Skype - why does it murder my battery?

[mdubahya]

I desperately want to use Skype on my DINC2, but it clobbers my battery. Is this just the nature of Skype on Android? I'm not jealous of much about iPhone, but the fact that my iPhone friends run Skype all day long and have no battery issues gets to me. Is there something I can configure that will minimize this battery drain?

Thanks!