Tag Archives: cell phones

Cell Phone Battery Tips

A friend complained about low battery life. Here are the tips I gave him:

  1. As batteries age, their max talk time begins to fade. You may just need a new one.
  2. Putting your phone on vibrate will kill your battery.
  3. Keeping your phone in an area with bad reception will kill your battery. When it loses contact with a tower, it goes to full power to search for a new signal. If you have to leave it in an area with bad reception, shut the phone off.
  4. The GPS radio will kill your battery. If you have a GPS on your phone, you have to fully exit from the GPS/navigation software to shut down the radio. In Sprint Navigation, I have to keep hitting the back button until it asks me if I want to exit navigation – sometimes twice. You’re not done until you’ve hit the home screen. You also have to exit from Google Maps, if you’ve installed that app.

BTW, I found that the Google Maps app works WAY faster than Sprint Navigation when showing you your current location and scrolling/zooming around the map. It also gives better routes. You can set route preferences with Sprint Nav., but they don’t seem to work well (or at all). Still, voice navigation is nice when you’re completely lost. Eventually, you do get home.