Category: Windows Mobile

Battery life on any device is way too complicated for a brief discussion. But, this is a Back to Basics blog entry. So, I’ll just stick to simple and easy to apply battery life suggestions for Windows Mobile Smartphones (Standard Edition).

First, head over to the Power Management applet to optimize backlight and display times that fit your Smartphone usage style. Press Start->Settings->Power Management. The two key settings there are Backlight time out on battery and Display time out on battery.

Second, learn to use Keypad Lock features (see my Nov. 12, 2007 Back to Basics entry) to prevent the backlight turning on because of accidental key presses (or accidental dialing for that matter).

Third, turn off the Bluetooth radio if you are not using it with a headset, keyboard, or some other BT accessory. BT is actually pretty efficient. But, why waste even a little battery power if you don’t need to?

Fourth, turn off WiFi (wireless LAN) if you are not using it. WiFi is a huge power drain. This is especially true if it is continuously searching for a WiFi access point (WAP) to connect to while wandering around.

Fifth, learn how third party applications work on your Smartphone. You may have some misbehaving apps that are draining power because of their behaving (bypassing the keypad lock, pinging over WiFi, EDGE, EVDO, UMTS, etc.).

Sixth, don’t ignore other potential factors. For example, my blog entry yesterday discussed how Google Gmail’s glacially slow IMAP4 email server caused a huge battery drain on my phone because it took so long to connect and sync compared to other IMAP4 mail servers.

There’s a lot more that could be discussed about getting the most of your Smartphone’s battery. But, the six tips above should provide some things to think about your phone’s battery life.

The Windows Mobile Smartphone (Standard Edition) and Pocket PC Phone Edition (Professional Edition) started out as two distinct platforms. However, starting with Windows Mobile 5, they started to try to bring the two platforms closer together. The most visible sign of this was taking away the Pocket PC’s bottom bar area that many applications used for menus (leaving the top bar are for status information). However, the two platforms not only remain distinct (despite the common bottom bar changes) but the Smartphone with the traditional portrait mode display works differently from the more recent landscape mode display.

A portrait mode screen displays 9 application icons in the Start programs list in a 3 by 3 matrix. Each of the 9 icons is associated with the 1 through 9 numeral keys of the numeric keypad. This means that every application in a given menu view is just one click away.

A landscape mode screen displays a 2 by 4 matrix of icons. Unfortunately, these icons are NOT associated with the 1 through 9 embedded keyboard numerals of the QWERTY thumb keyboard that most landscape mode display devices have. This means that every icon except the upper left default focused icon needs a minimum 2 clicks to select and a maximum of 5.
This dichotomy exists even in dual mode Smartphones like the HTC Vox.

It would have been nice if Microsoft had just placed small 1 through 8 numerals next to the application icons and allowed the use of the embedded numeric keyboard in landscape mode.

How much more basic can you get than the Windows Mobile Smartphone’s on-off button. Of course, this is a WiMo device, so nothing is as simple as you might want or expect. In most of our minds, on-off switches work in a 19th century mode. Setting it to the on position closes a circuit and electricity flows. Turning the switch off breaks the circuit and electricity does not flow. But, the WiMo Smartphone button is not a simple switch, is it? So, let’s look at the implications.

ON: You might sometime hear or read someone advice a WiMo Smartphone user to press and hold the power key until the screen lights up. This, IMHO, is a waste of effort and potentially damaging to the finger or thumb pressing the button. Here’s a better way: Press and hold the button while you count 1 2. Release the button. If you wait a second or two the screen will light up and the Smartphone begins its boot process.

QUICK LIST: If you press the on-off button and quickly release it, you’ll see a Quick Menu like the one displayed above. It gives you access to a number of functions including the alert profile (Normal, Silent, Vibrate, etc.) as well as turning the phone off (option 1).

OFF: Press and hold the on-off button for a two count (similar to turning it on). This bypasses the Quick List and starts the shut down process.

UH OH: A WiMo Smartphone can get itself into a mess once in a while (for me this is about twice a month) and reach a point where pressing the on-off button is a useless gesture (literally). Smartphone, unlike Pocket PCs, do not have a reset button. You should do what the manufacturer recommends at this point. Me? I take off the battery cover and pull the battery for a second and then reinsert it.

What, you may ask, can I possibly say about the Talk key on a Windows Mobile Smartphone (aka Standard Edition)? There’s three functions assigned to that key. Let’s start with the obvious and work our way down the list.
1. If you press the Talk key while the phone is ringing, the phone will pick up the call and let you talk to the other person.

2. If you press the Talk key when no call is in progress, it will bring up your recent call history. You can use the navigation pad to scroll up and down the list. Pressing the Select key (center of navigation pad) brings up the contact information for that call (if available).

3. If you press and hold the Talk key while a call is in progress, it switches you from normal listening mode to speakerphone mode if your phone has speakerphone capability.

While writing my scorecard for Pogue’s complaints about Windows Mobile, I began thinking that a few people might appreciate a series talking about some of the basics of using Windows Mobile devices. So, I’m going to spend a little time this week writing a few blog entries about Windows Mobile Smartphone (Standard Edition) basics. I’ll hit Pocket PC Phone Edition (Professional Edition) basics next week.

Before getting to today’s back to basics information, let’s get the Standard Edition and Professional Edition branding out of the way: Prior to Windows Mobile 6, Windows Mobile devices were categorized as Pocket PC (no phone radio), Pocket PC Phone Edition, and Smartphone. Microsoft changed this nomenclature to Classic Edition (Pocket PC), Professional Edition (Pocket PC Phone Edition), and Standard Edition (Smartphone) with the introduction of WiMo6. From what I can tell, this has caused more confusion than anything else and carriers, journalists, and consumers either are confused by it or ignore it completely. The more noticeable difference is that the Pocket PC devices have a touch screen while the Smartphone devices do not. Now, back to basics…

At one time it looked like the flip-phone (clam shell) phone design might become the dominant design. One of its great advantages is that both the keypad and main screen were protected when closed and did not suffer from accidental key presses while closed. Unfortunately, this impression of mine was wrong and the candy bar (and more recently slide out) design became dominant. Fortunately, it is easy to lock the keypad and prevent accidental button presses (dialing). You can press and hold the End Call button (usually has a red phone icon on it) to lock the keypad. You can unlock the keypad by pressing the Left Soft Button and then the asterisk (*) button.

You can answer a call and then end it without unlocking the phone. So, you don’t have to worry about pressing a bunch of buttons just to answer a phone call.

There are a few applications (Fizz Traveller comes to mind) that ignores a locked keypad. But, there aren’t many of these kinds of applications.