7 tips to extend your battery life
Jaro 21. November 2006 :: battery, life, tips
When it comes to batteries it looks like we are at the same point we were 10 years ago. Batteries don’t last longer than a few days. But to be fair to the battery designers we have to admit that nowadays’ smartphones require much more energy than phones 10 years ago. We can’t really compare them but what we can do is use them with more care. Here are a few good tips how to go about it:
1. Turn off your Bluetooth – I find Bluetooth to be the most power hungry application; turn it off when you don’t use it
2. Disable sounds and vibrating alert – you don’t really need keypad tones to be on, do you? What about vibrating? It is surely useful on the meetings or in a cinema but most of time you’ll do just fine without it; I usually set up a vibrating profile to be used in places like cinema or theatre and in all other profiles I have vibrating turned off
3. Brightness – lower the brightness of your screen; not too low, otherwise you’ll destroy your vision
4. Setting the Power saver time-out and the Light time-out to the low values will help too (you’ll find them in the display settings)
5. If you are not using an application switch it off – you’ll get a list of all active applications by long pressing the menu button; this is a general rule that can be applied to any device
6. Games – it’s fun to play games on your way to school but they are power-hungry beasts; I can’t tell you not to play games but think about your battery when you are playing
7. Turn off your phone when you don’t use it – I know that for many of you this is not an option and I’m not sure if turning it off and on is even good for your battery but I heard this tip from so many people that I just had to mention it
Buy cheap batteries from Amazon.com
My Nokia E50 lasts 3-5 days depending on how often I use it. I have to say that I don’t play games, neither I browse the internet very often. How about you? How long does your battery last and how often do you use your phone? Do you have some additional tips that could extend battery life? Feel free to add them in comments below.
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My E50 lasts at least 3 day. I’m not palyng any games, but often brawsing net, and also I have Automatic Retriaval enabled for 1 hour period.
I also have read, that emptying battery does strain for it, so battery must be near 0% as rarely as possible. Link to that article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_ion_battery
After first charging it lasted for 2 days. Now it is charging again and we’ll see.
BTW The best thing about e50 I noticed so far is this green blinking LED. So simple, yet so useful.
[1] Beleg, thanks for the link. My guess is that mobiles have built-in function which won’t allow battery to get totally empty. Your phone turns off but it doesn’t mean the battery is empty. I’d like this to be confirmed by someone who designs batteries. I read about it somewhere but can’t find the source anymore.
[2] Lukasz, I totally share your excitement from the green LED. I love it. I’d like to be able to set up an interval for blinking (I’d prefer faster blinking so I don’t have to stare at the phone for 2 seconds to see if there is a new message waiting for me).
Turn off your phone in the subway or any environnement with no coverage.
When there is no coverage, the phone keeps searching for network for nothing. For a long run underground or into the country it can drain all your battery for nothing.
Max, that’s a great tip. I’ll include it in the article. Thanks!
When in the cinema or theatre, turn your phone OFF, not on vibrate. No one likes the mobile user putting on the bright light during a performance.
Dan, true, it’s not polite to disturb others but sometimes turning off your phone is simply not an option.
There is a standby battery for some cell models. It plugs into the charger connection & gives a one-time extension of 30 or 60 minutes.
instead of turning off the phone you can set it to offline. like this it won’t use battery to search a network and you can still work with the phone
My sony ericsson w810i last for 3-4 days. i dont make many calls but i write sms often, and play games sometimes.
i discovered that playing games, using loudspeaker and using screen (for viewing pics or videos) will consume more battery than making calls.
Mobiles have built-in function which won’t allow battery to get totally empty, why? -because they keep some power for emergency calls.
you can test it by ur own. let a phone turn off by itself with empty battery, then turn it on and make an 911 call.
You can try cramming a battery with more juice into your phone. Sometimes this may involve modification or using a dremel tool but well-worth the effort. I know certain Nokias will safely fit “juicier” batteries..
How about WiFi?
Personally, I am not a user of E-Series phone, but I usually switch on the feature to scan WiFi network every a few minutes. Does it make much difference in terms of battery life?
Antony, I don’t use wifi on my phone but I read that constant searching for signal does decrease the battery life.
I’m planning to write a second part of tips as I received more great tips.