Charging and managing your battery on the Dell Venue 7 (3741)

The battery life on the Venue 7 (3741) tablet can vary a great deal, depending on what you do with the tablet. There are a  number of hints and tips that can help you extend your battery life.

To turn on the Dell Venue 7 (3741) tablet, press and hold the power button found on the upper right-hand edge of the tablet for 7 seconds. The tablet is designed to be used vertically with the webcam window at the top. After pressing the power button, wait several seconds for the Dell logo to appear, and shortly after that you will reach the Android home page.
 

• The tablet charges its battery using the micro-USB connector is located on the top edge of the device. You can connect this to an AC adapter or to a computer USB port. The tablet will charge in both cases, but it will charge much faster from an AC adapter than it will connected to a computer USB port. When the tablet is charging a indicator light comes on next to the micro-USB connector. To check how much of your battery's charge remains at any time, swipe down from the top right of the screen. The battery icon will show the charge state graphically and with a percentage (Figure 1).
  
  
  Figure 1: Battery Charge

• You can also display details on the battery use. This display will show where your battery power is going. To access the power usage perform the following steps:
  1. From the home page, touch the Apps icon in the center of the bottom row to access all your apps (Figure 2).
     
     Figure 2: Apps Icon
      

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  2. Touch the Settings icon (Figure 3,, you may have to swipe to the second page of Apps).
     
     Figure 3: Settings Icon
      

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• Touch Battery to see what is using up battery power.
   

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• To change the brightness, touch Screen, then Display. From this screen, you can adjust the brightness of the screen (Figure 4) which can save significant battery power. You can also adjust the time delay before the screen dims when you are not using it.
  
  
  Figure 4: Brightness settings
   

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• A number of functions on the tablet consume power whenever they are turned on. Turning these functions off when they are not in use can significantly extend the battery life. If you are not actively using the Wi-Fi connection, the Bluetooth connection, enabling the tablet as a Wi-Fi hotspot, or using the broadband connection, you can turn them off to make the battery last longer (Figure 5, English only).
  
  
  Figure 5 Wireless and Bluetooth Off and On Slider Switches
   

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• Many apps will keep running once you have started them, even if you leave the app and do something else instead. To turn off unneeded apps that are running on your tablet, swipe down from the upper right and touch Settings.  In the Device section, touch Apps. On the right side of the screen will be a list of all downloaded apps. Swipe from the right to display only those apps that are currently running. Touch any app to bring up the details. You can now touch Stop to completely turn off the app and reduce the power consumption.
   

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• Some processes run in the background on your tablet and will use power even though you are not aware these processes are running. You can set a limit on how much power these processes consume. Swipe down from the upper right and touch Settings. Scroll down the left side to find Developer Options and touch. Scroll down on the right side until you locate Background process limit  and touch. You can limit the number of processes running in the background on this screen.
   

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• There are apps available in the Play Store which manage power on mobile devices. Some of these can significantly extend battery life. Use caution when choosing and downloading apps and make sure they are safe to use.