If you want to see what's running in the background, press and hold the menu button while on the home screen. It will display all programs that are currently running. You can't shut certain ones down (phone, browser, messaging, etc). Make sure you have your phone set to 1xEV only, not global, as searching for a GSM connection will waste battery. Also make sure GPS is set to E911 only. I also found that lowering the display brightness and on-time made a big difference. I'm all the way down to 10% brightness (and 20 seconds before fade), and it's still plenty bright.
I typically use about 50% of my battery a day. I take the phone off the chager at about 6:30AM, and put it back on the charger around 11:30PM and let it charge overnight.
If you search around for .... oh what the ****.
Hold the BBerry key down until the pop-up list appears, or press it and choose switch application. Those are the ones that are running.Some always stay up (Phone, Home, messages) a total of 5 or 6) anything else you should close. If you are not using VZ Nav or visual vocemail or any other always on program then delete it. If you are using Viigo,then be aware that it reaches out on occassion. If you backlight is set high, lower it to 30 - i find this screen is plenty bright. Basically when you leave a program for good use exit, or it will stay running
I had BB Messanger running, and did this, and it moved it from middle of the programs listed as running to the end. hmmmm
There are certain apps that you cannot close completely, such as the app store, BB messenger, phone, and a few others. Try to close them all and you'll quickly learn which ones stick around.
You could uninstall your BB messenger if you didn't want it running I suppose. Well I assume you can get rid of it anyway.. I don't know for sure.