Extend Your Android Cell Phone Battery Life

Android is becoming a very popular platform for cell phones with its thousands of cool free apps and cutting-edge interface. If you have the iPhone, the T-Mobile myTouch or G1, among many others, you have experienced the world of Android. However, one of the biggest complaints with Android phones is the short-lived battery life, of sometimes less than one day between charges. Android is a very data-rich platform, so packed that if you had a battery big enough to sustain your phone for a few days at a time, you wouldn't be able to slip it in your pocket. Here are a few tricks on how to lessen the drain on your battery. Most of these steps will also work on any cell phone, not just Android.

1. • First, download a free application available on the Android marketplace called Advanced Task Killer. This is a very simple app that will allow you to kill tasks that your phone is performing when you don't need it to. Your Android phone likes to keep things running behind the scenes for you, even when you're not using them, and it drains your battery fast. With Task Killer, you can conveniently stop these tasks throughout the day with one touch. The app will even show you how much memory has been freed as a result of killing the tasks. This results in longer battery life.

   • Under Settings, dim your screen brightness to the dimmest you can tolerate and keep it there. You will be suprised how bright the screen can get, and you'll see that it can be dimmed almost to "zero" without much loss of function. Pretty soon you won't even notice it, and your battery will run more efficiently.

   • Still under Settings > Display Settings, adjust the "Screen Timeout." Task your phone to sleep after 30 seconds of idle. The more it sleeps, the less it will drain. You can also help it sleep faster by getting in the habit of pushing your "Call End" button to immediately put it to sleep after each use.

   • Avoid using unnecessary "extras" that the phone can do, like "Audible Selection" (when your phone plays a sound every time you select something) or using the animation feature when opening windows. While these things are neat at first, they add unecessary strain on the battery.