How to improve phone's battery life

You could have the most powerful smartphone around, but that amounts to naught if it dies out on you every few hours. ET offers a few simple tips and apps and to maximise your phone's battery. Generic Tips 1. Screen Brightness Although most phones come with a light sensor that is used to automatically adjust brightness of the display, you need to manually set the brightness as low as possible to maximise battery life. The automatic setting constantly alters the brightness and that leads to higher consumption. Also, keep the screen time out as short as possible to save more battery. 2. Wireless Connectivity Functions such as EDGE, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS are important to phone usage, but they are the biggest battery hogs as well. You can increase your battery life by switching off functions that you don't need. Even switching from 3G to 2G (if available) will give your battery life a huge boost. 3. Push Notifications If push notifications are turned on, your phone constantly pings various services to check for updates. Therefore, data connectivity or Wi-Fi is constantly being used to check for updates. Some devices even play a sound and display a notification on the screen. The number of different notifications you leave on will have a direct impact on the phone's battery life. 4. Background Tasks By default, pressing the home button does not exit apps, it just moves them to the background - this helps with quicker multitasking on a smartphone. Problem is, even background apps consume hardware resources (except on iOS where the apps are completely suspended). Use a task manager to exit apps completely and give a boost to battery life. 5. Haptic Feedback Many touchscreen phones offer haptic feedback - a slight vibration while typing, pressing an on-screen button or in some phones, every time the screen registers a touch. Check if you can turn this feature off or control when the vibration occurs. You can also choose to turn off the vibrate notification for calls/SMS when the ringer is on. Apps to Enhance Battery Life BB: Battery Saver Pro Provides a clean graphical user interface with features to monitor processes, optimise usage for display/wireless connections, set alerts for low battery and can show a battery usage graph. iOS: Battery Life Pro This app has a beautiful user interface and shows you system info & graphs for memory usage. It also gives you one-touch access to switch on/off Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G & push notifications. Windows Phone: BatterySaver BatterySaver lets you pin live tiles on your home screen to quickly toggle between various battery consuming functions such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth & GPS. Android: JuiceDefender This app offers balanced, aggressive or extreme battery saving presets. Select one and it automatically manages phone features to improve battery life. You can even customise individual options to create a preset of your own.Accessories for power users Battery Cases Cases like Mophie's Juice Pack (Rs 3,000 onwards) have a builtin battery - the case connects with the charging port on the phone and keeps the internal battery topped up.