More BlackBerry Battery Tips: Six Ways to Make Your Smartphone Last Longer

BlackBerry devices used to be renowned for their impressively long battery lives. But with all the features and functionalities packed into modern RIM smartphones during the past couple of years, some of that battery longevity has vanished

1) Avoid Excessive Game Play or Media Consumption

The latest generation of BlackBerry smartphones has impressive multimedia features that let you download, store and listen to and/or view a wide-variety of media types. You can listen to music on your microSD card; stream live NBA basketball games via the popular NBA Game Time app; listen to your favorite artists via a number of different Internet radio offerings; or play handfuls of games you downloaded from RIM's BlackBerry App World.

But you should be aware that such applications, especially apps that constantly stream data over wireless connections, are very likely eating up battery life like hungry gamblers at a casino buffet. Many of these apps also require that you keep your display turned on while you use them, so the screen backlight is also draining battery every time you hit or stand in blackjack.

2) Understand and Maximize Your Use of Wireless Connections

You can easily activate or deactivate your BlackBerry wireless connections by clicking your "Manage Connections" icon and then choosing which options you desire--Mobile network "on"; Wi-Fi "off"; and Bluetooth "on," for example.

But you can also turn off all data connections while still leaving the voice-capabilities active. To do so, open the "Manage Connections" options, click the "Services Status" item and then click your BlackBerry Menu key, which is located directly to the left of your trackball/trackpad. Next, choose Mobile Network Options from the menu, and on the following screen, deactivate Data Services.

If you're using a 3G GSM device, like either BlackBerry Bold, you can also turn off your faster 3G connection for a less battery-intensive 2.5G, or EDGE, connection. Just click your Manage Connections icon again, hit Mobile Network Options and scroll down to Network Mode. In the Network Mode menu, choose "2G." But remember, you won't be able to access your 3G network until you reactivate that network mode.

3) Close Unused Applications—Even if You Reopen Them Soon

Many BlackBerry applications utilize RIM's respected "push" technology, which brings messages, notifications and alerts to your device almost instantly after the corresponding service receives them. That's all fine and good--except for the fact that it takes battery life to initiative the transactions and receive new data. The more apps you have open that use some sort of auto-update process, the more battery life those apps are eating up.

4) Standby Mode is Your Friend

You can quickly and easily put many BlackBerry devices into "Standby Mode" to conserve battery life when not in use, among other things. Standby Mode is different than the BlackBerry screen/keypad lock in that it not only freezes your device keyboard, but also deactivates your display, saving power.

You'll need to push the Mute key again--or reenter whatever key combo activates standby--to turn it off. So if you find that your device is on but won't start up when you press keys, ensure it's not in standby.

5) Disable Your Camera's Flash

To modify your camera's flash settings, open the BlackBerry camera app by clicking on the Camera Icon on your BlackBerry home screen. When the camera view finder is open, click your BlackBerry Menu key, hit Options and change the Default Flash Setting to "No."

Hit your Escape key to exit out of the Options menu, save your changes, and your flash will be turned off the next time you open the camera. To turn it back on, simply reverse the process.

6) Add E-Mail Accounts Sparingly

Every time an e-mail message or group of messages is delivered to your BlackBerry inbox, your overall device battery-life diminishes. So, to maximize BlackBerry battery life, you should only connect "relevant" e-mail accounts to your smartphone.

It's a good practice to connect only the mailboxes you employ most frequently to your BlackBerry device, since reducing the number of mailboxes will not only increase your overall battery-life, but also de-clutter your main BlackBerry Messages folder.

thanks to CIO