Tips and tricks to extend your BlackBerry Priv battery life!

Though the BlackBerry Priv comes loaded with a 3410 mAh battery rated for up to 22.5 hours of mixed usage and should get most folks through their day with ease, there is certainly going to be times where it's simply not going to be enough for any number of reasons.

Luckily, the options for extending battery life on the BlackBerry Priv are pretty extensive through the OS, and when coupled with some best practices, you can really get more of out of the battery. Check our list of tips and tricks to help you extend your BlackBerry Priv battery life.

Turn on Battery Saver mode

One of the most standard ways of extending your battery life is to use the built-in battery save mode. Battery saver mode conserves battery power by limiting features like vibration, location services, and data services. One reason many avoid it though is because when battery saver mode is turned on, some applications and messaging services that rely on syncing might not update unless you open them. Still, it's a great option to put to use if you're looking to get the most out of your battery and here's how to access it on the BlackBerry Priv.

• Swipe down from the top of the screen once using two fingers, or twice using one finger.
• Tap Battery Saver

When your device is charging, battery saver mode turns itself off automatically. You can also decide to set battery saver mode to enable itself automatically at the 5% battery or at 15% battery. To access these settings, enable battery saver mode and tap on the battery saver mode activated notification. You will then be taken to the settings where you can adjust the options.

Dim the screen

Just like every other device on the market, the display on the Priv is going to be the biggest draws of you battery life but you have options. You can conserve battery power by lowering the screen brightness or doing something as simple as changing your wallpaper to something dark. In the case of lowering your display brightness, here's how you can do that.

• Swipe down from the top of the screen once using two fingers, or twice using one finger.
• Tap the Settings icon > Display > Brightness level.
• On the slider, drag the slider handle to the left.

Of course, you can also adjust it just from the swipe down settings menu as well. Just slide the 'gear' left to decrease brightness or right to increase brightness.

Change your screen timeout time

In the same vein as adjusting your display brightness, there's also the option of setting your screen timeout time to a shorter interval. Your display can be set to stay on from 30 minutes to only 15 seconds.

• Swipe down from the top of the screen once using two fingers, or twice using one finger.
• Tap the Settings icon > Display > Sleep

Logically, if you're looking to save battery life you want your display to go off or timeout as soon as possible so go ahead and decrease the time.

Turn off connections

Aside from your display being one of the biggest draws on battery life, a crappy network connection is next on the list of things that can cause your battery to nosedive. If your device is out of a wireless coverage area, you can turn off connections so that your device doesn't search for a network signal continuously and use WiFi instead. On the flip side, if you have active connections you're not using such as WiFi, disable them. Same goes for Bluetooth and NFC. These guys will eat a bit of your battery if left on, so when you aren't using them simply turn them off.

• Swipe down from the top of the screen once using two fingers, or twice using one finger.
• Tap the Settings icon.

Do any of the following:

• To turn off all connections at once, in the Wireless & networks section, tap More. Turn on the Airplane mode switch.
• To turn off a Wi-Fi connection, tap Wi-Fi. Turn off the switch.

Close apps and features

This is one I'm pretty terrible at. I'm always opening apps up and leaving them running in the background. You can increase how long your battery power lasts by closing any apps or features that you're not using so that they aren't continuously running in the background. Some features consume more battery power than others, including the Camera app, the Browser app, and GPS. To see and close the applications that are running, tap the square icon. On the app that you want to close, tap X in the right-hand corner.

Change app refresh settings

If you use a lot of social media or news apps, make sure you keep your refresh settings at a high interval. Having something set to refresh every five minutes will quickly eat away at battery life. In most cases, you can get away with having apps refresh at one hour or more, depending on your needs. The problem with suggesting this is the fact that it varies app to app and the onus is on you to find out where the settings are for those apps.

Charge

I know, this one is blatantly obvious, but the truth of the matter is these devices are computers in your pocket, and we demand a lot from there. We keep demanding more, but battery tech itself hasn't really evolved on the consumer level much so, with that in mind we should be using every chance we get to charge our devices on the go. The Priv includes Quick Charge 2.0, so get yourself some Quick Charge accessories and put them to use. I've made it a habit to just plug in when I'm around a charger, so I never worry about my battery when I need it most.

Have your own tips for extending battery life on the BlackBerry Priv? Let us know in the comments!

View all BlackBerry Priv help and how-to guides on our BlackBerry Priv help page