 could be the disappearance of the Festi botnet which has apparently been hosted in Saudi Arabia in recent months.

By the way, if we take a closer look at the list of countries reported to be the sources of spam in October 2012, we are sure to notice that Saudi Arabia is no longer in the top ten list:

1. India – 11.9%
2. Brazil – 7.9%
3. United States – 6.6%
4. Canada – 5%
5. Russian Federation 4.6%
6. Vietnam – 4.1%
7. Peru – 4%
8. South Korea – 3.3%
9. Romania – 3%
10. Turkey – 2.9%

Unfortunately, drops like this one have been noticed before, but other botnets soon replaced the discontinued one, or a “dead” botnet was reincarnated.  We’ll see how it goes within the following months,and we can truly hope that the decline will become a steady trend.

Global Spam Categories in October 2012

As we can see from the chart below, the Sex/Dating topic continued to be a leader in October 2012 and accounted for 62.73% of all spam messages. Jobs, Pharma and Watches stayed in the top 4 categories as well and only shifted places between each other: the Jobs topic was especially “popular” last month and accounted for 10.45% of all spam messages.

Although email spam rates have recently shown a sudden decline, these rates cannot be compared to the small figures like 8% or 9% typical to the years 2001-2002. You can actually read our blog post on Email Spam Trends across 2001-2012 and feel nostalgic about the olden times…

So email spam is still a big problem both for companies and individuals. That means you still need a good time-proven solution to have a clean and organized Inbox. A good way to go is with EmailTray – an extremely smart email client that sorts all incoming emails and groups them under the Top Priority, Low Priority, No Priority and Spam tabs. EmailTray comes as a Windows email client and an Android email app, both of which are available for free. Get yours now and enjoy a more spam-free mailing experience.

A Desktop Email Client: Pros and Cons

Everyone knows there’s been a never-ending dilemma about whether to choose “a desktop email client vs. web-based email,” so let’s explore the pros and cons of desktop email programs to see why people stick with them for years.

Pros:

• You can track multiple email accounts all in one place, without signing in and signing out of accounts
• A desktop email client is not dependant on Internet connectivity and bandwidth
• With a desktop email client, you can access pre-downloaded emails offline
• If you track multiple email accounts, replying to a message puts the proper From: email address on it automatically
• You can back up your mail database as often as you wish and store it in place you wish, e.g. your hard drive
• You don’t have to pay for cloud storage to back up and store large email database files
• With a good desktop email client, you’ll have a broader scope of features and settings than with Webmail
• You will be focused on emails rather than on websites under browser tabs

Cons:

• You are tied to an OS such as Windows, Linux or Mac
• It might take some time to install and configure a desktop email client
• Syncing between multiple computers and devices can be problematic
• You might not want to keep your mail data on the computer you are using
• For those who prefer simplicity, it can be a pain to learn how to use one more software program
• It might not be worth installing a desktop email client in order to track one email account

As you see, there are both pros and cons of using a desktop email client. According to the About.com’s Readers Choice Awards 2012, the best Windows email clients suggested by the readers are Mozilla Thunderbird, MS Outlook, EmailTray, IncrediMail and The Bat! All these email programs offer a rich set of features and configurable settings which has accounted for thousands of users being devoted to these software products for years.

It surely takes much more time to install a desktop email client, fine-tune email rules and customize your email program’s look and feel according to your taste. The presence of customizable options in complicated email programs keeps heavy email users away from simpler yet less effective online solutions. If you prefer simplicity – you’ll probably have to sacrifice advanced functionality.

Cloud-Based Email: Pros and Cons

The most popular web-based email services are Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Windows Live Hotmail and AOL. If you don’t need to manage multiple email accounts, Gmail is probably the best cloud-based email option for you. It provides 10GB of free hosted space for your emails, including attachments, and offers a number of configurable options.

The obvious drawbacks of free Webmail solutions are annoying ads occupying some part of the screen space and no guarantee that your mail database will always survive. For the large corporations that plan on moving to secure cloud-based email solutions, Hosted Microsoft Exchange might be a good way to go.

Pros:

• No installation is required because cloud applications are rendered in the browser
• With a web-based email client, you are not tied to any platform such as Windows, Linux or Mac
• You can use a cloud-based email service across devices without worrying about conflicts and synchronization
• Cloud applications are easier to update or are updated automatically by a provider
• You can log in to your web-based email account from anywhere
• You can keep all your email data off your computer

Cons:

• Cloud-based email services rely upon the internet infrastructure for data transport and content rendering
• Free Webmail puts contextual advertising next to the emails you read
• You can only be signed in under one Gmail account at a time in one browser, so using an online service attached to another Google account is impossible
• A cloud version of a popular software product will often provide fewer features than the desktop version
• There is no guarantee that your free web-based account will always be accessible
• It’s not very convenient to click through new browser tabs and switch back and forth
• When you use a browser, you may feel tempted to browse the websites under the other tabs

For those who run one email account and don’t use it heavily, there is obviously no need to install a desktop email client; Webmail will cover their needs in most cases.

If you do have to manage multiple email accounts but prefer web-based email, you have two solutions available. First, you can create one primary Gmail account and have emails from the other email accounts forwarded to it. Another way is to open multiple browsers, each one dedicated to a specific email account. However this practice may end up in overloading your CPU.

Which Way Is Best For Me?

There is a wide-spread opinion stating that web-based email is great for personal email communications while a desktop email client is perfect for work, especially if you have to manage multiple email accounts. I’s true that professionals often tend to choose more complicated yet feature-rich solutions which offer a variety of options and an ability to track multiple email accounts and manage email contacts with ease.

If you run one email account and don’t need all those bells and whistles – choose Gmail, a popular Webmail service which offers many features similar to those in a good desktop email client, plus lots of cloud storage for free.

If you heavily depend on email in your daily work and run multiple email accounts – a good desktop email client like Mozilla Thunderbird, MS Outlook or EmailTray will cover your needs. Even if you use email occasionally – you may still want to try the EmailTray email client, as it is lightweight and easier-to-use when compared to the other desktop email programs. Plus EmailTray has a smart algorithm that sorts mail into 4 priority folders and synchronizes what it learns across devices. The good news is that EmailTray is free to use and is coupled with a free email app for Android. That means you will enjoy a similar interface across all your Windows-based and Android-based devices.

To continue the topic of tablet wars that was started on this blog, let’s take a closer look at the global tablet market in the third quarter of this year. According to the IDC Worldwide Tablet Tracker data, two leading Android tablet manufacturers represented by Samsung and Amazon gained a 27.4% cumulative share of the global tablet market (a 20.9% increase from Q3 2011), while Apple’s share shrunk to 50.4% (a 9.3% drop from Q3 2011).

Samsung and Amazon Tablets Heat Up the Game

Q3 2012 was definitely a time for success for Samsung and Amazon tablets. Samsung, a long-term player in the field of the Android-based tablets, shipped 5.1 million tablets worldwide in 3Q12 and captured as much as 18.4% of the tablet market. This was a prominent 325.0% growth from 3Q11, when it shipped 1.2 million tablets.

Samsung debuted in the US with its first 7-inch tablet, Samsung Galaxy Tab, back in November 2010, and sold 1 million of copies within the first two months, as reported by PC World.

The latest generation model of the Samsung tablet, the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, was originally unveiled on February 27, 2012 at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. After a generous hardware update curated by the Samsung R&D center, this model was finally launched in the United States, the United Kingdom, and South Korea on August 16, 2012. Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 came in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB versions and had a price tag starting at $499 (the pricing model similar to the third-gen iPad’s).

Amazon, a new player in this field, announced a 7-inch Android-based tablet with a color touch screen on September 28, 2011. It was available for as little as $199; currently the price for the refreshed 7-inch version is $159. It was a bargain for those who could not afford a more expensive tablet and who didn’t require much from a tablet, e.g. a web camera, a larger screen, more storage, etc.

The Kindle Fire HD was announced on September 6, 2012. It was the second generation of Amazon’s Kindle Fire tablet line available in two form factors, 7 inch and 8.9 inch. These two models, priced from $199 to $499, helped Amazon grow its worldwide market share from 4.8% in 2Q12 to 9.0% in 3Q12.

The iPad Family Grows Even Faster than Expected

In recent years, Apple started losing market share to Android tablets and this trend proved to be more prominent in Q3 2012. Last quarter Apple tablets captured a 50.4% global market share; it was a 9.3% drop from the same period last year when Apple’s share was 59.7%.

In a chase for more sales and customers, Apple offered three new models this year. March 2012 was the time for the third-generation iPad release. The iPad 3 was offered for $499, the same price as the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1.

To compete in the fierce market flooded by the cheaper and spec-rich Android tablets, Apple, 7 months later, released a fourth-generation iPad with a faster A6X processor and a Lightning connector and offered it for $499. The ridiculous thing was that the iPad 4 was released so soon after the iPad 3 release, although Apple used to update its models once in a year. This fact might actually make the owners of the now “old” third-gen iPad feel a little bit… upset.

There was one more iPad to hit the shelves in October 2012: the iPad mini. It had a 7.9-inch screen, 16G memory, and offered LTE cellular capability, starting at $329. The iPad mini didn’t have a Retina display; this step was obviously made by Apple in order to cut the costs and lower the price. Its retail price was still definitely above the same-form-factor tablets such as the Nexus 7, Amazon Kindle Fire HD and Nook HD, so we’ll see how it competes.

(more…)

We all know that email overload may result in loss of time, loss of productivity and unanswered email. To solve this problem, you may go for a good spam filter – in order to have bad emails separated from all the mail you’ve received. Or you can choose an opposite direction, and apply an email prioritization technique, i.e. having good emails separated from the rest of your mail. What are the pros and cons of both methods, and what can we do to eliminate the cons?

Email Filtering Done with the Help of Spam Blockers

According to Symantec’s Intelligence Data, about 8% of all mail was identified as spam in 2001. Email users were not overloaded with email then, and cleaning your Inbox from spam took only several minutes per day. Today spam rates are between 65% and 75% (depending on a season and special events), so removing spam by hand might take much more time.

Thanks to email spam filters, the process of email screening was simplified greatly. You could open your Inbox in the morning and see only a couple of spam messages in there; the rest of your messages would be legitimate emails. Email spam filtering may be based on sender email address, IP or domain blacklists, URL and attachment analysis, Bayesian spam filtering and other predefined rules. In most cases, you can even customize your spam filter to meet your requirements.

However the problem of email overload is not spam-related only. Even with all junk mail removed, you’ll still suffer the problem of an unmanaged Inbox. Emails from legitimate senders can be of different priority for you, so you need to know which ones are most important and which ones can be postponed.

Pros:

• Spam filters save time that you could have wasted on removing spam from your Inbox.
• The previously reported spam messages will no longer hit your Inbox.

Cons:

• Thousands of spam emails may reach Inboxes before a spammer’s email address, IP or domain is blacklisted.
• Spam filtering is machine-based so there is a room for mistakes called “false positives.”
• Bayesian filters may be fooled by spammers, e.g. in a case of using large blocks of legitimate text.
• A legitimate email sender may use potentially “suspicious” words without knowing it and trigger a spam filter.

Email Prioritization: Manual and Automatic

Initially people did email triage by hand and this tedious task consumed a great amount of time. One had to look through all emails, separate the good from the bad, and then categorize the “good” messages by priority. These could be emails that needed to be answered right away, messages to be forwarded, tasks to be delegated or just information which could be saved for future reference and did not require immediate action.

Later, email users discovered the power of email rules. You would simply tell your email client what to do with the emails which come from a particular sender, have particular words in a subject line or have other specific features which might help you differentiate these emails from the others. Email rules were definitely a godsend for many email users who had been drowning in email.

However email rules can’t help you much if you expect an important email but know nothing about his/her email address, the words which might be used in the email, etc. You’ll have to look through all emails, including the Spam box, every 15 minutes or so – in order to avoid missing that important email.

Pros:

• After emails are prioritized, you can focus your attention on important emails first.
• Further emails from important senders will always hit your Inbox if you apply email rules.

Cons:

• It takes time to look through all emails if you choose to prioritize them by hand.
• Even if you do automate the process of email prioritization, it takes time to create email rules.
• Email rules will not always work well for emails from unknown email senders.

A Formula for Effective Email Management

As you see, using a spam filter is not enough to have an organized Inbox every morning. You’ll still have to sort the remaining messages by priority, as some emails should be replied to urgently while some can be postponed or archived. This takes time.

Email prioritization alone is not the ultimate solution to prevent email overload either. In this case you’ll have to sort ALL messages, including spam. And spam emails can make up 75%+ of your Inbox!

Taking all this into account, here is the best formula of the effective email management:
Effective Email Management = A Good Email Filter + Intelligent Email Prioritization

Let’s put this principle to work: you should not give up using a spam filter, plus you need an intelligent solution to automate email prioritization tasks.

This is where the EmailTray email client will fit your needs. It will aggregate junk mail from the Spam folders of all your tracked email accounts and double-check if any important messages have been mistakenly trapped by a spam filter of your Mail Service Provider. Besides, EmailTray will categorize the rest of the messages under the “Top priority”, “Low priority” and “No priority” tabs. All you’ll have to do is concentrate on the top priority messages first; then attend emails under the “No priority” tab. Then, if you have some spare time, you may want to look through the “Low priority” messages where you may wish to take the time to unsubscribe from the newsletters and notifications you’ll find there or mark certain senders as spammers so their future emails fall under the spam tab. By the way, once per day you can delete all the spam under the unified “Spam” tab which will ensure that all your spam boxes inside all your Webmail accounts are cleared.

You can always download EmailTray for Windows or get the EmailTray email app for your Android device, and enjoy an organized Inbox!

As stated in a TrendLabs 3Q 2012 Security Roundup report, the number of malicious and high-risk Android apps has reached a whopping number of 175.000 this year! This is almost 4 times as much as predicted by TrendLabs, and these figures tend to grow really fast!

Popularity comes at a price, and curious Android users who download a lot of apps have to pay for it. For example, the Obama vs Romney Android app, which served many unwanted annoying ads outside the app, was downloaded as many as 1,000 times from Google Play alone.

What the Adware Apps May Do On Your Mobile Device:

Access the Internet without your knowledge
If you access the Internet mostly via Wi-Fi – you have less to worry about. If you access the Internet via costly 3G or 4G connection – the adware modules may boost your mobile bills.

Collect user data and send it to the ad network to serve you ads better
The worst thing is that some apps may do this without your explicit knowledge or consent. The data sent from your mobile device may include device’s IP address, device identifier, your location, as determined by GPS, your phone number, etc.

Interfere with your mobile experience
Some ads within the ad-based Android apps are perfectly legitimate since they are contained within the app. However, an increasing number of mobile ad networks place ads outside of the app. For example, they may send ads via PUSH notifications or add unrelated icons to your phone.

Drain the battery of your mobile device
Since all mobile ads download advertisement data from the Internet, they will have to access their network from time to time in the background. As we all know, extensive use of Wi-Fi and 3G decreases your battery charge. If your smartphone goes dead by the end of the day – check out our blog post dedicated to the problem of smartphone battery drain and the ways to solve the issue.

Five Tips to Protect Your Mobile Device from Adware and Malware

1. Download Android apps only from Google Play
Getting apps from Google Play is the safest way, as this is the primary marketplace for Android apps. Google Play is thoroughly checked for adware and malware on a regular basis. Once a suspicious app is detected by the Google Play editorial staff or reported by users, it is quickly removed from the Google Play website. However a link to the harmful app may often remain on third-party sites.

2. Read user reviews before installing an Android app
When reading the app description on the Google Play page, take a look at the app rating and the overall tone of reviews. Although some of the reviews may be biased or written by the developer staff, a lot of unbiased reviews and the rating volume may give you a clue as to the quality, performance and credibility of an app.

3. Are you downloading a free app? Make sure it doesn’t include any adware modules
A number of Android developers use an ad-based business model to cover their expenses and support product development, so find out if this is the case with the new app you are going to install. Some ad-based Android apps are not very intrusive and this can be learned from the user reviews. However some apps may use a very aggressive model of advertising, for example pushing ads via notifications, so beware. If you need an Android email client, use EmailTray, which is guaranteed not to give you the above problems.

4. Read what permissions the app in question requires
The “PERMISSIONS” tab on the app description page normally provides a list of functions that the app may use on your phone or a tablet. For example, an app may share your location detected by your GPS module, read contact data, modify global system settings, etc. If you see that the app requires too much and feel that you don’t trust the app vendor – reserve yourself from downloading this app.

5. Install mobile security and anti-virus software
If you download all kinds of Android apps on a regular basis, a good preventive step would be to install anti-virus software to ensure that you don’t get trapped by the mobile adware or malware developers.

You can try out any of the following anti-virus apps for Android:
Mobile Security & Antivirus by Trend Micro
Dr.Web Anti-virus by Doctor Web, Ltd
Anti-Virus FREE by AVG Mobile technologies
Kaspersky Mobile Security Lite by Kaspersky Lab
Lookout Security & Antivirus by Lookout Mobile Security

Hope this will help you keep your Android smartphone or tablet safe from aggressive adware and malware. Be careful when installing new apps, and have a happy mobile experience! Ooh, did we wish you a Happy Halloween?

Corporations are going mobile and this seems to be a growing trend. According to a Zenprise report issued in October 2012, 74.7% of organizations will deploy mobile apps in the next 12 months. Moreover, 52.2% of all organizations have or will deploy mobile apps considered to be “mission-critical” to their organization.

We’ve compiled a list of the best Android productivity apps which are definitely a must-have for any business implementing a progressive strategy of mobile integration.

Top 10 Android Productivity Apps

1. Web Browsing

Chrome for Android (FREE)

This is probably the first app you download after buying your smartphone, and the best choice is Chrome for Android. Chrome is fast, eye-pleasing and easy-to-use, so you won’t regret installing it. On top of this, it will allow you to sign in to your Google account and sync your open tabs, bookmarks, passwords, and omnibox data from your computer to your mobile device. You will also love the incognito mode and auto fill features.

2. File Management

ES File Manager (FREE)

Unfortunately the Android platform doesn’t offer a decent built-in mechanism for managing the files on your phone. The good news is that you can always get a good file manager at Google play. ES File Explorer is a veteran Android app with over ten million installations, and it certainly deserves your attention. It generously embraces the functions of a file manager, application manager, task killer, Dropbox client and FTP client. ES File Explorer will allow you to access files as root, so you won’t need a second file manager like Root Explorer on your phone.

3. Office Documents Management

Google Docs, a part of Google Drive (FREE)

An office suite is generally what you need for word processing, spreadsheet editing and presentation management, and the Google Docs app for Android does this job, absolutely free of charge. While some users complain about an ugly interface and cropped functionality, we must admit that this is currently the best free app for to create, view and edit office documents.

4. PDF Documents Viewing

Adobe Reader (FREE)

Since most Android tablets do not offer a decent PDF reader, you’ll have to install a standalone app. The good news is that the most famous is free to use, so go and grab your Adobe Reader on Google play. Adobe Reader supports various view modes, adding and editing notes, sharing to a variety of other applications, and searching documents for text.

If you ever need to create PDF files – you can upgrade to the pro version for a reasonable $9.99 fee and then easily convert existing Word, Excel, PowerPoint, RTF and text files (among others) to PDF format.

5. Email & Contact Management

EmailTray (FREE)

Although the latest generation mobile devices are equipped with high-speed processors, high performance and low battery consumption are still big advantages for any mobile app. EmailTray is a lightweight email client with powerful email prioritizing and contact management features. This Android email app (which can sync its smart algorithm with the EmailTray desktop email client) will help you get focused on the most important emails and boost your email productivity.

6. VOIP Calling

Skype (FREE)

Skype is the most popular Internet telephony service provider in the world and the Skype app for Android enables you to make low-cost calls and SMS messages to mobiles or landlines, plus  free Skype-to-Skype video calls from your smartphone. With the Skype Android app, you will also be able to send pictures, videos and files to any of your Skype contacts. Skype to Skype IMs, video and voice calls are free over 3G or WiFi, however operator data charges may apply if you try this over your carrier network. The Skype staff recommends using an unlimited data plan or WiFi connection if you want to save on calls.

7. Notes & Clippings Management

EverNote (FREE)

EverNote is a great Android productivity app for organizing your life and taking notes on the fly. It will also let you take image and audio-based notes, letting you take a snapshot or leave a voice message to yourself. Thanks to EverNote, you’ll be able to manage your notes across all of the devices you use, just like EmailTray does with your email.

8. Getting Things Done

Taskos To Do List (FREE)

Taskos is a simple yet powerful to do list manager for Android. It will let you create tasks by typing them in or dictating them using the voice recognition feature on Android phones. You’ll be pleasantly surprised with the Taskos’s ability to auto-complete names from your contact list and call these people right from inside the application. Taskos also syncs with Google Tasks, making it easy to add and edit tasks no matter where you are.

9. Navigating & Finding Directions

Google Maps (FREE)

If you travel on business a lot, the Google Maps app for Android is what you really need. The app has lots of options that let you display your selected map in a variety of formats including Google’s Streetview mode that displays images of the street and surroundings. The Google Maps app will also please you with voice guided turn-by-turn GPS navigation; driving, public transit, biking, and walking directions; local search and business reviews. Since Google Maps are a veteran application in the mapping and directions field, it is one of the most accurate and reliable services available.

10. Stock Market Price Monitoring

CNBC Real-Time (FREE)

CNBC Real-Time is a free Android app which is meant for real-time monitoring of stock market prices. The app delivers quotes before, during, and after-market hours, sourced directly from the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. You’ll be able to create and track your favorite company stocks live, set up a custom CNBC Ticker with a playlist of favorite stocks and receive breaking stock market-related news in order to always be informed on what is moving the markets.

According to the TrendLabs monthly mobile review issued in September 2012, 62% of smartphones have less than 20% of power remaining at the end of the day, 33% of devices go below 10% power, and 12% of devices run out of power completely.

Why Does Your Smartphone Battery Run Out So Fast?

• Touch phones, by design, use more battery power
• A larger and brighter screen drains your battery more
• A powerful multi-core processor consumes more power
• A sleeker phone requires a smaller battery which provides less capacity
• Wi-Fi access and Bluetooth activity eat up energy
• GPS modules consume battery power
• Many apps download and upload data in the background and use power for that.

The industry isn’t standing still: smartphone processors are getting faster and now allow a gazillion apps to run simultaneously; contemporary AMOLED displays consume much less energy than the old-fashioned TFT and LCD screens did; more powerful batteries are being manufactured, etc. But the problem is that the new extended batteries are falling behind our needs: smartphone screens are getting bigger and consume more energy; contemporary apps, games and video require more powerful processors which eat up more energy, too. Once the 4G/LTE technology gets adopted across all mobile devices smartphones will consume even more power.

10 Ways to Extend Your Smartphone Battery Life

1. Set your phone to the minimum comfortable brightness
Yes, you’d better do it yourself. The automatic brightness function uses the phone’s light sensor and puts the brightness up when the sun is too bright or puts the brightness down when it’s dark and extra illumination is not required. Unless you spend a lot of time outdoors in the bright sun, you can always set your phone to the minimum brightness that is comfortable for you.

2. Adjust the screen timeout to 15-30 sec
Configure your screen to turn off automatically after a short period of inactivity, e.g. 15 or 30 seconds. It is obvious that the quicker the screen shuts off after the last activity, the longer battery life you will have.

3. Turn off your GPS module when you don’t need it
It might be very useful to use a GPS module built in your smartphone when you find yourself in unfamiliar surroundings and need to find a way to the nearest restaurant. But you don’t need GPS the rest of the time – so why not turn it off?

4. Turn off Wi-Fi in public places where Wi-Fi is not available
When your Wi-Fi is ON, a transmitter and a receiver will run continuously. When you get to a place where a Wi-Fi is not available, your phone will still try to find the nearest Wi-Fi hotspot available (with no success) and this will unfortunately consume extra energy.

5. Don’t use a Bluetooth handset unless you are driving a car
The Bluetooth gadgets are cool but we often forget how much energy they consume. Avoid using the Bluetooth headset when not driving a car and talk on the phone the old fashioned way.

6. Use simple lightweight apps with minimum animation and data download
In most cases, you’ll have to choose between cool design and usefulness. If you need an app for entertainment – get a fancy-looking one. If you need a good productivity tool (a calendar, a task manager or an email app) – go for a lightweight application which will help you complete the tasks efficiently.

7. Install apps from trusted vendors only
For Android devices, download apps only from Google play. The Google play editorial staff does their best to review the apps on a regular basis and remove those that execute malicious code.

8. See if you are using any malware apps
If you are still unsure about the apps you have installed, use a task manager to see if there are any malware processes running on your smartphone. Get rid of the app in question if you detect any of the following processes: AIRPUSH, ADWLEADBOLT, BOXER, FAKE, TROJTOUCHNET, TROJGAPPUSIN, SMSBOXER, FAKEINST, ADWIZP or ADSWO.

9. Revew the list of your apps on a regular basis and uninstall those you don’t use
Many apps may run background tasks that drain the battery, so clean your phone of the applications you don’t really use.

10. Keep yourself from using the ad-based apps
Many mobile developers cooperate with ad networks to support their free product. Free ad-based apps use third-party modules to upload user information and download ads for you, so using a free app may result in a dead battery by the end of the day. So here’s good advice: read user reviews before downloading an app to make sure it won’t drain your smartphone battery.

If you are looking for a lightweight email client – grab the EmailTray email app for Android. It’s free and not ad-based. EmailTray will track your email accounts all in one place, prioritize them by sender importance into 4 separate Inboxes and notify you only about priority emails. Don’t load your smartphone with unnecessary functions – make your email flow effective, hassle-free and less power-hungry.

We are happy to unveil a quick video tour about the EmailTray email app for Android which is now available on YouTube:

A Quick Tour about EmailTray, an Android Email App

This is not a marketing pitch but rather a video tour introducing the features and settings of the EmailTray mail app for Android.

The main features of EmailTray are:
- Multiple email accounts supported
- Intelligent email sorting (by sender priority)
- Messages can be grouped by date or sender
- Instant notifications about priority mail (sound, vibration, light)
- A widget on the home screen that notifies you about the number of priority emails
- Password protection
- Full support for POP3 and IMAP (including push notifications).