Ten tweaks that will improve Nokia N95 battery life by 328%

here is no way getting around the fact battery life on the Nokia N95 is less than great. Almost every N95 review addresses this issue in one way or the other. Opinions seem to range from infuriated "Nokia should provide a more powerful battery for this type of device" to apologetic "a communication and multi media power house is bound to run its battery dry in no time".

Whatever the case may be, there are things that can be done to improve upon the «default» N95 battery life time. Improvements come from tweaking a few, selected settings from their default values.

I have divided this authoritative N95 battery tweaking guide into two parts: first I will show you a few basic battery friendly optimizations and habits that can be employed by everyone. Next, I provide a few advanced tweaks that on the one hand might not fit everybody, on the other hand result in the most significant improvements.

Right, let's get cracking!

Basic Optimizations

• Update phone firmware - new firmware might include improvements to battery management.
• Bluetooth - keep it off unless needed. Put bluetooth management on «active standby» screen for easy access («Tools» | «Settings» | «General» | «Personalisation» | «Standby mode» | «Active standby apps..»).
• Brightness timeout …not more than 10 seconds («Tools» | «Settings» | «General» | «Personalisation» | «Display» | «Light time-out»).
• Screen brightness - turn it down a notch or two («Tools» | «Settings» | «General» | «Personalisation» | «Display» | «Light sensor»).
• Lower the standby timeout - mine's set to 1 minute («Tools» | «Settings» | «General» | «Personalisation» | «Display» | «Power saver time-out»).
• Camera - do not walk around with "live" viewfinder¹.

Rocket Science Tweaks

• WLAN scanning - turn it off…scan manually, or turn scanning on when needed («Tools» | «Settings» | «Connection» | «Wireless LAN» | «Scan for networks»).
• 3G - turn it off - especially in areas with poor coverage, where the N95 otherwise will spend stupefying amounts of power searching for networks («Tools» | «Settings» | «Phone» | «Network» | Set «Network mode» to «GSM»).
• WLAN transmit power (TX power level) - turn it down to, say, 4 mW. («Tools» | «Settings» | «Connection» | «Wireless LAN» | «Options» | «Advanced settings» - say YES to the prompt - scroll down to TX power level choose options/change/ and select 4 mW.).
• 10th 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.

Enjoy … and by the way, I have no idea if employing these tweaks will actually lead to a 328% improvement, but it is a nice figure, don't you think?