Re: GUIDE: How to improve battery life SIGNIFICANTLY
 

hi guys, i'm a newbie to this group and someone hoping to get a N900 very soon.....battery life for this phone has always been something i've been trying to get more information....this thread has informed me well enough to preserve the battery....but when readiing i came across "cellular radio".....would someone please tell me what that is ? thank you

Re: GUIDE: How to improve battery life SIGNIFICANTLY
 

Great guide! In addition to what you listed, here are a few other things you can do to squeeze out more battery:

Disable the vibration feedback for the screen
Like disabling vibration for IM notifications, if the vibration motor is triggered with every finger press, that's going to drain battery

Turn wifi down to 10mW if you can
If you go to the advanced settings for your wireless connections one of the tabs allows you to change the power output of the wireless card (this has been mentioned in other threads here). Change 100mW to 10mW. In my experience I can still use wireless throughout the house on 10mW without a problem.

Re: GUIDE: How to improve battery life SIGNIFICANTLY
 

The n900 has a bunch of radios. Some transmit (Tx) and some receive (RX). There is a GPS Rx, WiFI Tx/Rx, FM Tx/Rx, bluetooth Tx/Rx, and telephone voice/data Tx/Rx. I don't know if the latter is all in one or spread over more than one radio. The phone parts are cellular radios because they pass from tower to tower as the phone moves around. The area serviced by a tower is a cell.

Re: GUIDE: How to improve battery life SIGNIFICANTLY
 

It's the wireless phone transmitter/receiver. The term refers to the nature of the mobile phone technology. The orginal old mobile phones had massive trasmitters and received on the base station and mobile phones. A new generation of mobile phone technology was designed around using smaller base stations several miles /kilmoters apart around the service area. These smaller base stations are tied back to the central phone switch site via trunk lines. These sites have a smaller area to provide coverage for. So the transmitters on both side could be smaller. The sites are commonly called "cell sites" or "cell towers" inthe U.S. Hence the term cellular (or cell)O i.e. cellular phone or cell phone. (Picture cells in living tissue to get the idea). In the EU, I think the term is "Base Transciever Station".

Re: GUIDE: How to improve battery life SIGNIFICANTLY
 

Hi vasillalov,

Great guide in how to improve battery life!

You are correct to advise upgraing cards older than a couple of years, but for the wrong reason.
The real culprit is the SIM card power characteristics.

(dates are approximate)
SIM cards supplied prior to 2001 were all running 5 volts
SIM cards between 2001-2004 support 3V (and 5V)
SIM cards from 2004 support 1.8V (and 3V)

I had a friend who cut out a mini-SIM from a Full size (credit card) SIM previously in a GSM StarTAC.

He used my mini-SIM as a template, drew around it and cut out the card with scissors! Although this was ingenious and the newer phone he was using supported legacy 5V SIMs, the designed power-saving (sleep) mode was never achieved. This resulted in very poor stand-by times - the same is true for 5V/3V SIMs when the device is capable of operating at 1.8V

Although the industry is pretty settled on 1.8V devices right now, there are plans to further reduce to 1.2V then 0.9V in the future.

This is the reason to 'upgrade' your SIM cards every few years.

Re: GUIDE: How to improve battery life SIGNIFICANTLY
 

I'm sorry guys but i didn't find anything new on this list. :)
And when i see "remove widgets" and "adjust your screen brightness on 2 of 5" i just wonder why should someone buy this phone if he is going to use it half-crippled? Wonderful screen with pitiful brightness and 4 desktops without widgets. No, thanks. :)
Btw don't get me wrong, please. ;)

Re: GUIDE: How to improve battery life SIGNIFICANTLY
 

Sim card issue just scapegoat, most users have newly sim card average life of 1 to 2 years. Any i had same sim for roughly 17 months and just got a new card from tmobile and tested it with same result with gps off, 3g off wifi off, 2 hours of internet with t-mobile 2.5 speed, back light 1 no widget only shortcut and bookmark on the desktop maybe 10 mins of phone call and last only 8 hours. battery issue is killing this phone, we dont expect to spend 500+ on a phone couldnt last through out the day.

Re: GUIDE: How to improve battery life SIGNIFICANTLY
 

exactly what I wanted to say, I'm surprised no one said this earlier.

what the hell is the point of using this phone if I can't even have notification lights, have vibrate, have my screen be bright, or hell, have WIDGETS which this phone advertised as being a great feature with its 4 panoramic desktops. Cool, I can have 4 desktops of emptiness. The whole idea behind N900 is being "online as it happens". Cant really be up to date if I can't even be notified.

I dont care whether you guys say this is a phone or internet tablet, this is a pretty poor job by Nokia (again). Should I not use 3g or surf the internet too then to save my battery? In that case if I can't use many of the features I should just get a plain non-smartphone and have the battery last longer too.

Re: GUIDE: How to improve battery life SIGNIFICANTLY
 

How are yo uguys getting new sim cards? Are you paying for them or is there some kind of excuse you can use to get a new one without paying?

Re: GUIDE: How to improve battery life SIGNIFICANTLY
 

I am on tmobile, go to local store pay 10 dollars for the new card, but dont waste your money, it makes no difference. Unless you have 5 years old sim, otherwise dont even bother. I followed their advice and got one, but still the same.