Are you going to the beach for Semana Santa? If so, you are probably taking your cell phone with you. If you are a smartphone user, you know that the battery needs charging on a regular basis. Not only are smartphones huge data consumers, they are a huge battery power consumers. Smartphone specifications tell you the expected battery life in terms of Standby Time and Talk Time for both phone and data usage. You can safely ignore the phone (2G) times, as it is the data (3G) times that tell you how long you can expect a battery charge to last. Following are tips on how you can maximize the life of a battery.

Tip 1: Live wallpapers are huge power consumers, as they require the CPU to be constantly running. If you do use a live wallpaper, select one that consumes the least amount of power. For a trip, you may want to switch to a static wallpaper to extend the battery life.

Tip 2: When enabled, the Bluetooth subsystem constantly draws power. If you are driving, you should always use a Bluetooth headset for hands-free driving. When you are not driving, you can turn it off to save power.

Tip 3: If you are not connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot, you should turn off Wi-Fi. When enabled, the Wi-Fi subsystem consumes power by continually searching for a Wi-Fi hotspot.

Tip 4: When using Wi-Fi, the Wi-Fi Sleep Policy settings determine the Wi-Fi behavior. Always leaving the Wi-Fi enabled, even when the screen is shutoff, drains the battery. There are two options that optimize battery life: Wi-Fi shuts off when the screen shuts off, or the Wi-Fi shuts off when the screen shuts off and a charger is not connected.

Tip 5: When you are connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot, you should turn off the 3G subsystem. You are not using it, so why waste precious battery power connecting to the service. This does not effect 2G phone calls or SMS texts. It may effect MMS texts.

Tip 6: If you are not using the GPS for navigation, you can save power by turning off the GPS subsystem. This does effect the accuracy of geoposition messaging, such as Twitter. The phone still uses course geopostitioning based on cell tower positions.

Tip 7: The biggest power consumer on a smartphone is the display. You can save a lot of power by reducing the screen brightness to a level that you can still comfortably read the screen. This is especially true at night, or in place where the ambient light (light shining on the screen) is must lower than direct sunlight.

Tip 8: Many apps (such as mail, social networking, news, and Google Play Store) periodically check for new events. Some apps (such as Mail, and News & Weather) periodically download data for later viewing. To conserve batter power, you can suspend automatic syncing of accounts, increase the refresh interval for each application, or synchronize only when connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot.

Tip 9: Some widgets are real power consumers. For example, the Pulse Widget continuously displays news updates on your home page (or another page). These updates come at the price of faster battery drain. In general, widgets consume more power than does the corresponding icon.

Tip 10: If you are not in range of a cell tower, it is better to turn off your phone. A phone constantly searches for a cell connection, consuming a lot of batter power in the process. Even a weak signal consumes more power than a strong signal, as the phone uses more transmitter power to communicate to the cell tower.

For Android Phones, you can check which apps are consuming the most power by tapping Settings -> About (Phone or Tablet) -> Battery Use. To set the battery profile settings, you need to long tap on the free space in any page, and then tap Widgets -> Power Control. The first part of the screen determines which icons to display in a Power Control Widget, the remaining sections define the power control profile settings. By default, Android devices bias the settings towards a seamless experience, and not maximum battery efficiency. It is not necessary to install the Widget to change the power profile settings. To just change the settings, tap the back arrow. To create the Widget, you tap the OK button at the top of the window.

Most of the battery apps for Android just offer different battery displays. There are a few apps that actually manage the power control settings. The Battery Dr saver + task killer app provides a quick way to change the basic settings. It also provides battery information, battery charge information, and task control. JuiceDefender Ultimate ($4.99 USD) is the best power management app. JuiceDefender Plus ($1.99) and JuiceDefender – battery saver (free) disable many of the features available in the Ultimate edition. Occasionally, the battery indicator, which uses a file for its information, is out of sync with the actual battery status. You can use the Battery Callibration app to synchronize the battery with the battery status file.

Have a great Semana Santa!