Tutorial: How To Improve Battery Life
 

Recently, I was looking for ways to make my new BB Bold's battery working time longer. I committed some experiments and talked to some battery gurus. Here are the steps how to make your battery stronger, make it live longer and have longer time between recharges. Listed in order of significance.

1. Train your battery. This is recommended with completely new batteries. You need to drain the battery and fully recharge it about 5 times. Let a movie run (or a short demo video, with "repeat" mode ON) until the phone turns itself OFF. Then recharge it with the battery charger. Battery charge is more preferable for the training. Repeat this operation 5 times.
2. Turn OFF 3G if you don't need it.
3. Turn OFF WiFi if you don't need it all the time. Turn it ON only when you want to use it.
4. Turn OFF Bluetooth. Turn it ON only when you want to use it.
5. Enable "Auto On/Off". In "Options"->"Auto On/Off" you can activate the timer, which turns the device OFF in the night hours and turns it ON in the morning. Might suit not for the doctors among us, who should be ready to go on a call even in the night :)
6. Keep it in the case. Putting the device in the case (with magnet) will put the device in sleep mode which will help battery life. Thanks to jsconyers for this tip!

This improved my Bold's battery dramatically. Before I had to recharge it every night despite not active using during the day. Now it takes 5-7 days between recharging, depending on how often I use it.

If you have more tips please add.

@Moderators: please stick it to the top if possible. Thank you.

This is contrary to the FAQ that's part of this Forum:

Maximum Battery Life - BlackBerryFAQ

I do not agree to your "training your battery" instructions.

Turning off WiFi and Bluetooth is just common sense.

Saying you went from charging every night to only needing to be charged every 5-7 days is . . . well the truth is not being represented in this statement!

You do not need to "train" your battery, actually doing so will ruin it

following your theory my battery should be dead now.

Training the battery is known from old times of Nickel-based batteries, where it was almost a requirement. With Lithium batteries training in this sense is not necessary indeed, but a few full recharge cycles at the very beginning are helpful, because they help to balance the cell capacity. As you all perfectly know you Bold has a Lithium polymer multi cell battery. About specifics of that type you can read e.g. at Lithium-ion polymer battery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The rumor that you shouldn't ever let the Li-Pol battery to be completely discharged is a FUD. Each such battery has an integrated control mechanism, which shuts the battery down when a certain low level of capacity reached. So if you plug in the charger just after the battery went "empty" and load the battery 100%, there shouldn't be any problems. In this light I doubt the guide at Maximum Battery Life - BlackBerryFAQ is written by people who are familiar with battery electronics.

FUD is claiming you get 5-7 days on your Bold.

This statement is false

Greg, if your gadget doesn't live that long between recharges, then either you are using it intensively or you better try those tips. 5-7 days for a BB Bold laying mostly on a shelf or in the pocket in not FUD but reality. RIM claims in their specs the following data:

So about a week between recharges of casual use with WiFi, 3G and BT OFF is perfectly normal.

First of all, what does "FUD" mean?

Second of all, the statement the guy makes is:

"Now it takes 5-7 days between recharging, depending on how often I use it."

That statement is not neccessarily false. Maybe he keeps it turned off except for when he is making a call, and turns it off every night while he sleeps. His statement could be true, although sort of pointless, if that were the case.

So, rather than false, I would describe the OP's statement in one of these ways:

• "Lacking any useful information"
• "Inconclusive"
• "Not relevant without additional details"
• "Fails to provide any data that supports the OP's claim"

If the OP comes back, and states that, yes in fact he claims that he is getting 5-7 days of battery life while leaving his Bold on 100% of the time and with only light use, the greggebhart is 100% right, the guy is lying. Why, we'll never understand.

Oh, and I forgot one more great battery saver! For those who don't use the device at night and don't expect/appreciate calls in the night, there is a nice option. In "Options"->"Auto On/Off" enable that the device goes OFF at night and turns ON in the morning. You can set the schedule as you like.

Sorry man but I hate to say you are full of it. You are telling me that your Bold runs 5 full days with the radio turned on? In these 5 days do you use it? I know you love your Bold but you are exaggerating the facts. Nothing you do to your battery will GREATLY increase it's capacity. I would go for a couple of days with moderate use and maybe 3 days with very light use but 5 days! Not!

If you are turning your phone off, you are fooling yourself! I could get 10 days use if I turned it off every second I was not using it. But I get phone calls and emails and turning the phone off kinda defeats the purpose of push email.

Give me a break. If you use your phone that little, you really don't need one!

Lol! There is also an on and off button!

I had a phone before which turned OFF every night. And I always forgot to turn it ON in the mornings. Always recognized that my phone is OFF at noon and surely missed some calls. So, this timer is really useful.

I don't think this thread needs to be a sticky as there is already an FAQ on this. Also, you forgot to mention that putting the device in the case (with magnet) will put the device in sleep mode which will help battery life

Thanks, I will remember your battery tips!

If you mean the FAQ which was mentioned above then I don't think it's accurate, moreover it doesn't target BB Bold but all BlackBerries, thus doesn't consider specific features of this device.

Thank you for the tip with the case, adding it to the list.

sticky!

Agreed. Don't get us wrong bbstalker, we appreicate that your trying to contribute to the forums. You took a little time to put this together. But most of us here are professional users. Any connection that is left on (WiFi, 3G, Bluetooth) will undoubtedly use excess energy so that is a given. A big one you missed though:

Turn the backlight down to 60 - 70% and that will make a difference.

And I would have to call foul on 5 - 7 day battery life unless you don't use it. I can get two days of light use. But normally I'm sitting at about a day to a day and a half before it visits Mr. Charger.

Had to look it up.. :?

Fear, uncertainty and doubt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have to love Wikipedia...

He said he goes 5-7 days with WiFi/3G/BT turned off. That's quite possible. The Bold battery is bigger than mine (8100 with 1200 mAh extended battery). I go 4-5 days always before I recharge (at 20% usually). I turn mine off at night, use magnet pouch. 20 emails read/txt very little browsing, talk 10-15 min maybe (or not). The Bold will do better than that with 2G only.

I think Bold has already a "smart" backlight regulation. It lowers the brightness for most of the scenarios and goes to the full brightness when you watch a video. So, I think it's nicely regulated and enabled by default.