Does screen mode have any effect on battery life?

[Keith Molloy]

Hey guys. Does anyone know if screen mode has any effect on battery life?

For those that like the basic mode btw but want to keep the whites as they are on adaptive, here's a hidden setting but you need nova launcher to access.

Go to the home screen and long press. Select add widget and choose nova activities then select settings and mode preview and click ok on the first option.

 

[Rukbat]

With an Amoled screen (like Samsung), any change to the screen will change the amount of battery it draws (even moving an icon can), but almost all of the determination is by brightness, so the brighter (and white is more brightness than black) the more battery drain. Lollipop inherently draws more battery because of all that white. If you change the screen to be more white, it'll draw more current. (And if you turn the brightness down a few percent it'll compensate for that.)

So if that setting (I'm not paying for Nova just to see what you mean, when the free version has been what I want for years) makes the whites more white, it'll have a slight impact on the amount of current the screen draws. If it keeps them less bright, it'll use less battery.

Edit:
On second look, that's in Shortcuts in the free version, and if brings you to the same place as Settings/Device/Screen mode (which may be removed in the S6). And I don't really see any difference between Normal and Adaptive.