Top Ten Tips to Help Prolong Your BlackBerry Smartphone’s Battery Life

Its official — more and more people are relying on their smartphones for business and personal communication. A Gartner report from December 2010 reported that the smartphone market in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) has grown nearly 65 percent in the last year, indicating a booming market with users embracing the mobility and functions that their smartphone device offers.

Smartphones help us to keep in touch with the office, stay connected to friends and family, and remain on top of what’s happening in the world. So it can be very frustrating to find your device running low on battery. Mike Al Mefleh, Product Management Director for Research In Motion (RIM) Middle East, the maker of the BlackBerry smartphone, provides us with a few useful tips to help prolong the battery life.

1. Avoid power hungry apps

While media and gaming are part of the BlackBerry experience, excessive game playing or media consumption will drain your battery no matter what. Other battery drainers are any apps that stream data over wireless connections. You can also save battery life by limiting notifications that are sent from an app.

2. Understand and maximize use of wireless connections

Manage your connections. Turn off wifi and Bluetooth when they are not in use as they can really drain your battery. If you are in a no coverage area, turn off the mobile network so that your BlackBerry doesn’t waste power trying to find a cellular connection.

3. Closed unused apps

Open the BlackBerry Application Switcher by holding down the BlackBerry Menu button and close all unused applications. If you haven’t done this before, chances are that you have all kind of apps open and sitting there eating away at your battery life.

4. Standby mode

Put your BlackBerry smartphone in standby mode when it is not in use. It not only locks your keyboard, but also deactivates the display, conserving battery life. Depending on your model of BlackBerry smartphone, this can be done by either holding down the Mute button or by holding down the red power button.

5. Disable camera flash

Granted, using your camera’s flash once in a while won’t make a big difference but repeated use of your BlackBerry device’s flash will deplete the battery life. The options for turning off your automatic flash can be found under camera settings.

6. Add Email Accounts Sparingly

Do you really need to add that email account that you set up in the 90’s, which now only receives junk mail? Every time you get a notification from that account it is taking away from your battery life. Only add the accounts you use.

7. Adjust Your Screen Backlight

The brighter your screen and the longer it is on the more of your battery it uses. Another alternative? You can adjust the backlight brightness settings by going into your Options or Preferences and selecting Screen/Keyboard. Here, you can adjust the backlight settings to your preferences. You will want to set the Backlight Timeout to your preferred time setting. Or, use your holster! Doing this automatically shuts off the display, ensuring a longer battery life. Alternatively if you press the ‘lock’ button on the top of your smartphone, this also blanks out the display.

8. Keep Battery Connections Clean

As with all battery-operated devices, it is a good idea to take the battery out of your smartphone from time to time and make sure there is no dust on the connections, as this can cause your BlackBerry smartphone to use much more juice than it would if it were clean.

9. Give your BlackBerry smartphone some shut eye

One way to improve battery life is to turn off your device while you’re sleeping. With the Auto On/Off feature, you can set your BlackBerry smartphone to turn off at a specific time each day and turn back on again in the morning, either at a pre-set time or with your alarm clock setting. You can access this feature in Options → Device → Auto On/Off. Once you make changes here, hit the Menu key and select Save to save your changes. You can even set your BlackBerry smartphone to come on/ go off at different times on the weekend, giving both you and your device a much-deserved lie-in!

10. And finally, be prepared

It may seem like common sense, but all too often people forget to charge their smartphone battery. After long hours at the office or on the go using social apps and keeping in contact with friends, your battery can easily run down. Try keeping a spare charger at the office or with you when you are on the go. Also, a spare, fully charged battery is inexpensive and will always be there for you in a bind.