Desire HD Battery Thread

[Royster91]

Unless you use HTC Sense a lot I would recommend either not auto syncing, or even just delete/remove the account. Since HTCSense.com is not yet fully operational your phone will keep trying to connect, and thus the high Android and HTC usage. Once I got rid of it on my phone I go about 2 days now.

Stopped auto synching HTC Sense and battery life seems to be back to normal.
14hrs since last charge and still 40% left.

Big thanks.

 

[mossko]

Ok, my average battery use is a day and a half..very resonable for me

Hi Spencer, that's some pretty impressive battery life! Would you mind sharing your tweaks?

I have tried quite a few settings which have certainly improved battery life, but nothing above 28 hours

• Enable USB debugging to work around 100% busy CPU problem
  
• Set wallpaper to HTC Wallpapers > Black
• Set Brightness to Auto, Timeout 30 seconds, Auto Rotate off
• Set Sound > Vibrate Feedback off
• Enable screen lock sounds
• Set all synchronisation to 1h or more
• Wifi on
• Bluetooth, GPS off
  
• Synchronisation is default ON

Thanks!

 

[Paffman]

Sorry wrong thread... how can I delete this post?

 

[WigglesGRN]

Hi Spencer, that's some pretty impressive battery life! Would you mind sharing your tweaks?

I have tried quite a few settings which have certainly improved battery life, but nothing above 28 hours

• Enable USB debugging to work around 100% busy CPU problem
  
• Set wallpaper to HTC Wallpapers > Black
• Set Brightness to Auto, Timeout 30 seconds, Auto Rotate off
• Set Sound > Vibrate Feedback off
• Enable screen lock sounds
• Set all synchronisation to 1h or more
• Wifi on
• Bluetooth, GPS off
  
• Synchronisation is default ON

Thanks!

Have the wifi off and data off unless you NEED it, only use the phone when you NEED to and not have it telling you that that book you ordered on amazon is now delayed because they have no packing tape to tape it up.

I have got 3 days before out of DHD, its all about the useage.

Edit: 2 days 7 hours Pic http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/9587/s5000733.jpg

 

[WigglesGRN]

Another Android noob here too. Have been in the possesion of my HD for a week now and can't put the damn thing down ! My high level use takes it toll on the battery, however following the general tips on here, it will now last a day.
I'm with Orange with the 2.2 installed and need a bit more knowledge in how to update to 2.2.1 if anyone can help ?
I'm slowly getting used to texting as it was something I never thought I would with this key pad, it seems a bit too sensitive for me.

you wont get 2.2.1, i have it as i got it on the day it was put out (on orange too) but HTC have now said that it was pulled due to "issues" with the update and 2.3 IS in the works but there not sure when

 

[WigglesGRN]

Look at that little rant go haha



I managed to get almost 2 days on average its all good

Uptime Length: 1 day 22 hours (20% left)
Accelerometer: Off
3G Or 2G: 3G
Wireless On: On - When Required
Mobile Internet - When Required
GPS On: Off
Automatic Brightness: Off
Network: Orange with T-Mobile roaming

Misc Settings: Live wallpaper enabled, Only widget in use is Friend Stream, Don't play games, Played 30 mins of music with Dolby.

Sync Settings;

Facebook For HTC Sense: Every 4 Hours
Flickr: Once A Day
HTC Sense: On Push
News: Manual
Stocks: Every 4 Hours
Twitter For Sense: Manual
Weather: Every 3 Hours

Turn Power Saver On At 10%..All Power Saver settings enabled, Brightness to 40%

Some findings i've seen so far

* Depending On Reception (db gain boosting, etc), battery drains
* Mobile Internet appears to be a demanding thing
* Turning wireless off when not needed does obviously give a tad more on battery, but not by much

If anyone else has any findings, please share



when the fact that the majority of people understood, and then you failed to read throught he topic kinda was epic fail on your part haha.

I could say the same with the Nokia Sirocco with battery, I could say the same with Samsung and GPS issues.

Every phone has issues. You have to understand the boundaries..Personally, I don't think the battery is an issue, the majority who use the phone for what they want have accepted what it gets.

Technology evolves..the battery doesn't.

on another key note, would you like to take part in jumping off a plane and seeing if you survive..I'll jump out with all the relevant safety kid and then record it in HD on my Desire HD?..After all Engadget is right eh

Reading back through the posts i will say thanks to SpencerUk and that is indeed a "mini" rant, although I have been known to do big EFF of rants on my radio show I do every week. Once I get going I sometimes dont know when to stop

 

[elo]

Uptime Length: 13hrs with 48% left.
Accelerometer: Default (On, I think)
3G Or 2G: 3G.
Wireless On: On for ~5 hours.
GPS On: Off
Automatic Brightness: On
Network: T-Mobile

Misc: LookOut Mobile Security running constantly. Nearly constant music playback with PowerAmp, and Last.FM scrobbling the tracks. Mobile internet usage for ~1hr, and a few app downloads. Weather widget updated every hour. Pulse News Reader updated every hour with 11 feeds. GMail updates set to auto (push mail as they're received). Sent a few emails & texts.

I haven't tried timing a complete drain yet.

 

[blacklight124]

Hi, Ive had my Desire HD for a few months now and I am hating the battery life! We shouldnt need to turn off "advertised features" to make the phone last its advertised time between charges.

Anyways, i think its more useful for me to include detail of the battery usage below the standard chunk. Also, ive emailed HTC about this so will let you know what they say. Ta

Uptime Length: 6 hours (57% left)
Accelerometer: On
3G Or 2G: 3G
Wireless On: On for 30mins (Timerrific App)
Mobile Internet - On
GPS On: Off
Automatic Brightness: Off (set at approx 20%)
Network: T-Mobile with Orange roaming


Usage Data @ 57% remaining:
Display: 70% (Time On:59mins!!)
Cell Standby: 8% (0% without signal)
Android System: 8% (CPU Total: 32mins 35s)
Phone Idle: 7%
SysMonitor(app): 5% (CPU Total: 8min 18s)
Android OS: 2% (CPU Total: 8min 34s)

I mean, its not going to be linear but based on the above the display has used 28% of my battery by being on for 59mins. Thats less than 4 hours of having the display on, without factoring in the other usage factors (Cell standby, android OS etc).

Thats ridiculous if you ask me.

I tried the HTC trick this morning but didnt remove the battery, it helped for the first hour but i think thats only cos i had rebooted the phone.

I use an app called battery graph that is good for actually visiually seeing the battery drop on a graph. it doesnt appear to be impacting the battery though i may be wrong.

sick of this....such a good phone wasted by this abysmal battery

 

[Brangdon]

2 days, 5 hours 27 minutes since unplugged
33% battery left.

Wifi is on, but I'm running Juice Defender.
GPS off, Bluetooth off, Mobile off.
Screen brightness 15%, auto off, timeout 2 mins.
I assume accelerometers are enabled because auto-rotate works.

My initial experience was good. I was losing around 15-20% battery per day when not in use, and 12% an hour when the screen was on. Then I installed some "free" apps, and the battery got much worse so it could hardly manage a day. Now with Juice Defender and light use I could probably recharge every 3rd night.

The biggest power hog seems to be the screen, which usually shows 60% of power used if I've been using it. Otherwise I blame rogue apps syncing or downloading adverts when they shouldn't.

I've not tried the USB trick, or calibrating the battery.

 

[blacklight124]

Ok so I performed the HTC battery "trick" of

1. charge 8 hours with phone on.
2. unplug, switch off & remove battery
3. replace battery & charge for 1 hour.
4. unplug, boot, use for 2mins then repeat step 2 & 3.

Heres how I stand now:

Uptime Length: 3 hours (82% left)
Accelerometer: On
3G Or 2G: 3G
Wireless On: On for 59mins (Timerrific App)
Mobile Internet - On
GPS On: Off
Automatic Brightness: Off (set at approx 20%)
Network: T-Mobile with Orange roaming


Usage Data @ 82% remaining:
Display: 65% (Time On:26mins 48s)
Cell Standby: 8% (0% without signal)
Android System: 7% (CPU Total: 4mins 52s)
Phone Idle: 7%
SysMonitor(app): 6% (CPU Total: 4min 39s)
Android OS: 3% (CPU Total: 1min 56s)
Wi-Fi: 2% (59Mins)
Dolphin Browser: 2% (CPU Total: 59s)


Looking at my graph, its still dropping at the same rate. This is crazy. if its the display thats doing this then there is very little i can do to improve it. anyone else back this up or have a solution?

 

[Gardium]

Hi. I tried to make a battery thread in tips and tricks. Some people might have seen it, but it was basically taken over by some guys that wanted to discuss Task-Killer apps instead, so I'll try my luck here instead.

Right now I'm conducting an experiement to see how much a task-killer app affects the battery (i.e. will using a task-killer app regularly increase, or decrease battery life), as some of the guys in the other thread (and this thread) didn't seem to believe that there is a performance/battery ratio. For more performance on the Android, OFC a task-killer app is stupid, but for more battery it's kinda logical to have less performance (as that usually takes more battery), so thus a task-killer. I'll post my findings here, but here is a "leak". I started up a ton of apps while the phone was charging (facebook, messages, people, calendar, camera, a network counter, gmail, gallery, skype, google search, google market, twitter, internet, spotify, weather, you name it...). So most of the apps people would use every day are on. Then I have now left the phone as untouched as I could. In 4 hours, I have gotten a few emails and checked some stuff on the camera, etc. So the screen has taken a bit, but I haven't used it more than I usually would in the time frame. My "normal" way of doing stuff for the battery would make it last about 1.5+ days. In those 4 hours my battery has lost 25% juice, meaning that doesn't look to bright for the "don't use task-killer" fans, at least not in the relation to battery life. In these 4 hours, Android OS (guessing it's the RAM components of the OS) has used 50%, and the screen 30%.

I'll continue to conduct this experiement for a while, and when I post my results at some point, I'll also include specs, stats and a guide to how I set up my phone and how I condition the battery.

PS! I have only changed my settings from how I usually use my phone, in the way that I am not using the task-killer app. While I actively used this, Android OS was usually at 3-4% of battery use. I have noticed a slight increase in performance from my phone when changing between apps, but honestly the time is less than a flick of the hand.

PS2! I have now used the afternoon on this experiement, and come to the conclusion it might just not be doable for me to do it. Now the phone has been on after charge for about 6.5 hours, and its used 50% battery already. It's listed now that Android OS uses 62% (description of this process, is battery used by programs when running), and the display "only" 25%, this being with the phone lying untouched for the last hour basically. Tonight I will actually uninstall "Advanced Task Killer Free" from ReChild, and see if it makes a difference as some claim that the program has to be uninstalled for the battery to last long... Bringing my charger to school incase anyhows... Usually don't do that >_<

 

[jammychap]

??????????????????????????? Ok what the he**, my phone has been running for just over 35 hours and still has 34% battery, last night was the first night I have not charged it, I did unintsall a couple of things yesterday, a font pack, a couple of games and benchmark but can't for the life of me see what I have done to double the battery power, ok fairly light usage over the last 35 hours a few calls a bit of angry birds alarm clock a little internet and e-mails but still amazing and confused ????????????

 

[jammychap]

I'm thinking now i'm not going to install any apps for a while n see how this go's, then i will only install one app a day from now on and if it go's bad again i will know what app to blame.

 

[Gardium]

??????????????????????????? Ok what the he**, my phone has been running for just over 35 hours and still has 34% battery, last night was the first night I have not charged it, I did unintsall a couple of things yesterday, a font pack, a couple of games and benchmark but can't for the life of me see what I have done to double the battery power, ok fairly light usage over the last 35 hours a few calls a bit of angry birds alarm clock a little internet and e-mails but still amazing and confused ????????????

Hi. With the configuration I'm planning on writing over the next few days, and posting here (gonna be a comprehensive guide with explanations), it ain't a problem to get the DHD to last over 40 hours .

But it's important to do the right thing from the VERY first second you open your phone from the box ^^.

The conditioning, explanations, results about the Task-killer app, and various tweaks will hopefully be up in a few days. I'll list what apps I have (and from which developer), and give some info about what I have done during up time, and how much data I have downloaded over various systems (like 3g or wifi). But my counter does not distinguish between 2g or 3g, but I'll see if I do a test with both types of communication. Hope people will find this useful when it come

Edit: crap, just realized, as I'm running stock DHD firmware, I seem to have no option to "force" 2g instead of 3g. At least not that I have found yet... Can cut data communications and use 1g (aka GSM) only, but no point in that really

 

[THE ANDROID]

The unplugged information was always false when i had the DHD. It would display the time since the phone was on an not unplugged.

 

[Gardium]

The unplugged information was always false when i had the DHD. It would display the time since the phone was on an not unplugged.

Dude, I have looked at some of your posts... and really can't take you seriously.

Have you been sure to check the right place?

If you only go: Home screen -> settings -> about phone -> battery, then you will only see two things listed lastly. 1) The up time since you rebooted the phone 2) the time that the phone has been awake, aka. Awake time (i.e. the screen not being locked and in "sleep" mode if you want to call it that). But if you go to battery use under that menu again, you should see on the top bar "(days): (hours): (mins): (secs) since unplugged)".

I just think you didn't know your way around on the DHD, OR as some people say (which I am starting to believe as little as you know about the DHD), you just simply never had the phone...

 

[aidan257]

well my battery is getting better & better. Still using 3G as normal & i've not charged since 8am yesterday. So far 28+hrs since last charge.

3G: On
WiFi: off unless at home
Sat nav: off
Screen turned down to around 25%

So far lasting about the same amount of time as my Hero thats Rooted with 2.1.

Currently have 3bars so its Yellow. Won't charge now till its in the Red. I would normally force a drain on it by using Wifi & fiddling with it once i get in from work & that normally kills it within a few hours.

But normal use it looks like it'll happily do 30+ hrs.

 

[CDPlant]

I have had my Desire HD for one week now, and for the first 6 days I was very worried about the speed and the battery life. It was incredibly slow, and would take several seconds for anything to load (even the contacts and messages, I would type a message and no text would appear on the screen for about 10 seconds) and the battery would last about 6 hours (no wifi, gps, 3g turned on, brightness at 30%).

I decided I didnt want the friend stream on anymore, so I removed it from the home screen, and now the phone is lightning fast, and currently the phone has been unplugged for 8 hours and still has about 92% battery (wifi on, browsing internet, sending sms).
Has anyone else found the friend stream to use a lot of power and battery?
(I also removed the advanced task killer as I decided it was fairly useless after reading a lot of posts about it)

 

[Gardium]

I have had my Desire HD for one week now, and for the first 6 days I was very worried about the speed and the battery life. It was incredibly slow, and would take several seconds for anything to load (even the contacts and messages, I would type a message and no text would appear on the screen for about 10 seconds) and the battery would last about 6 hours (no wifi, gps, 3g turned on, brightness at 30%).

I decided I didnt want the friend stream on anymore, so I removed it from the home screen, and now the phone is lightning fast, and currently the phone has been unplugged for 8 hours and still has about 92% battery (wifi on, browsing internet, sending sms).
Has anyone else found the friend stream to use a lot of power and battery?
(I also removed the advanced task killer as I decided it was fairly useless after reading a lot of posts about it)

It's a known fact that some of the HTC Sense features drink battery faster than an athelete drinks energy drinks. So tbh that was no surprise .

As for using Wifi, that saves a crap load of battery compared to 3g, so using that when you can is a battery saver. Doesn't surprise me again it only drains 1% an hour.

However, at the writing moment I am conducting a test about task-killer apps.

My results are quite interesting (although for me as an electrical engineer, is not surprising). I uninstalled my task-killer app, and rebooted my phone 2 nights ago. Then I had a 30 min long call, and went to bed after starting a whole butt load of apps (facebook, twitter, gmail, people, messages, playing 5 min on angry birds, market, google search, browser, etc.). When I woke up the next morning (and I had the call after fully charging) my phone still had 88% battery left. I was amazed and thought this might actually be true, but after thinking about it, I reconned what I'm gonna tell next. As you use the phone over a duration of time, the RAM starts filling up (the reboot wipped the RAM). As explained in another post, RAM will constantly pull battery power to keep the RAM up (RAM is not like ROM, which is magnetized information, thus not requiring a constant pull of battery like RAM does). This resulted in that as the day progressed, my phone was pulling more and more juice. By the evening at 6 (that is about 20 hours after I unplugged it) it had 45 % left. By the time I went to bed it had only 30% (this was at around 2230). When I woke up the next morning I had to charge it, as it was on about 13% left (this was about 0800).

During this time, I have had 3g on, no wifi, active sync on, always-on internet off, been using the phone slightly frequently (i.e. some facebook, messages, 30 min of music, but no extreme use, just normal, just like I would before I decided to do this test). However, when I checked the battery usage, Android OS (description: Battery used by applications running... I'm guessing the RAM) and Display were on a tied 35% usage. Up time was about 35 hours (same as time since unplugged, as I unplugged it during the boot), but Awake time was "only" 3 hours and 35 mins.

So by not having a task-killer app, my phone lasted only ca. 35 hours, after a fresh reboot. When using a task-killer app, my phone lasted 40 hours+, and still had about 20% juice left when I chose to charge it. And I didn't even reboot. In a few days I will reinstall my task-killer app, and reboot my phone and write Up time, awake time and time since unplugged and all other stats that I can think of.

SO, in conclusion, I can say that yes, to some extent the task-killer app is not needed, BUT it requires that you reboot your phone almost daily, otherwise your RAM will eat up your phone battery.

On another point, I will admitt I noticed a slight improvement on efficiency/performance, but it varied (I'm guessing this is dependent on background CPU usage).

I'll start writing my comprehensive battery guide soon, and post it here

PS! The task-killer app I used before this test, is known as one of the best on the market, "Advanced Task Killer Free" by ReChild. It does not have any bad bugs or drains power like some people claim all task-killer apps do. It is off course important to chose a good task-killer app, or it won't work to its purpose. It's like saying "Oh, all cars use too much gasoline!" It's all about what kind of car and engine you get, that determines how much gasoline it uses. Same applies to task-killer apps

PS2! I found the info from my network counter about the data downloaded during my experiement (that is still going on). The amount of data I downloaded over 3g (no wifi used, no task-killer) with the 3.5 hours awake time was about 10 MB, meaning I did not pull much power on that.

 

[CDPlant]

Thanks for the info

Currently I am always in a position where I can charge my phone before it gets to about 30%, due to the recent battery drainage I haven't tried to leave it on overnight without charging to see how much it uses, but will do so tonight now that my phone is working properly.
Recently I have found that restarting my phone has helped speed it up a bit more, which i'm quite happy to do as it seems to only take a few seconds to start it back up again.

I'm fairly sure someone has asked this already, but is there any word on HTC releasing a bigger battery? I wanted to order one from Mugen but they had discontinued their range.

 

[Gardium]

Thanks for the info

Currently I am always in a position where I can charge my phone before it gets to about 30%, due to the recent battery drainage I haven't tried to leave it on overnight without charging to see how much it uses, but will do so tonight now that my phone is working properly.
Recently I have found that restarting my phone has helped speed it up a bit more, which i'm quite happy to do as it seems to only take a few seconds to start it back up again.

I'm fairly sure someone has asked this already, but is there any word on HTC releasing a bigger battery? I wanted to order one from Mugen but they had discontinued their range.

There is no word on HTC coming out with a bigger battery, sorry m8 .

Sounds good that you have gotten battery up . As for the restart you say only takes a few seconds, is this then a "Power off" (top option when holding down power button), or a "Restart" (bottom option when holding down power button)?

The first option really shouldn't make a difference (although, the RAM has then been stored in the memory and is read back in again, so if it's only initially RIGHT after the start up, I can see why, as reading the RAM back in can take a while) after the phone has really started up fully. The second one actually dumps all memory and reboots the phone fully. This does not take just a few seconds... More like 1 min

 

[CDPlant]

Ah, good point. I have been hitting 'Power off' which is a very fast restart. I didn't realise that this would not really change anything.
I have just done a 'Restart' (bottom option), and yes the phone did take about a minute to start back up again. As far as I can tell there has been no difference with doing either, but I have only just restarted it so i'll see what happens from now on.
Thanks for all this, I have never had an android before so this is all very new to me

 

[Gardium]

Ah, good point. I have been hitting 'Power off' which is a very fast restart. I didn't realise that this would not really change anything.
I have just done a 'Restart' (bottom option), and yes the phone did take about a minute to start back up again. As far as I can tell there has been no difference with doing either, but I have only just restarted it so i'll see what happens from now on.
Thanks for all this, I have never had an android before so this is all very new to me

It's very much new to me to xD. I got my DHD for Christmas (first Android phone). But I just explaining and testing things based upon my knowledge as a electrical engineer student

 

[WigglesGRN]

Dude, I have looked at some of your posts... and really can't take you seriously.

Have you been sure to check the right place?

If you only go: Home screen -> settings -> about phone -> battery, then you will only see two things listed lastly. 1) The up time since you rebooted the phone 2) the time that the phone has been awake, aka. Awake time (i.e. the screen not being locked and in "sleep" mode if you want to call it that). But if you go to battery use under that menu again, you should see on the top bar "(days): (hours): (mins): (secs) since unplugged)".

I just think you didn't know your way around on the DHD, OR as some people say (which I am starting to believe as little as you know about the DHD), you just simply never had the phone...

Just ignore the "android" he is a misinformed student who thinks he knows it all

 

[THE ANDROID]

Dude, I have looked at some of your posts... and really can't take you seriously.

Have you been sure to check the right place?

If you only go: Home screen -> settings -> about phone -> battery, then you will only see two things listed lastly. 1) The up time since you rebooted the phone 2) the time that the phone has been awake, aka. Awake time (i.e. the screen not being locked and in "sleep" mode if you want to call it that). But if you go to battery use under that menu again, you should see on the top bar "(days): (hours): (mins): (secs) since unplugged)".

I just think you didn't know your way around on the DHD, OR as some people say (which I am starting to believe as little as you know about the DHD), you just simply never had the phone...

I'm not dumb and it'd always say unplugged over 2 days despite unplugging it only a few minutes.

My Galaxy S tells me the exact unplugged time correctly so I do know my way around Android.