There are lots of free battery life extenders available, and scrolling through the Google Play store won’t tell you much about them. So here’s one in a bit more depth, chosen arbitrarily: 2x Battery.

Like all battery extenders, 2x Battery lets you use your phone for longer before you need to plug it in.

Basically it does this by turning your internet connection off when you’re not using it, or as the app puts it: “extends battery life by using a smart algorithm to turn on/off the Internet connection,” which is the same as how I said it but more science-y sounding.

It adds its own battery-shaped icon to your top bar (which doesn’t replace the regular one, annoyingly – it just doubles up on your battery-shaped icons) that tells you what percentage of battery you have left.

Opening the app itself will tell you how much time this equates to. There’s a few options you can adjust like how low your battery can drop before it turns on the saving mode, but once you’re set up you can basically forget about it and let it do its thing.

There’s no question that it lengthened the battery life on my phone (possibly even multiplied it by two, like the title suggests). This is great if you have an old phone like mine that churns through its battery just sending a text, or if you’re someone who’s out and about a lot with limited access to your charger. If that was all there was to it then I would recommend 2x Battery wholeheartedly.

However, that may not be all there was to it.

Not long after installing the app, I found that sometimes my touch-screen would behave erratically – or just stop working altogether – while I was trying to send texts.

I’d have to return to the main screen and go back in, or sometimes even have to restart the phone. Having uninstalled 2x Battery I’ve yet to have this problem again.

Now I’m not saying the two are related. It may just be a coincidence that the two things happened to be happening with my phone at the same time.

But the fact remains that my personal experience was this: 2x Battery = longer battery, bung keyboard. No 2x Battery = shorter battery, which powers a working phone. While neither is perfect, I’m sticking with the second option.

I can’t say confidently that 2x Battery was causing the problem, so I’m unwilling to dismiss it entirely. But I thought it was worth mentioning. If it behaves, it’s a handy little app to have. But I don’t know that it behaved all that well for me.