Battery care: 10 things you can do to make any battery last longer

As far as battery maintenance goes, I’m the worst ever. I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve needed to jump on my lap-top, use my cell phone or any other portable electronic device, only to find myself in the unenviable position of having no juice left on the battery. Simply put, I overuse, poorly maintain, and all in all just wear down all of the batteries I need like it’s going out of style.


These bad habits usually leave me powerless when I most need power, so I asked around and came out with these 10 simple things you can do to make any battery last longer.

1. Use the lowest brightness settings on screen displays. This will not work in bright areas like out doors, but sure works well indoors. Cell phones, lap-tops, and even watches have brightness controls that will help stretch the life of any battery.

2. Fully charge and discharge all of your batteries. Try to avoid “topping off” the battery if there’s enough of a charge in there to get by, then remove the battery or unplug from the charger only after it has had a chance to trickle charge at 100%, and your battery will last 2 or 3 years easily.

3. Use programs that take less RAM and keep useless programs closed. A lot of laptops come with cluttered programs since the day you take them home from the store. Stuff like Yahoo messenger or Firefox with 20 tabs open takes a lot of RAM and eats up batteries super fast.

4. Keeping the volume level on all of your music playing devices is key to a longer battery life. You’ll be amazed at how much life loud music sucks out of your battery. This will also do wonders in preserving your ear-drums as well.

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5. To go with #4, also turn down the volume on your cell-phone ringer. Long ring-tones may sound cool, but hearing your favorite song play every time your phone rings will drain your battery in a hurry.

6. Turn off your Bluetooth whenever you’re not using it. This can be an easy one to forget about if you’re often switching between using a Bluetooth, and the phone’s ear piece. Most people use their Bluetooth way too much anyhow, so cutting back on it’s use will lengthen the life of your battery.

7. I’ve always heard that when you get a new laptop, or anything with a rechargeable battery for that matter, you should charge it over night. Pull that bad boy out of the box and give it a nice, long, healthy charge. Even if it says full, leave it in and charging for a while.

8. When I was little I would always find batteries in my grandmother’s fridge. I always wondered why, turns out she was onto something. If you have extra batteries for your phone, laptop, or anything else, go ahead and store those in the refrigerator. Just make sure not to freeze them.

9. Programs that are run from a CD or DVD can be copied to and run from the hard drive, which typically consumes less power than an optical drive. If you have music and movies you know know you’ll be playing numerous times, just rip them onto your hard drive and you’ll be styled!

10. Lastly, just using basic common sense will help extend the life of all of your batteries. If you’re not using it, turn it off! If you don’t need it, get rid of it! This is probably the most practical and applicable way to get the most out of all of your batteries.