Saturday, February 2, 2013

Surviving The Storms: Getting Better Battery Life

Preserving your phone’s battery during power outages and severe weather is always tough. Fortunately, I’m not going to pump you full of insane ideas like, turning on Airplane Mode, having an extra battery or anything else crazy like that. Here are a few quick tips for your Windows Phone and making the battery last a bit longer.

Battery Saver Mode – <settings + battery saver + advanced + now (until next charge)>

By engaging battery saver mode, your device will not check for emails, or sync any of your information until you do it manually or you are able to charge again. This trick can save you quite a chunk in regards to battery usage. For example, by simply engaging Battery Saver, I gain 30-40% more time in my estimated time remaining column.

Set Screen Brightness to Low - <settings + brightness + (auto off) low>

Running your screen brightness on high works great for those sunny days when you need to see the screen outdoors, but when the power is out and cell signals aren’t available, you won’t need that much to drive the screen. Turning the brightness down from High to Low will net about 20-30% longer battery life.

Turn Off Wi-Fi – <settings + Wi-Fi + off>

Turning off Wi-Fi, which won’t work if your router doesn’t have power anyway is a great way to conserve additional power. Windows Phone handles Wi-Fi very well, but if you are on Windows Phone 8, or have a device that has the ‘Wi-Fi Stay Awake’ feature, this can drain the battery just looking for a source. Without having power to a router, you will be stuck in searching mode and drain valuable juice from that power pack very quickly.

Communicate Through SMS

If you still have coverage, communicate with others through SMS or Text messages. They require less time to send (though keep them short as the screen on time will drain that battery as well) than voice calls do. You can also send ‘group messages’ to multiple people at once letting them all know that you are ok. This will save quite a chunk of battery over the course of a day.

Turn-Off All Non Essential Services

Windows Phones have plenty of amazing features that drain power quickly. Bluetooth, tap+send and internet sharing will all crush that battery in no time. Disable all three of these features and begin saving even more power.

Set Lock Screen To Time-Out Quickly

By setting the screen to time-out at 30 seconds, the screen will power down quickly saving precious resources for other uses. Most people don’t forget to turn their screen off, but when a text message comes in, the screen will stay on for a certain amount of time on its own. The less time that screen is powered on, the more battery will be saved for others.

Just how much battery can these tips gain you? Well with my Lumia 810, I can go from 8 hours of battery remaining to 32 hours of battery remaining off a new charge. While this may not be a life changing amount, in case of a natural disaster, it could be a life saving amount. If you have other tips that are great battery savers, comment below.

Sent from my Nokia Lumia 810 – Powered by www.4gfastdata.com

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