This is a general battery drainage summary:
AIM, GPS, Bluetooth, Email push functions, roaming, searching for signals, etc. will drain the battery in a flash.
Set Email to check manually, not check every 10 minutes.
Turn AIM off when not in use.
Plug in to charger while GPS is in use;
Set roaming to OFF;
Never have a phone at your ear while charging.

I just bought a metro pcs r410 and i love it, with the exception that as opposed to the 2.5 hours of talk time i should get, (short for most phones i know) i only get about 45 min max and instead of 200 hours of standby i get maybe 25 or 30. I thought maybe the battery was bad so i had them switch it out at the store. no difference. I have bluetooth off, but aim is usually running. Could this have an impact on battery life? i have a relativeley low tech level with phones, but a very high one with computers. also it tends to randomly shut off when im talking with it charging, and gets really hot. any insight would be greatly valued. im a little worried as i spend 200 on this sucker.