How to save your Mobile's battery life (1)

If you’re a recent convert to smartphones, you’re probably still discovering all the amazing things that your new BlackBerry, Android phone or iPhone can do. But one thing you most likely found out right away the more you do, the shorter your phone’s battery lasts.

While a standard cellphone’s charge can easily go three days or more, many smartphone owners are dismayed to learn that their new mobile toy requires charging every 24 hours, or even more often. Whether you’re using a laptop or a smartphone, the devices can be tweaked to get the most out of its lithiumion batteries.

Reconsider your network

All things being equal, the CDMA mobile standard uses more power than a GSM network. If battery life is critical, you might want to consider GSM as long as its coverage meets your needs.

Dim your phone's display

The brighter your screen, the more juice you're using. If you're in a dimly lit room, turn down your LCD screen’s brightness. If your device has an autodimming feature that detects the light in a room, use it. Similarly, if you use your smartphone or laptop to play music, lower the volume

Stop searching

It is great that you can use Bluetooth technology to connect your smartphone to a headset, or use Wi-Fi to speed up the downloading of email messages. But when you’re not using that headset or not near a Wi-Fi hot spot, turn off those features on the phone or laptop. The reason is that portable devices will continue to look for Wi-Fi or a Bluetooth headset, using power.

Check mail manually

Mobile smartphones can check for e-mail messages and instant messages automatically. Or they can be set to “push” notifications as soon as they arrive in your server’s mailbox. Both strategies can be power hogs. To increase your battery life, turn off push and increase the interval between when the phone checks for new messages. Or better, set up your phone to check for messages manually.
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