Gadgetory

whether you're new to Windows Phone 8 or have been rocking it since 2012 it is never a bad time to make sure you're getting as much battery life as possible decreasing brightness and saving Wi-Fi when you're not using it are a couple obvious tips but there are also some other settings buried in the system and they could be seriously draining your battery all right head to Settings and follow along most of what we're doing is disabling unnecessary features but if you actually use one keep it enabled obviously ok first go to Wi-Fi and tap advanced and uncheck these two boxes now your phone won't waste energy always looking for hotspots now back in settings click on tap and send and turn it off ok there are a few more things you should tweak in this system settings menu go to email and accounts and for each account adjust the download new content option to the lowest frequency you're comfortable with if you can choose manually otherwise go for hourly now head back and go to backup backing up your data is really important but it'll be less of a drain on your battery if you did it manually so turn off each backup option and then when you do want to backup your data enable it and hit backup now and finally go to phone update and uncheck automatically download updates now your phone will still tell you if there is an update but it won't download it automatically which is the worst when you're trying to be careful about your battery life ok back in the settings menu swipe over to applications here will take a few important things under background tasks you'll see apps I have permission to run in the background go through this list and block any apps you don't absolutely need now go to games and turn off connect with Xbox and sync game requests again if you use these features leave them enabled head back and go to music plus videos here turn off connect with Xbox music and this cloud collection feature if you don't use it with these changes you should see a significant increase in your phone's battery life and if you want even more battery saving tips check out the extended guide on CNET how-to and if you have a tip of your own don't be shy let me know on Twitter first seen it I'm Sharon Vaknin