We are relying more and more on technology these days to perform every days tasks. These simple tips will help you maximize your tablet device’s battery life.
Stop using animated wallpapers
Animated wall papers drain quite a bit of power. Set your wallpaper to a static image, or even just a pure black background. Darker backgrounds tend to utilize less power then brighter backgrounds, and definitely use less power than animated wallpapers.
Screen brightness and the backlight
The brighter the screen and back light, the more juice will be drained from the battery. Most devices will allow you to change this under the Options or Settings menu. Be careful not to set this too low, or you will strain your eyes.
Bluetooth, Wifi, 3G and GPS
All of these eat power. Disable these features when you are not using them to save some battery time. When using these features, be sure not to obstruct the signal to the device. If the signal gets low on a wireless connection, the device will attempt to boost signal and consume more power.
Scanning for Wi-Fi networks uses battery power and constantly having this feature turned on will drain your battery fast.
GPS is notorious to drain a battery. Unless you are using this feature or have the device plugged in, I would suggest turning this feature off.
Do not use your device’s Airplane mode to stop Wi-Fi, this will kill all wireless communication to the device, including phone calls.
Stop apps constantly syncronizing
A lot of apps constantly synchronize data between the device and a remote server. Common example are obviously email, social media and anti virus apps. Configure these apps to synchronize data manually, or set the frequency to greater intervals.
Don’t forgot to configure your tablet to check for updates regularly, but this does not need to occur more than once a day.
Remove unwanted apps
Unwanted apps can drain your battery. Remove any apps that you do not use. This will also free up some space. Also remember to remove widgets from the home screen that you do not use.
Look after your battery
Two of the fastest battery killers are temperature and shock. Batteries do not like extreme hot or cold and do not like to be dropped. A bad way to ruin a good battery is to leave your device in the sun. Even in your car’s trunk, the temperature can get very high, very fast, and this will damage your device’s battery. Here in sunny South Africa we usually do not have issues with extreme cold weather, but it is not a good idea to leave your tablet in the snow 
There are some very good tablet covers and cases designed to protect your device. When purchasing a tablet cover or case be sure it stops scratches, but also offers some shock resistance from minor drops. Dell used to offer a very good “extreme tablet” called the Latitude XT2 XFR Tablet PC. I see on their website that they unfortunately no longer offer this tablet. We will keep you posted on any new extreme tablets that come to market.
Use your device’s task management app
Using your device’s task management app is a good way to get a list of what apps are running on your device. Kill unwanted apps and tasks and uninstall those unwanted apps to stop them from consuming battery power.
Keep your device up to date
Installing the latest updates and patches for your device operating system and apps running on the device ensures that any discovered flaws and issues that might drain your battery are fixed on your device.
If all else fails…
…buy a spare battery and charge the second battery while the first is in use. Get a charger for your car, allowing you to charge your device while travelling.
