You have invested in a high-end phone, but if you spend most of your time swearing at its ‘pathetic' battery life than talking on it, then your phone certainly needs some tweaking, especially if it also has 3G.
All high-end phones keep you connected online in some way or the other, and this consumes a lot of energy.
3G is great, but not if you have to charge your phone several times every day.
If you have opted for 3G, it means you want faster downloads and uploads, but 3G sucks the juice out of the battery.
There are a few easy ways to restore some sanity to your battery life. First, turn off 3G.
Then what's the point in getting the connection, you may ask. The technology is useful only for heavy data transfer such as downloading or uploading photos or videos, or for faster browsing. For normal operations such as viewing Web sites, the regular GPRS is enough. The battery usage will drop considerably if you do this.
Switching between 3G and 2G is quite easy in most phones, except in an iPhone, for which you had better always carry a charger with you.
If you connect to Wi-Fi frequently, ensure that you disconnect the Wi-Fi port after using. A Wi-Fi kept turned on with no Wi-Fi signal is a battery drainer.
There are apps in high-end phones that connect to GPS, such as the location-based FourSquare. Again, turn off the GPS if you are not searching for a location. A friend discovered that even after closing Google Maps, if one is signed into Google Latitude, it keeps trying to show where you are.
It would be better to disable sharing location information in Latitude and sign out of Latitude, unless you want to always keep your friends abreast of your whereabouts.
And don't forget to update your phone with the latest firmware. For example, Google Android's Gingerbread manages power far better than Froyo.
With a little help, you can ensure your battery never dries up on you.