Can I disable Google Play Services because it chews up my battery ?

 There's a headline that should buy me some attention.

To everybody that asks the same question, can I delete or disable Google Play Services because it chews up 60% of my battery? No you can't and no you don't want to.

So, no you can't, but you can FREEZE it with this app.
(Actually you can, but almost everything on your phone needs it, so don't delete it.)

You must root your phone which is not that scary, however it will void your warranty !
That may be a small price to pay for a much longer battery life.

To root you phone, go to the Kingo Root website and have a read. Make sure it's what you want to do. I did it to remove bloatware and to stop Google Play Services. Download the program, run it, install your phone to your computer via a good USB date cable. That's all there is to it. It's very easy.

http://www.kingoapp.com/

Then go to the Google Play market and install this app.

App Freeze - to freeze unwanted apps on my root access phone.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.smartapp.appfreezer&hl=en

This application can help you to freeze your apps. After the application is frozen, it can not start, it will not run in the background. If you want to use the app again, you can defrost it.
App Freezer can help you to disable memory-intensive applications running in the background, help your device to save memory resources.
App Freezer is only for the root device.

This is only useful if you have rooted your phone and have super user access.
Say goodbye to Google Play Services draining 60% of battery.

Read more on my post "How do I root my phone" and scroll down to the bit about Kingo Root.

http://genuinefreestuff.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/how-do-i-root-my-phone-samsung-galaxy.html

Here's some screenshots for your.
The guilty party ... Google Play Services

And there's lots of components, so expect things to not work if you mess with it.
Touch on Google Play Services to see all the other things running.

Disable it ? Let's see...

Um, maybe not.

 Instead I 'root' my phone and install App Freeze from the market.

Notice that you don't see Google Play Services here, because I froze it.

See ? Gone. I can unfreeze it if I need anything.

The trouble is ... other things stop working.  Gmail, Calendar, Contacts and so on will not like this.

So for most people on most phones, this will NOT be a good solution. It's really only worth doing if you have a minimalist phone for a specific purpose.

This is OK for me because this phone is my offline map phone for travelling. 
All it really has on it is Here maps and an SD card full of downloaded offline maps.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.here.app.maps&hl=en

See my post...

http://genuinefreestuff.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/google-maps-here-maps-offline-maps-for.html

Now that you have Kingo Root on your phone, open up the installed app and look here, pre-installed and system apps

There they are, just waiting to be deleted. Be very careful what you do here because there's no going back if you delete a system app !
Goodbye to Facebook, Soundhound, Vine, Samsung this and that, and every other piece of bloatware.

Cheers. Si.