Preserve Blackberry power and battery life

Contributed by qmchenry October 5, 2005  
Tagged: Blackberry

Always good to preserve your battery on mobile devices because they always seem to die when you need them most. Here are some generic tips for Blackberry battery longevity and some information that is model specific.

Wireless connectivity requires a substantial power drain, so turning it off when it is not needed is a great savings. In the home page, look for the icon that resembles a radio tower which should say “Turn wireless off” (or on, if it is already off) and click the wheel. Devices accessing these networks typically use more power when the signal is low, so in fringe coverage areas, turning off the wireless will have a greater effect.

Unless you really need to know that you got a new piece of spam mail at 3AM, you can have your Blackberry automatically turn itself off at a set time each day. To enable this, click on the Options icon in the home page and click on Auto On/Off. When you click there, you have the option of setting the on and off times and the option to enable or disable the auto on/off feature. Weekdays and weekends can be set independently. Don’t worry, alarms and reminders will still work even if it is auto off.

Recently, I noticed a metal object stuck to my Blackberry 7290 belt clip. It was stuck the little round metallic window near the bottom of the clip which I had seen before but hadn’t realized was a magnet. If you hold the bottom of your Blackberry (near the space key) close to that magnet, you’ll find a spot where the screen will go blank. When the Blackberry is in the clip, the magnet closes an internal switch. Leaving your Blackberry in the clip when not in use will save some battery power. I also noticed that keys and buttons had no effect in this mode, which is a nice feature.