Nearly all of us have smartphones, tablets or laptops. And the battery never seems to last long enough. So here are a few tips:

The battery only has so much power, so we need to use it wisely. The first thing is to turn off things you aren’t using such as wifi, GPS and bluetooth. If you do need to use them that’s OK, but even just having wifi on all the time can make your battery empty in half the time.

Try turning the screen brightness down a touch or using the auto setting to reduce the power used in lighting the screen

If your phone is always running out far from a charger, perhaps buy a power bank that will recharge your phone once or twice. Of course, you then have to remember to charge the power bank. Another option for the road-warrior is a USB plug and a lead. But make sure you get a plug that will charge the phone at at least 2amps. Many are much lower power and won’t add to the charge in the phone but just delay getting empty.

Those of you with Android devices can see what is using the most power through settings-device-battery. This also allows you to optimise for battery life. IOS users can do the same under settings-battery. Stop apps that are just using up your electricity.

To make the battery have a longer actual life, then don’t run it on the mains all the time. Continually charging the battery can halve it’s life span – just 18 months or so before it won’t hold a charge. For phones and tablets that’s fine – if you have a laptop, then take the battery out. It will still work on the mains and if you will need the battery just pop it back in and give it an hour or so charging.