One thing that you can do is, on one of the three home screens click and hold down to add a new widget. There is a built in widget that is called 'Power Control', add this widget to the screen. This allows quick control over some of the less power friendly items on the phone. For best battery usage, I would turn off all except for the Sync (especially if you want to check your e-mail).
- You can change the display brightness between three settings either 0%, 50% or 100%. That's good if you like to control your screen brightness. If you don't mind the Droid handling that for you, then you can just turn on the automatic control that changes with the ambient light around the phone. This is turned on by default.
- Wi-Fi may also be turned on and off with this widget.
- GPS Satellites may be turned on and off.
- Your phone's syncing ability may be turned on and off.
- Bluetooth may also be turned on and off with this widget.
◊ If you aren't using the phone then make sure that you put it in 'Sleep' mode by simply pressing the power button once. This will also keep you from accidentally pressing any buttons.
♦ Change the length of time that it takes your phone to turn off the display. Do this by pressing Menu > Settings > Sound and Display > Screen Timeout.
◊ The fewer active apps that you are running, the better for your battery. You can force close applications by downloading a task manager such as TasKiller, Tasks, Task Killer or Advanced Task Manager.
♦ One thing that you can do with most other Android phones is to make your phone only connect to 2G networks. 3G is a power hog, so unless you really need to use it for surfing or downloading something, then 2G should be more than enough. Unfortunately, the Droid doesn't have this option.
Well, there are some tips on what you can do with your right out-of-the-box settings to help your battery life. Other than just staying off your phone that is the best that you can do. Now if you want to cheat a little bit then....
