The tenth Nokia N95 battery tweak
I just watched the 35th programme in Steve Litchfield's »Smartphone Show« series and as usual, I hurry to pass on what I have learnt from it.
In the show, Steve quickly goes over a quite extensive list of battery power saving tweaks for smartphones. I have previously posted nine battery optimization tweaks for the Nokia N95, most of which are on Steve's list.
I did, however, pick up one, minor additional tweak from Steve's list and I thought I would pass it on as my tenth battery tweak.
It is not a very complicated tweak - it simply amounts to switching the phone into »offline« mode at night. In the »offline« mode, the cellular network connectivity is off (but WLAN and Bluetooth are still available) and the rationale is that since you do not make calls while you are sleeping, you might as well let the battery get some rest too.
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July 28th, 2007 at 16:44
Why not just put it on charge at night it could do with one and i read somewhere you’re not ment to let ur battery go dead befor charging anyway
July 29th, 2007 at 00:34
Do you mean to let your phone charge all trough the night?
Modern batteries like the one in the N95 are worn down by charging. Maybe you have noticed that the N95 emits a beep when the battery is fully charged? The beep is meant to prompt the user to unplug the phone and thus prevent overcharging the battery.
August 12th, 2007 at 06:16
Whatever Chris. How does it overcharge the battery? If this was the case then so many N95 users will do the same thing and unplug the cord. This is stupid.
August 13th, 2007 at 10:02
What is stupid? Excerpt from N95 user’s guide, page 129 - Battery information:
Do as you please with your phone - I do not care. I just collect tips on how to make the most of the N95’s battery. If you do not like the tips - do not use them…
I prefer switching the phone to »offline« mode. That way, it is faster to turn back on (compared to switching the phone off).
October 6th, 2007 at 12:23
I normally put mine into Offline mode too although the reason I don’t like doing it is because if someone sends me an SMS I can’t see what time they sent it (the time shown is the time the phone receives it) - this is annoying really because my P990i would always show the time the message was actually sent (or received by the network) even if the phone was off.
Anyway, back to the issue about charging, although I agree with what you’ve pasted from the manual, you’d have thought that with todays technology they could have stopped the battery from receiving charge once it was fully charged and then, for example, only start to charge again when the battery is at 80%.
Such is life!
October 6th, 2007 at 14:19
@Jon: I could not agree more about the sms timestamp - a thing that really bothers me is that with the N95 (S60v3, really), you have to select “message details” to actually see the timestamp - it is not shown with the message text.
Also, I think everyone agree we desire smarter and better performing battery technology!
January 4th, 2008 at 17:30
I found a great place to replace all kinds of batteries. Anything from laptops to camcorders, cordless phones etc. the site has a cool name for battery replacement
January 12th, 2008 at 07:14
[...] Nine Tweaks That Will Improve Nokia N95 Battery Life and The Tenth Nokia N95 Tweak, both from [...]
January 23rd, 2008 at 16:46
A few months ago I decided to take the ‘risk’ of buying a more powerful battery from ebay, 2000 MaH as it turned out. Since then I don’t have any problems at all as the battery lasts ages. I think you can even get 3000 MaH ones now. The only downside is that it makes the phone a bit fatter at the back (the battery came with a custom fit back cover - colour matches perfectly). Also, be aware that the phone needs to have the original battery in it when doing a firmware update as if it doesn’t recognise the battery the update will freeze and your phone will be screwed.
January 26th, 2008 at 02:55
@Darren: Thank you for the information about the 2000 mAh battery. Personally, I am deterred by its size, but I was not aware updating required an original battery.
March 25th, 2008 at 03:16
STUPID question…If the phone is in the offline mode can you still receive calls?
thanks!
March 25th, 2008 at 09:52
Hi Curtis,
It is not possible to receive calls when the phone is in offline mode. »Offline« means all radios (UMTS, GSM, WiFi, Bluetooth etc.) are turned off and although some can be switched on - e.g. WiFi and Bluetooth - the ones that allow you to receive calls cannot.
April 15th, 2008 at 12:08
Chris: I’m interested in getting an N95 so I’ve been reading up on it. I know there is quite a lot of third-party software out there and was wondering if someone hasn’t developed software that can, based on the time of day, put your phone into offline mode.
Most of us go to routinely go to sleep and wake up at usual times so some software that puts the phone into offline mode during those times would be a fairly smart way of prolonging the battery life.
October 26th, 2008 at 23:36
hi chris i dont know if u have the nokia n95 or the n95 8gb ive got the n95 8gb and theres no page 129 in the users guide because it only goes up to page 121 and people with the n95 8gb on page 14 it tells you how to make your battery last longer and it works my battery has lasted two and a half days without charging it so its worth trying. and peolpe with the n95 i dont know if its on the same page but if you look in the index it should tell you what page its on to prolong your battery life. hope this helps
October 27th, 2008 at 00:02
Hi Ginge and thank you for commenting.
The N95 8GB extended user guide is available here - the tips for prolonging battery life you mention are listed in the section “Useful information”, pages 17 and 18.
I have not been able to locate a similar section in the N95-1 user guide (available here). There only seems to be the page about charging and discharging the battery - the page I reference in a previous comment on this post. The user guide has probably been revised since I posted that comment, because the information is now listed on page 136.
November 11th, 2008 at 12:05
[...] over at gersbo.dk suggests putting your phone into “Offline” [...]
November 22nd, 2008 at 06:05
how about not leaving 3rd party applications running in the background? does this actually help prolong battery life?
November 22nd, 2008 at 15:58
@Hans: Yes it does - especially if we are talking about applications, which use the radios: Bluetooth/WiFi/GPS/GSM/UMTS (3G).