Save battery by dimming the screen

We all know a few people who have ditched the BlackBerry in the last year or two. Many of them claim that they don’t miss it at all. The honest ones, though, admit to missing one aspect of the BlackBerry: the long battery life. My father-in-law loves his iPhone, but can’t stand that he needs an extended battery when traveling for work. “Even when using it heavily,” he said, “I’d get more than a full day before recharging.” Of course, there was a reason that the BlackBerry battery lasted so long.

 Previous BlackBerry models were woefully underpowered. Their processors and screens didn’t require as much power as the high-end competition, so BlackBerry devices had longer battery lives. But with the 9000 series, the stakes have risen. The faster processors have taken a noticeable toll on battery life. It’s still good, no doubt. But it might be prudent to take a few steps in conserving battery life, just in case you can’t find an outlet for a while. 

You’ll go into Options – Display – Screen Display to get some options. Scroll past the font settings to get to Backlight. Here you’ll have four options. Backlight Brightness. I always turn this down from 100, since it’s usually unnecessary to have it that bright (unless you’re watching video). I have mine set at 70, but I’m fine at even 50. This is something you can tune down when your battery is running low. 

Backlight Timeout. This is something I’ll frequently change. When I’m sitting at my desk and need my BlackBerry, I’ll crank it up to two minutes. When I’m out and I won’t be near an outlet, I might flip it down to 20 seconds. The default is 30, which I sometimes find too short. But when you need to conserve battery it could be too long. Automatically Dim Backlight. It might seem as though this will save battery, since it slowly dims the backlight before timing out. Yet it probably doesn’t save that much battery life. Overall I find it a nuisance. LED Coverage Indicator. This has no effect on battery life. Still, one of the most annoying BlackBerry features in the world.