[mach1man]

Can someone explain how the built in battery saver works? Does it stop things from syncing like email, or words with friends.

[rockstarzzz]

Yes it stops everything that needs background sync or use of data/WiFi.

[mach1man]

Well that sucks. So I'm assuming its bad to have it turned on all the time

[ttsoldier]

It only kicks in when the battery is low. So you can leave it on, it won't really be ON until your battery is low.

I think.

[WPmunkey]

Battery saver has 3 settings: Always on, Now until next charge, and When battery is low. Always on is not recommended but you have to intentionally enable that mode. Now until next charge is handy if you know you won't be able to charge for a while.

[hopmedic]

Another note - it won't stop you from manually checking for mail and such - you can go into mail and press the sync button. The phone will act normally, as far as the phone is concerned, but it will act as if it doesn't know there is a data connection at all, unless you have the screen on and manually force it to check things. But as a side effect of that, Live Tiles won't update. So if you are in battery saver, and you have a tile with notifications, you tap it, you can see whatever it is counting (a game, for instance, telling you how many "turns" you have) - if you play those turns, or whatever (or the WPCentral app - unread articles counter, for instance), even though read, the tile will not update.

And like WPmunkey said, it is handy if you know you won't be able to charge for a long time. Put it in battery saver mode, and you'll be amazed at how long it will last.

[mach1man]

Thanks guys that really helped out. I was afraid that if I left it on I wouldn't get anything at all, but now seeing that I can set it to only work when the battery is in a critical level is great.

[hopmedic]

As far as what that "critical level" is, I'm not positive. I'd thought it was 10%, but then saw something the other day that said 25%. Not sure which is right.

[nwildcat]

As far as what that "critical level" is, I'm not positive. I'd thought it was 10%, but then saw something the other day that said 25%. Not sure which is right.

I noticed that battery saver seems to come on depending on your usage, where it used to come on for me at 30%, as the battery has adjusted and life has gotten better, it goes into effect around 25% more often and then I get the "critical" alert (the needs to be charged message) somewhere around 8-12%, depending on how much I'm using the phone at that point.

To the OP - I've gotten alerts from both Words With Friends and Words by Post when battery saver is on. Whatever it is they use to notify you, those toast alerts are not set up as background tasks so I don't think they are affected.