The Basics 19

Optimizing Battery Life

You can extend your battery’s life between charges by turning off features that run in the background. You can also monitor how applications and system resources consume battery power.

Tips to extend the life of your battery

￿Turn off radio communications that you aren’t using. If you aren’t using Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or GPS, use the Settings menu to turn them off (Note that the GPS receiver is only turned on when you’re using an application that makes use of it).

￿Turn down screen brightness and set a shorter screen timeout.

￿Turn off automatic syncing for Gmail, Calendar, Contacts, and other applications if you don’t need it.

￿Use the Power Control widget to control the wireless connections, GPS connection, Bluetooth power, display brightness, and syncing activity.

￿Touch the Apps Key > Settings > Applications > Running services and select the items that are no longer in use and close them.

To check the battery charge level

￿

Touch the Apps Key > Settings > About phone > Status.￿

 

The battery status (Charging or Discharging) and level (as a percentage

 

of fully charged) will be displayed at the top of the screen.

To monitor and control what uses the battery

The Battery use screen allows you to see which applications are consuming the most battery power. Information on this screen allows you to identify downloaded applications you may want to turn off when not being used, so you can get the most out of your battery power.

￿Touch the Apps Key > Settings > About phone > Battery use. The screen will display battery usage time. Either how long since last

connected to a power source, if connected to a power source, and how long you were last running on battery power.