Our smartphones are more advanced than ever before. They are packed with tons of features like front- and rear-facing cameras, fingerprint screen locks, and access to all kinds of apps.

You can play real money Blackjack safely and securely, monitor your heart-rate, and check in on friends and family all over the world thanks to the device in the palm of your hand, but may need a bit of a learning curve? Even if you’re pretty tech-savvy, you probably don’t know all the tips and tricks in the book!

1. Back-Up, Back-Up, Back-Up

It’s happened to all of us, but somehow we never learn! Backing-up your data is the only way to ensure you don’t lose photos, videos, and other important info. Even just getting a replacement battery can see a factory reset being required, and everything disappearing.

Make a point of using one of the many cloud services available, or even just your computer, to sync and store all your precious photos, contact information, and other documentation.

2. Disable Non-Essential Apps’ Background Data

A lot of applications run in the background, even if you’re not using them.

This may make sense for your mail and social media accounts, but do you really need your your games, music player, or notes consuming your battery resources 24 hours a day?

3. Download Media for Your Next Flight

Instead of streaming everything, you are better saving some of your media, like movies, music, and video, directly to your smartphone when you are travelling. You might not always be able to access a data connection, and, even if you can, streaming can really take a bite out of your data plan, and end up costing you a lot of money.

Additionally, while your airline may have internet service on board, you can’t normally stream films with this connection.

4. Just Let It Charge

Have you ever wondered why phone manufacturers make charging cables so short? It’s not because they’re trying to save money! They don’t want you to use the phone while it’s charging.

It actually reduces battery life by a large amount, and most phones running on lithium-ion batteries have limited charge cycles. After these are reached, they’ll need to be replaced.

5. Make All Your Documents Digital

You can use an application, or even just your smartphone camera, to digitise all your documents.

Thanks to the excellent quality of the cameras these days you don’t need a scanner to get all your paper files safely stored in the cloud anymore.

6. Put a Weather Forecast On Your Lock Screen

It’s a simple feature that can save you time and make sure you’re prepared for every eventuality.

7. Use the Volume Button to Take Pictures

As serious as selfie-taking is, it doesn’t have to be difficult. It is surprising how many people just aren’t aware of the fact that you can usually hit the volume buttons to take a picture.

You don’t have to use the virtual button on your screen, and this works with both front- and back-facing cameras.