[Atrix 4G General] DarrellRaines:
I keep reading on here about how either someones battery life is either awesome or great or this or that. It seems that many folks on here with great battery life are old pros at milking their phones for the best battery life possible, while others may not know the best methods for getting the optimal battery life they want.

So here are some tips for getting the battery life you want:

1) Calibrate your battery by letting if completely discharge and then charge it using the wall charger it came with. Do this at least three times so the phone has a chance to get real statistics.

Update: It is recommended that you do not do this very often as some say it could damage the battery in the long term. You should do this early on in the life of the phone as the damage if any would be minimal. This needs to be done regardless. It is the only way for the phone to get an accurate full/zero reading.

Update 2: I have found that after doing a factory reset, you need to do this step again. After a factory reset on 4.1.83 (most recent update), my battery life dropped considerably. After letting it discharge fully and then charging it with the phone off again, I was back to normal battery use.

2) Set wifi to sleep when the phone is not in use. Unless you are streaming data such as pandora or other data intensive programs with the screen off, you do not need it on (I will talk about background data in a moment for those who are going to mention that the phone still does data while it is sleeping). You can change the setting by going to Settings > Wireless networks > wifi settings > menu button > advanced > wifi sleep policy

3) Disable motoblur's account settings sync over cell data. This setting causes all of your account information to sync over your data connection when wifi is not available. This should be disabled as it will constantly sync and drain your battery even when the screen is off. Really do you need you facebook contacts that are synced to your contacts to be updated every five minutes? Settings > Data manager > Data Delivery > social apps > sync over wifi.

Update: Only disable the Social Apps that sync over background, do not disable the Background data. Disabling background data will cause certain things to not work properly, like for instance the gmail app.

Update 2: If you are using the Twitter/facebook/whatever apps (real apps) you should go ahead and remove the associated accounts from Motoblur. You do not need them to sync twice as motoblur will sync them with it's account and then the apps will sync. The downside to this though is that any contact pictures you have synced from those accounts will no longer show up in contacts forcing you to manually add pictures to your contacts.

4) remove widgets. Widgets drain batteries when they are active. Most of them are useless and really serve no purpose other than to try and make you feel important about yourself. I mean really, how useful is a facebook widget that only shows one or two peoples updates? Trash the ones you can live without. If you are using a launcher other than motoblur, go and load motoblur and make certain there are none running on that launcher as those are still active even if you use another launcher.

5) live wallpapers suck battery like crazy. While they are nice eye candy to view, they are not worth the drain they cause. Even when you are in a app, just like the widgets, they are draining your battery.

Update: Some live wallpapers are better on battery drain than others, but they still drain battery either way. I will not use a live wallpaper as it serves no purpose other than eye candy, and eye candy on a phone I can live without.

6) Task killers. Yeah not going to touch this one as everyone who reads these forums should know better by now.

7) check individual programs as you install them and make certain they do not autoupdate content. Pulse news reader is a good example of a program that pulls data in the background even when you haven't used it in weeks. Really is it going to kill you to hit refresh when you load it?

Update: If you are using the AT&T program "Mark the Spot", it constantly is checking device performance and is constantly checking your location for it to "work". Be sure to watch this app as it drains a lot of battery through out the day.

8) turn off bluetooth, gps, and wifi when you are not actively using them. Wifi when on is always scanning the area for networks, bluetooth is always actively broadcasting (on some phones) and who needs gps when you aren't on the move.

Update: If you are experiencing a switch from H+ to Edge frequently such as in your home where you have wifi running and do not have a AT&T cell device, then turn off your data connection. Your phone is constantly trying to connect to the H+ network when it isn't already connected and draining power. If you are on WiFi, then your data connection is not needed.

I have heard Tasker is great for setting up an automatic script on your phone to do it for you so you don't have to think about it, but remember that all extra programs including tasker eat away at your battery and without real world testing, I can not promise you will see an improvement or a loss in battery.

You can also use APNDroid to do it manually if you would rather have full controll of your data connection.

9) Quit watching porn on your phone. Use your computer for that. Ok maybe I am the only one who does this but I doubt it. Alot if the free poem sites use flash videos and the more you use flash the faster your battery drains.

Update: Yes I know this is hard (no pun intended) for some of you to do, but the idea is sound. Using flash videos (the bulk (again no pun intended) of porn videos use flash).

These are not the only ways to have a great battery and this information may not be useful to you, but I can go nearly 20 hours of moderate to heavy phone use and still have anywhere from 40 to 60 percent battery left at the end of the day.

If anyone has any other advice that they feel should be listed here, please let me know and I will gladly add it to the mix.

Good luck folks.

Addition (5/12/11)

10) For those of you with the .83 update, please keep in mind that the update now forces you onto the EDGE (2G) Network if it can receive a better signal/stable connection. If you notice you are on EDGE more often than the H+ network, then disable your data connection. What is happening is that even though you have a solid connection to the EDGE network, your phone is constantly seeking the H+/3G networks thus using much more battery life than before. If you are at home or somewhere where your phone can connect to a wifi network, consider turning off the Data network. You should also disable your data connection whenever you are in a No Signal area. Again the same problem happens when you have no signal.