So if you are like me and you just got a new android and have been using it nonstop you certainly have been noticing that your battery can only take you so many hours before it tells you it needs a charge. This article will deal with some of the pointers we have found across several phones we have been using (G1, MyTouch, Hero, Droid, Nexus).

Here are some of the steps you can take to prolong your battery:

1. Less use is always better. The fewer things you are trying to do on your phone the better. Since the Android OS allows us to multi task unlike others, we can listen to Pandora, surf the internet and even take calls in between all of that. The battery can get very active on such task. So if you are limiting your multi task usage when you need to conserve, do it. We are not advocating abandoning multi tasking, but when you need your phone to last maybe all day and into the next this is something to think about.

2. The screen is what burns up most of your battery other than calls, if you check in settings>about phone>battery use you can see what is eating up your battery. We recommend the following approaches for reducing the burden the screen is putting on the system;

• Lower the screen brightness with the power control widget or in settings>sound & display
• Setup the wallpaper of your screen to black (uses less energy)
• Lower the screen timeout (the delay before the screen automatically turns off) to the lowest setting (15 seconds). This one can get annoying but for battery conservation it is a great idea.
• Disable window Animation in settings>sound and display

3. Get a task killing application widget to quickly kill running applications and free up cpu and memory. Try TasKiller or Advanced Task Killer, for the quick easy way to clean up memory.

Note that people on 2.X can use the built in memory manager in System>Running Services.

4. Remove widgets from your home screen with exception of a task killing widget, these tend to run in the background and can start up on their own even with the steps in #3.

5. Turn off Wi-Fi, bluetooth and GPS if you are not using them so they do not active or search for available devices. Wi-Fi and bluetooth can be turned off in Settings>Wireless & network settings. GPS can be turned off in Settings>Location & security settings.

6. Turn off synchronization of unneeded accounts. I do not include this in #5 because it does violate some of the reasons we have chosen to get a smart phone, the ability to synchronize with facebook, gmail, exchange, etc. is one of the most important features of these phones. Depending on which OS version you have it will either be in Settings>Data synchronization or Settings>Accounts & sync settings.

If you do turn off synchronization for battery life make sure you remember to turn it back on so you are not missing these later.

7 Turn off Talkbalk, Soundback and Kickback in Settings>Accessibility these will sap your battery life and work extra cycles on your CPU. I have had the experience where these basically brought my MyTouch to a standstill and I had to do a hard reset. I would never recommend turning these on unless you are absolutely certain you need them. If you do not know what they mean then you definitely do not need them.

8. Turn down or disable all unnecessary sounds and vibrations in Settings>Sound & display. This list includes the following:

• Ringer Volume
• Media Volume
• Phone Vibrate
• Pulse Notification light
• Audible touch tones
• Audible selection
• Haptic feedback
• SD card notifications

9. Make sure to clear all of the notifications from your phone by opening up the notification bar and clicking on the clear button.

If you have any other battery  recommendations please let us know. Bear in mind that most of these are extreme ways to keep your phone active as long as possible and will diminish some functionality but if you need your phone to last these will work.

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