Use your BlackBerry as a flashlight

You never know when you’re going to need a flashlight. Maybe the power just went out. Maybe you just got a flat tire. While some carry a mini flashlight on their keychains, it’s not for everyone. You can, however, use your BlackBerry to shine a little light. Your backlight (set to 100 brightness, of course) can help with small areas, but sometimes you just need a little more. There are applications like Flashlight Pro (on sale for 99 cents until June 11) and BrightBerry, and they’ll give you a little more juice. Still, there’s an even better way of doing it for free. This one comes to you from BerryReview. Instead of using your screen to illuminate a room, this one uses the video light on your camera. So you’ll not only need a BlackBerry with a camera, but you’ll also need OS 4.3 Open the Video Camera application, and hit Menu. There you’ll head to Options, where you’ll see Video Light. Turn that to On, save it up, and say yes when the dialog box tells you that you’ll drain the battery. Now when you open the application the LED will turn on. It’s quite a bit brighter than your normal screen backlight. Alternatively, you can just press the Space Bar for just a second after opening the Video Camera application. This will turn the light on. To turn it off just hold down space again.

About the Author

Joe Pawlikowski is the Senior Editor at MobileMoo.com and has been covering the mobile industry full time since 2007. When he's not writing about the tech scene, he can be found discussing his personal love - baseball (and more specifically the New York Yankees) as well as writing on his personal blog.