Batteries are the lifeblood of our obsession with portable technology. That awesome new gadget of yours is only as good as its power meter reading, so here’s a short list of resources to help you maximise your battery life and power settings.
- The Powerstream Battery Resource for Engineers contains more information than you possibly want to know on all sorts of batteries and their maintenance. The ultimate battery fact sheet in one location.
- For more down to earth advice check out the BattFaq which features a bunch of dos and donts for everyday battery use.
- Four Essential Tips for Extending Battery Life from Slate gives some useful pointers which you may not have heard before. As well as covering the tricky subject of whether a laptop battery should stay in or out during everyday use.
- 20 Tips To Increase Latop’s Battery Life comes with a sensible set of config options for laptops which will eke out your power during those extended stays in the airport concourse.
- 20 Tips n’Tricks to Extend Your Smartphone’s Battery Life hands over a set of common sense suggestions for making your shiny new handset shine on into the night. Updating your operating system regularly apparently helps a lot.
- These Extending Camera Battery Life tips should ensure that you never run out of juice just at the moment you want to grab that award winning snap.
My top tip for conserving those precious volty bits is to turn all displays down to as close to zero brightness as you can live with. Backlit LCDs are a guaranteed battery killer on just about every gadget, the brighter the setting, the more they suck.