How To: Increase Battery Life on Your Nokia Lumia 920 and Other Windows Phone 8 Devices

It doesn't really matter what kind of cell phone you have—battery life is one of the most important features for any electronic device. We've written tons of articles on how to get better battery life from your Android, iPhone, Kindle, and more, but we've never really covered Windows Phones before—until now.

The Nokia Lumia 920 and other devices running Windows Phone 8 suffer from battery problems just like any other mobile device.

So, if you've got one in your hands that can't seem to make it throughout the day without getting plugged in, here are some tips you can try to help improve the battery life, and I'm not just talking turning off your Wi-Fi and decreasing the brightness. Everybody knows that.

Most of these tweaks can be accessed in the Settings panel.

Turn Off Wi-Fi Searching

Turn off Wi-Fi searching until you actually need Wi-Fi. In most cases, you will know the wireless network you wish to connect to, so searching constantly for wireless networks can be a waste of battery.

If you do need Wi-Fi and don't know the network, you can go back and turn Wi-Fi discovery back on.

• Settings -> System -> Wi-Fi -> Advanced -> [Uncheck] "Notify me when new networks are found" / [Uncheck] "Send information about Wi-Fi connections to help discover nearby Wi-Fi"

Turn Off Tap + Send

This feature is only going to be used every once in a while. So instead of having it always on, disable it until you actually need it.

• Settings -> System -> Tap + Send -> [Turn Off] "NFC Sharing"

Disable Automatic Phone Updating

Automatic updates are annoying in the first place. You may be perfectly fine with the Windows version already running, so turning off automatic updates is a battery saver, and gives you the choice of updating or not.

You will still be notified that an update is available, but now you can chose when and if you actually want the update installed.

• Settings -> System -> Phone Update -> [Uncheck] "Automatically download updates if my data settings allow it"

Turn Off Automatic Backups

Similar to automatic updates, it's best to chose when you wish to backup your phone. If you haven't made any changes to your phone, do you really need to back it up every few hours or every day? Set up a weekly backup schedule and do it on your own.

• Settings -> System -> Backup -> App list + Settings -> [Turn Off] each Backup option

Cut Off Unneeded Background Running Apps

While you may want some apps to run in the background, you might have installed an app or two that you really don't need running anything in the background. Having multiple apps running at once can kill your battery, so be sure to block any app that shouldn't use this feature.

• Settings -> Applications -> Background Tasks -> [Block] any apps you like

And There's More...

There's still more you can do, including lowering the frequency that you receive email content, disabling the Xbox game settings, Xbox Music, and more. Check out CNET's video with Sharon Vaknin below for some more useful battery-saving tips for your Windows 8 Phone.

These are only suggestions for increasing battery life. If you absolutely need some of these items to run, then of course you can leave them on, just know that they do decrease your battery life.

If you have any other Nokia Lumia 920 and Windows Phone 8 battery tips, let us know in the comments section.