The Kobo Vox eReader tablet has pretty good battery life for eBook reading at about 7 hours. However, it uses more battery life when browsing the web, gaming, and video. These tips will also help you save battery life and improve performance on your smartphone, and other mobile devices.
These Tips on saving battery life power may also make your Kobo Vox slightly faster since turning off Widgets, and background programs free up your RAM, and CPU cycle, so Apps, Games, and ebooks may load a little faster since it has more free RAM and CPU cycles to use.
Having less Apps and processes running in the background can also increase your Kobo Vox's overall stability meaning it is less likely to crash because of no free RAM or CPU Cycles when too many Apps are running in the background.
The first thing you can do is remove the Rdio, Kobo Book widget, Search, Clock, and all the Widgets and icons which you don't need on your home screens / multiple desktops by pressing on them and dragging the widgets to the trash can icon on the bottom. You can always re ad them later when you plan on using them. I notice the Widgets tend to use up a little bit of RAM and CPU cycles which may affect battery life and performance.
The Kobo Vox also does not need an antivirus since it uses Google Android which is one of the most secure mobile operating systems in the World because it is based on Linux which does not need an Anti-virus. A Google Android anti-virus made by antivirus companies will most likely just make your battery life worse, and slow down your Vox. If you just download apps from GetJar, Amazon App store, and trusted app stores you should be fine since these Apps stores check to see if Apps are safe. Also, read reviews on Apps before you download and install them on your Vox.
Third party launchers like GO Launcher EX, Launcher Pro, etc and third party keyboards like SlideIT can also use up some battery life since I notice they tend to use some RAM, and CPU cycles when on, and their animations, graphics, and special features may also make Android use more power.
The default App launcher and keyboard for Android should be good enough, and keep the Vox running fast without using as much power as third party launchers and keyboards.
Replacing Widgets with shortcuts can increase your battery life if the widget uses a lot of RAM and CPU cycles when being displayed on your home screens.
You can also set the Kobo Vox's reading apps like Pulse, and Notifications off in the book settings, and the book reading app you can set it to a list rather then a 3D book shelf which can use a little bit more power since 2D lists are simpler and usually use less power then 3D book shelfs.
Removing icons and shortcuts which you rarely use can also save you time, and some battery life since you can find the short cuts for apps which you use most often, and you won't have to scroll as much to find them.
Moving most of your most used apps to your Home Screen can also save a little bit of time and battery life since you are not switching screens as much to find them, so you can just launch them after your Vox has turned on, and start using your favorite apps rather then scrolling through the multiple home screen desktops to find the shortcut for your favorite apps.
In the Settings, you can go to your Display settings, and turn down the brightness to the lowest. The Kobo Vox color and brightness is still pretty readable at its lowest setting. You can also turn off the animation for your Vox's display when using the Vox.
You can also turn off Wireless/Wi-Fi in the settings when you are not using Wi-Fi to browse the web, play mobile games which require Wi-Fi for posting high scores or downloading updates. To Turn Wi-Fi back on you just go back into the settings for Wireless, and turn Wireless back on.
If you browse the web a lot, I recommend Opera Mini Web Browser when browsing text and image based website since Opera Mini can be set to compress images to a lower quality, so you don't use as much bandwidth and power to display websites. Except Opera Mini does not work for YouTube, and video sites, but is good enough for blogs, social networks, and other sites which are text and video based.
Dolphin Browser HD is a pretty fast and easy to use browser for YouTube, and more advance websites which have videos, games, and flash content.
When you plan on not using your Kobo Vox eReader for a few hours, it is best to turn it off by holding the power button until you see a pop up window to turn it off instead of Standby mode since Standby uses a little bit of power to keep your RAM powered up for faster start ups, but if you plan on using your Vox in a few minutes or less then Standby would be better since you won't have to wait for your Vox to start up from Off which could take one minute or more instead of a second from wake from standby when you press the power button. Standyby and power off are both better then leaving your Vox on, and not in use since the Vox could use a lot of power when it is on, and not in use.
