How to save both your battery and your wallet... (General Comments...)

Member Name: MichaelR

Product:	General Comments...
Date:	26/09/01 (72 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Saves money, Saves batteries

Disadvantages: Won't work if your WAP browser has no cache

Do you use WAP? (Here's where 99.9% of the population shouts "NO!") Well, if you don't then you've already started reading this op anyway, so you may as well read the rest of it eh? And if you do, then read on and learn a new trick...

We all know that WAP's slow, badly organised, and (can) cost an arm and a leg to use. One of the most common grumbles is that it costs a fiver and half of your battery's charge to send an e-mail through WAP. It really doesn't have to be that way though... if you make use of an inbuilt feature of most WAP mobile phones, then you could be sending e-mails for the same price as a text message on most networks (10p) and saving your batteries by spending less time transmitting and receiving.

Now, most WAP browsers designed for Mobile Phones - especially those produced by Phone.com (look for the "Phone.com - RSA approved" message when you start the Internet features on your mobile, or look for the Phone.com logo on your mobile's manual) - have a small cache. This cache is similar to those found on PC-based web browsers... it's simply a temporary storage area for pages (or "cards" in the case of WAP) that you have visited recently. It allows faster operation because it means the browser does not have to fetch the page (or card) from the server each time you want to display it.

Now then, how does this help you to save those precious 10p's and that precious battery life? Simple. It allows you to make use of text fields without being connected to the Mobile Internet.

So, to send your cheap e-mails, here's what to do:

1 - Dial your mail portal up as normal. This can either be your home portal (e.g. Genie) or another mobile e-mail provider accessed directly through your "bookmarks" or "favourites" menu. (E.g. Yahoo Mobile)

2 - Navigate to your e-mail facility as normal. Enter the "to:" and "s
ubject:" values.

3 - When the "message:" screen (where you enter your e-mail's main body of text) appears, hang up. Yep, that's right HANG UP! as soon as it appears.

4 - Reactivate the Internet features on your mobile, but DON'T make a selection from the Internet menu.

5 - Tap whatever button corresponds to "Back" on your mobile phone - on the Siemens C35i this is the power on/off button.

6 - The last cached page will now be displayed. You can now type your e-mail on the keypad as normal without connecting to the Mobile Internet. Just think how much on-line time you are saving... a 'proper' e-mail can take many minutes to write on a mobile phone. The cost savings can be considerable...

7 - When you're finished, activate the "send" link as normal. The phone will now dial back up automatically using the preset "short code" (915000 for Genie). When you receive confirmation that your e-mail has been sent, hang up if you've finished, otherwise navigate back to the e-mail composition screen and repeat the process to send further e-mails.

And there you go. You will only have been charged for the time taken to navigate to the composition screen and for the time taken to send the e-mail. As most networks have a minimum WAP charge of 5p per call, you will probably have spent a total of 10p per e-mail sent - exactly the same price as a text message and you aren't limited to 160 chars. You will not have been charged for the time taken to type out your e-mail, as you weren't connected to your mobile gateway. You will also have saved on battery usage as you were not transmitting or receiving whilst typing out your message.

This doesn't work on all WAP mobiles, but it works on most. Any mobile phone with a Phone.com WAP browser (and any others with a cache) should be able to do it though.

I hope someone found that tip useful..
. I just thought it was worth putting into an op as I've left it several times as a comment already.

Of course you should always carry out "battery care" once a month too - in order to further increase battery life and avoid the dreaded “memory effect”. I shalln't go into the full details - as auldmac has already written an excellent opinion on the subject. Check your mobile phone manual for details of how to perform "battery care".

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