Categories
10 Things Gadgets How To

Some tips for extending your cellphone battery life


Emergency Portable Cell Phone Recharger
Emergency Portable Cell Phone Recharger

It has happened to Web Watch, and we’re sure it’s happened to you:  you’re hanging out with your friends all weekend and you forget to plug your phone in to recharge, and now you’re stuck in a situation where your phone is on it’s last battery display bar and you still have 5 hours to go before you can get to your charger.

Sure, you can use a Duracell emergency recharger that you happened to have stashed in your glove box — but how many of us have bothered to pick one of these up the last time we were out running errands?

Still, here are some things that you can do temporarily that will REALLY EXTEND THE LIFE OF YOUR CELL PHONE BATTERY  until you can track that charger down.

  • Keep the phone out of your pocket.  The cooler you can keep your phone by keeping it away from your hot ass or other body parts, the longer the battery will last
  • Turn off 3G unless you’re actively needing it.  3G sucks up a lot of power compared to the other networks you’re roaming on.
  • Turn off any unnecessary services.  Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS, push email – you know the ones.  Really, you’re on a 500-mile roadtrip and you need Wi-Fi active in the car?  Really?
  • Turn off any remote notifications that you really don’t need for the time being.  Yes, we’re talking to you, Mr Twitter-freak and Ms Facebook-addict.
  • Turn down your screen brightness.  It’s better to have a phone that’s working for two more hours with 10% screen brightness, than a phone that dies after 5 mins because you need the colors to be super bright while you call your mom.
  • On a Blackberry, aside from the above tips, use the ESC key to close the browser and keep it in the holster whenever possible.
  • On an iPhone, the above tips still apply.  But you’ll also want to reset your battery at least once a month by running it all the way to 0% and charging back to 100%.