by S. Graveson

Created on: January 06, 2011   Last Updated: January 07, 2011

One of the big problems with the HTC Wildfire is it's battery life, although not the worst for a smart phone it's still pretty turgid and doesn't last nearly long enough. Though what some people want to know is how they can extend it's life and actually this isn't too difficult, in fact some of the techniques are very easy and can prolong the battery life significantly.

Firstly, one of the most basic tricks with pretty much any phone is to turn the brightness down. To do this press menu, then settings and scroll down to the Display option. In the display settings you want to turn the brightness down, if you're only using the phone indoors you can get away with having it on the lowest setting though you should find a level your comfortable with. Whilst still in the settings menu you can change one other option. Go to the “Screen timeout” option, which is probably not something you'd think of, but by setting it to 30 seconds you can save just a little bit of extra battery life after you've done texting or whatever.

The next settings to change are the “Wireless & networks” settings. Depending on which version of Android you're using, you will find slightly different menus though if you don't see “Enable always-on mobile data” hold your finger on “Mobile network” to get a sub menu with it. Untick this box as always on internet uses up substantially more battery on than off, and the only upsides are that you get things like Gmail emails notified to you. If you want to go online you can still do it the normal way anyway. Also whilst still in “Wireless & networks” make sure Wi-fi is turned off unless your using it.

A slight saving can be done by limiting the amount of times the phone synchs to things like Facebook, Twitter and Gmail, so turn them all off in the “Accounts & sync” menu before moving onto the “Location” settings. Make sure you turn off the GPS setting. Although a hugely useful function when combined with the “Maps” app, it drains the battery incredibly quickly and should be used sparingly. In fact many of the phones functions should be used as little as possible if you really want to prolong the battery. Using things like the GPS, 3G/Wi-Fi internet and the Music player will swiftly kill the battery life, whilst using just using them occasionally (if at all) will see your battery life get anywhere up to doubling.

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