Maximizing Battery Life?

[saqer]

as i imagined...standby life is much better when using the autoscaling feature.

I was wondering if using pure black themes improves battery life. My reasoning is black doesn't require as much light to maintain.

[[sammich]]

is autoscaling when u underclock ur processor when on standby? how do you do it?

i did have pocket hack master but i do not approve of anoton tomov's business practices.....

[saqer]

Do skinning programs like Wisbar Advance and Wisbar Desktop use more battery? I'm tempted to try out one of those after previewing some skins on the phonealarm website.

[gguruusa]

Originally Posted by saqer

I was wondering if using pure black themes improves battery life. My reasoning is black doesn't require as much light to maintain.

Not noticeably. The "light" is actually a flood type device that fills the whole screen. Colors are achieved by flipping on and off the pixel opacity of the different LCD layers. The power drain to support the pixel flip is insignificant compared to the light being on and off - which is why display intensity is controlled by reducing power to the backlight and not the TFT layers.

My daughter says the biggest drain to battery life is "turning the phone on"

[saqer]

does accessing programs from storage card use more power than accessing it from main memory?

[schettj]

Originally Posted by saqer

does accessing programs from storage card use more power than accessing it from main memory?

probably a wee bit, yeah. Internal memory/flash is always powered up. The card can go into a low power mode when not being used. But that should not be a really huge power drain for reads - 1%?

[saqer]

That makes sense, thanks.

I was also wondering if keeping an always-on data connection vs one that times out. Does it make a difference on battery life if the always on connection is not actually active?

>>I plan on collecting all the information i gather on common misconceptions about battery life, general FAQs, battery hogs, etc and editing my first post with updated info.

[jt3]

A couple (probably) obvious reasons:

I've found that I save the battery by ensuring that I keep the button-lock activated. It is extremely easy to accidentally hit one of the buttons on this thing while it's in its holster/case. Every time you do that, the device comes out of standby, and the backlight stays on for whatever amount of time you have set.

Worse, if you accidentally hit the call button, you could end up making a call. I've found my phone in the middle of an hour-long call before, and there's NOTHING that sucks the battery worse than that.

Along those lines... does anyone know of a good app to button-lock the phone whenever it goes to standby?

Also, since it wasn't mentioned previously, being in a low-signal area will also drain the battery, since the phone will constantly be switching modes, working through its PRL, looking for that elusive signal. Putting your phone in "flight mode" when in a known no-signal condition will really help too.

[schettj]

slide2unlock works for me.

[jt3]

Does that one actually lock the buttons and prevent the device from accidentally turning on?

Every time I've read or seen videos regarding that application, it seemed like it engaged AFTER the device was powered on. In other words, it seemed like it prevented you from tapping or pressing buttons after the unit was on, but didn't actually prevent the unit from turning on in the first place.

If it locks the device equivalent to the built-in button-lock, then this is exactly what I've been looking for.