This week's pro tips are inspired by my 6-day (and counting) power outage due to some freakish ice storm.

Today's bit of advice: Turn down the speakers.

This tip dates back to the old spinach-green original Game Boy days. Yes, your portable system can crank out some pretty loud sounds, but that also drains the battery slightly faster. Better would be to turn down the speakers to a barely audible level, or better yet, turn them off completely.

Yeah, you'll miss some of the sounds, but you'll eke out a bit more playtime from your device, and you'll need every precious minute of power in an extended outage.