We love our smartphones, but one issue that might come up is battery life. If you’re a heavy user, you want to find ways to be able to use the phone as long as you can before needing to recharge. We have included 17 tips to extend your Windows Phone 8 battery life, but many of these tips involve turning off services and features. You decide which services you’re willing to let go to...
A few months back I reviewed the Brando Power Jacket case for the Nokia Lumia 920. A case with a built-in battery, it could potentially double the battery life of the Lumia 920 – a dream for gamers. But the Brando case didn’t perform all that well as a charger, limiting its usefulness. Enter Mugen Power, makers of many external batteries and cases. At long last, Mugen now offers an...
There are plenty of battery performance apps available for our Windows Phones. You can now add Battery to the list of Windows Phone 8 apps that can chart, track and keep you updated on how much life your Windows Phone battery has left. But Battery will go a little further by offering shortcuts to key Windows Phone settings and the option to backup and share your battery performance data...
The release of Order & Chaos Online was a big deal for Windows Phone 8 gamers. Finally, our platform had a fully- fledged massively multiplayer online role-playing game with beautiful 3D graphics and Xbox Achievements. But graphically intense online games have a downside: they drain a device’s battery like crazy! Depending on a user’s charger and phone settings, a phone might die...
Nokia is reportedly preparing to launch the massive 6-inch Nokia Lumia 1520 this fall and Windows Phone Central can now bring you a little more information about the device. Yesterday, EvLeaks claimed that the Lumia 1520 will “launch” on September 26th, though we understand that to be incorrect. The device is still planned to be announced on this date but it won’t launch until early...
New screenshots reveal more on the Notification Center, actionable notifications and a Battery percentage option in Windows Phone 8.1 More information is coming forward regarding the forthcoming Windows Phone 8.1. This time, alleged screenshots from build 8.10.12166.0 were posted in the Windows Phone Central forums by user qXerro. Although we have not verified the screenshots (they can...
According to Microsoft’s support forums, a user complained that his Surface RT running the latest version of the company’s Windows 8.1 Consumer Preview was seeing an extreme power decrease while in standby mode. The user also noted that a driver known as “Microsoft UART V2” seemed to be causing the issue. Microsoft’s support team contacted the user and requested he try switching his...
The Samsung ATIV S sports a rather large battery, 2300mAh in fact. But what if you wanted some more power to last the day? Mugen Power has answered this desire with a massive 4800mAh extension. The company showcases the product in the above video, which is bundled with a case to accommodate the new battery. There's a slight bump in the design and the Samsung Windows Phone expands...
Packing a lot of power, the Brando Power Jacket is a nice solution for those who don't mind the extra bulk Back a few weeks ago we reported on Brando bringing their seemingly high quality Power Jacket to market for the Lumia 920. The $37 item features a massive 2200mAh battery that “wraps around” your precious Nokia phone, allowing you go all day and night all at the price of extra size...
Hello Friends is a useful and popular app for Windows Phone that enables consumers to add photos of contact stored on the device to the lockscreen and create the same mosaic effect that's utilised on the People Hub Live Tile. As well as being available for Windows Phone 8 (with the added lockscreen support), Hello Friends is also downloadable for Windows Phone 7 hardware, but lacks...
Anyone who makes use of GPS functionality on a smartphone understands the impact such connectivity has on the limited battery supply that's packed inside the device. Unfortunately, we're not quite at the stage where 10,000mAh batteries are utilised, so Microsoft Research has been working on a cloud-powered GPS chip that will reportedly slash battery consumption on smartphones. As well...
If it’s one thing people with smartphones like to know it’s the battery level. Double so if you’re the OCD type. Windows Phone 8 makes knowing such information a smidgen easier by displaying it under Settings without having to tap into the menu, but people still want more options. The new (and oddly named) Windows Phone 8 app Battery Monitor with Voice Control just hit the Store and as...
Ever since Windows Phone 8 came out people have rightly wanted Skype. And so they got it, albeit a preview edition which in our vernacular reads ‘beta’ and beta it is. Previously we’ve passed on a few tips for people who have had battery issues and we can absolutely confirm one of them now: Skype. No, it doesn’t occur often in fact this was our first time with the problem ever since...
![Nokia Lumia 920 Windows Phone experiencing battery life issues? [Poll]](https://www.windowscentral.com/sites/wpcentral.com/files/styles/w250h188crop/public/field/image/2012/11/ATTLumia920Z.png?itok=_ttyziqz)
There's a discussion going on over at the Windows Phone Central forums that has us a little concerned about the Lumia 920's battery performance. Some are seeing their batteries being sucked dry in a few hours while some aren't seeing any issues. Our Dan Rubino refers to his 920's battery life as fantastic and I would have agreed up until today when my 920 barely made it six hours on a...
Here's an app that should excite some of you new Windows Phone 8 owners out there: Battery Level for WP8 by Alex Golesh. The first of its kind, as far as we know, the app allows you to constantly keep abreast of your battery life on your WP8 device with a simple Live Tile. Just pin the app to your Start screen and choose one of three sizes (small, medium and doublewide) to suit your...
When the Nokia Lumia 920 specifications hit last month, the rather large battery (2000mAh) was touted as one of the main features, resulting in supposed “all day use”. That’s especially important for consumers on such a powerhouse of a phone since it has all of those bells and whistles on board. The AT&T version has recently been posted on Nokia’s site and it has some updated...
It appears as though Nokia Germany are rolling out the 12070 update that addresses battery life issues and will prove to be a must-have for Lumia 800 owners. We previously looked at Singapore rolling out the Lumia 800 12070 update, and later confirmed that it tripled the battery life of our handset. As well as the juice improvements, bass has been improved and camera white balance has...
Abhinav Pathak, a computer scientist at Purdue University, Indiana, and colleagues have concluded that free smartphone apps with in-app advertising may lead to the battery being drained at a faster rate, compared to paid apps. What's interesting (and slightly alarming) is the team discovered through testing that Angry Birds, Free Chess and NYTimes only used 10 - 30 percent of the...
An article has been published over at Nokia Conversations detailing the 1600.2483.8106.11500 firmware update for the Lumia 800, which is in the process of rolling out. The update is being pushed out gradually using Zune software and contains two benefits; battery performance (making use of the capacity too) and WiFi connectivity improvements. This is update number two of two that were...
![Nokia running Lumia 800 'battery fix' update [Updated]](https://www.windowscentral.com/sites/wpcentral.com/files/styles/w250h188crop/public/postimages/15741/nokiaupdate_0.jpg?itok=-85szwSB)
Nokia announced at the end of last year that two updates would be hitting the Lumia 800 to fix a number of issues that were present. We've already received the first firmware update, but it's time for those who suffer from 800s that aren't using the battery capacity in its entirety to receive some love. Operators in France have started to push out the second update, so we should see...