Increasing Battery life on Android Phones

HTC EVO 4G

Apple iPhone 4S

With the increasing popularity of smart-phones, keeping these highly advanced phones working is a chore!  There are many different types of smart-phones from the very popular iPhone, Blackberry, and the growing market Google's Android operating system.
  I currently have a HTC EVO 4G and love all that it can do, and how it makes my day easier!  But if I'm not careful I can get caught with a phone on it's last battery leg!  My wife has the same phone as I and really struggles with battery life.  So this year I introduced the phrase "Battery Management"  to her.  In her case I was trying to get her to remember to charge her phone at all possible opportunities.  From putting on the charger when she gets home, using the car charger while driving the kids around and most important charging the phone while you sleep!  Some are basic, but we have 5 kids and so she has a lot on her plate.

While many of us charge when able to there still comes some time when we're just unable to charge you phone.  For example, my family went to King's Island amusement park.  Not a whole lot of places there to plug a car charger into to keep the phone charged.  So I had to be creative and here is a list of some things I have done to increase my battery life on my EVO.

• Turn off all non essential items.  If you know your not going to use WiFi and Bluetooth then turn them off.  Having those on I've noticed my phone trying to connect to WiFi hotspots even though I'm just walking by a place and would not benefit from being on WiFi.  Just turn them off!
• Kill non essential programs.  Use programs like Juice Defender to turn off programs when you reach a certain battery level.  
• Dim your screen.  Those huge, beautiful touch screen are just battery hogs!  Reducing the brightness level down will give you some extra time.  Don't put it down to a level that can't be seen, but use some judgement.
• Make a custom profile.  The Android operating system allows you to customize you screens by adding your flare, ie widgets that make using the phone easier!  Make a different profile that you can just change to that has minimal widgets and add-ons running.  This will make it easier to switch between normal mode and battery saver mode!
• Turn off the GPS.  While it's great to tag you location in a Facebook post, that GPS software is sucking down power.  Push the button and turn it off.  If you need it for directions it's easy enough to turn back on.
• Avoid those games!  I know that is one of the cool things you can do with your smart-phone, but playing Angry Birds will drain your battery faster than you can imagine!  It'll be OK, resist the urge.  You can do it! 

If doing these still doesn't work you can do what I did for my wife: buy an extended run battery!  Or buy an extra battery and charging dock.   While this is a pain to do, nothing is worse than having a cool phone and not being able to use it!

Thanks for stopping by hope Gave you some good ideas!

Here are some links to other good articles on this topic:
7 Ways to Boost you Cell Phone Battery Life
Improve your Android Phone's Battery Life