Screebl review

As mobile phones become ever more power hungry manufacturers have been forced to introduce software-based countermeasures which allow the user to ensure they get every last drop of juice out of their batteries.

One of the most effective ways of conserving energy is cutting down the amount of time the screen is active; modern touch-screen handsets have displays measuring 3 inches or more, and naturally providing power to such a large screen is no mean feat.

The problem is that such systems can make using your phone incredibly frustrating. The auto time-out on the Android OS can trigger at inopportune times; for example, say you’re reading a long passage of text on a web page and you don’t actually interact with the phone for a minute or so. Your handset will automatically “blank” the screen to save energy, because it assumes you’re not actually doing anything important.

Screebl is ingenious because it uses your Android phone’s built-in accelerometer to determine its orientation and consequently whether or not you’re using it. When you use your phone you’re likely to have it in your hand at a point that is somewhere between horizontal and vertical. Screebl picks up on this and will keep the screen live for as long as the phone remains in this “sweet spot”.

Obviously this isn’t going to be the same for everyone as different people hold their handsets in different ways, but thankfully Screebl features the option to alter the “sweet spot” to suit your individual tastes.

Once installed Screebl runs in the background, keeping track of your phone’s position. You can see how it works by watching the phone icon that appears in the Notification bar. When the icon is white it means the handset is in the “inactive” orientation. A green icon shows the phone is in the “active” position. After a few seconds of experimentation you get a pretty good idea of whether or not you need to tinker with the setup in the aforementioned options menu.

Such functionality alone would be enough to earn this application – which ranked 5th in the recent Android Developers Challenge 2 - a recommendation but Screebl’s orientation-related activities have another benefit – they help to extend your battery’s performance.

As suggested by the developer himself during the insightful video tutorial, you can configure your phone to be overly aggressive when it comes to power saving – so your screen will “blank” after 15 seconds of non-use.

With Screebl monitoring in the background, simply picking up your phone will cause the screen to power on again, which means your display is only active when you’re actually using it, rather than sitting idle for 30 seconds to a minute before switching off.

Of course it could be argued that the additional juice being sucked up by having Screebl running in the background cancels out any legitimate power-saving benefit brought about by having the screen turn off faster, but we did notice a slight difference after using the app for a week or so – and when you have a device that is as demanding as an Android phone then any gains you can make are most welcome.

Screebl info

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Overall

Platform: Google Androidvfff

Cost: Free

Version: 1.1

Developer: David S. Keyes  

Website/Demo: Screebl website