If you’ve had your HTC Thunderbolt for more than a few minutes, you know what a battery hog it is. In order to preserve battery life, here are a few tips I’ve gleaned from various places:
- shut down running apps when not in use: chief among these would be Bluetooth, Wi-fi, and GPS services. You can do this manually in various settings screens, but it’s easiest to do so with a widget. To add the stock Android power control widget, find a screen with room for one icon-row’s worth of space, hit the personalize button (or long-press on an open space), hit add Widget, then scroll to Power Control and select it. This widget gives you options to toggle off or on these functions when not in use. When you need GPS back on to use Google Maps for example, you can toggle it on or just open the app, which will prompt you to turn it back on.
I observed a significant increase in battery life by toggling these functions off.
- try another battery widget from the Android Market. See my review of the Battery Widget.
- try a task killer application from the Market: these will kill running apps that you don’t need in the background. I think the jury’s out on whether these are worth it–I didn’t notice much improvement, and I see a lot of ambivalence about these in the forums.
- See what applications are using the bulk of your battery power and uninstall if not used or close when not used. Go to Menu>Settings>About Phone>Battery. In this battery settings area you’ll see various status indicators, and by clicking on the Battery Use link you’ll see a list of what’s been eating your battery power since the last charge. Most often it’s the Display, so set your screen brightness as dim as you can stand it.
- See also John Kinsella’s post on the Ipad blog: http://blogs.stthomas.edu/ipad/2011/02/07/how-to-maximize-battery-life/. Though it’s addressing Ipads, most of the advice is relevant for any mobile device.
