Since winning an iPod Touch in a contest a few months back, it has been one gadget I couldn’t live without. Ok, if it was an iPhone, I’d be even happier, but by Jailbreaking version 1.1.2, I did get a few of the missing features the Touch should have had-like mail, weather etc. Other than my complaint on the lack of features, the major issue has been HP pavillion battery life. Through trial and error, I determined how to conserve battery life-which most would think, “wait until the battery has drained and charge fully, or keep it turned off when not in use.” Wrong. Sure, this works with cell phones, but the Touch is a little different.

One day I turned the Touch on, after not using it for approximately 3 days, and found the battery was in the red. I had charged it 3 days prior, while syncing a few email addresses and songs. I promptly plugged the USB cable into the port, left it alone for 8 hours, and sure enough, fully charged. I listened to a few songs, turned if off and the next day turned it on again. The battery was below half-life. What was causing this? Some USB ports are not powerful enough to handle the charge power the Touch needs, but I knew this wasn’t the case for me.. This is what I did in order to save battery life-in fact it has lasted 5 days with the battery indicator barely moving.

1. Turn off Wi-Fi. Unless you’re using the email app, or downloading songs from iTunes, the Wi-Fi feature will drain the battery faster. Even though my router is in the same room, the little Touch has to work extra hard for some reason to keep the wireless signal.

2. Charge the battery but keep the Touch on while doing so. When I had charged the battery in the past, I would turn it off, which is what most do- don’t. Trust me on this.

3. Once the battery is fully charged, go to Settings > General > Auto-lock and set it for no more than 3 minutes. I have mine set at 2 minutes. Auto-lock is like sleep mode on a PC-it conserves battery life without turning the device off.

4. Leave the Touch on. Yes, you read that right. Leave it on and let Auto-lock save the battery life. I’ve figured out by turning the Touch off and back on uses more battery power than it should. Try it for yourself. Let the battery go down to the halfway mark, turn it off and leave it off for a few hours. Turn the Touch back on and yes, you’ll see an almost fully charged device. Play a few songs or leave it on for 30 minutes and watch the battery meter go even lower.

I’m waiting for the  sony laptop battery replacement to hit the half-way mark on mine before charging again, before I charge to full capacity. As I said, after 5 days the indicator has barely moved and I listen to music and use Safari quite a bit. If you’ve experienced the constant battery drain on the Touch, try these tips and they should work-they did for me.

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