I would never recommend turning off data altogether to save battery, if you are going to do that, buy a dumb phone.
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Help Talk me out of taking this phone back. I'm right on the edge.
- Thread starter A.Nonymous
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- htc rezound
I would never recommend turning off data altogether to save battery, if you are going to do that, buy a dumb phone.
A.Nonymous
Extreme Android User
The screen is amazing. No arguments there. As I think back though, my entire morning I was on wifi. From 9ish until 11ish in the morning I was completely on wifi and that's the least draining.
OK, I tried to pull you off the edge at the get go. If you are having battery problems on wifi and are not using a task killer you probably have a dud. Might be time for a warranty replacement or exchange for a different phone.
A.Nonymous
Extreme Android User
I have not had problems actually getting 4G coverage here in town. I've been very happy with the 4G coverage aside from the brief outage the other day.
Nolesfan
Well-Known Member
Just get the extended battery and be done with it. I leave 4G on all day with no issues. All of the 4G phones on Verizon suck for battery life. The Razr Maxx is the only one with a battery out of the box that lasts because it's huge. I personally hated the issues I've had with Motorola products, so buying the extended battery was the perfect solution and there's always the option of buying another battery and swapping.
A.Nonymous
Extreme Android User
I'm torn because I really, really, really want to like this phone. The camera is great. The screen is amazing. 4G speeds are faster than wifi in a lot of cases. I get great 4G coverage. I love Sense 3.5. The battery is just horrible.
I was on wifi half the day and 4G half the day. I spent the half day that I was on 4G streaming media to my BT headset. I think this is what killed it. This doesn't seem to kill my DInc 2 though although it does put a strain on the battery. It may last only 10 hours instead of 14 or 15 when I do that. If I keep the phone, I want to do wireless charging which I can't do with an extended battery. I also don't like the extra bulk. One of the sales reps at VZW had a Rezound with the extra battery and it was really big.
If I take the phone back, what phone should I consider? Or should I just keep the upgrade and stick with my DInc2 for a while?
I'm not up do date on the up and coming phones, but you can't go wrong with the MAXX as an alternative (aside from the locked bootloader
). I know you like sense (not for me, but its a personal preference
) so maybe HTC will see the success of the MAXX and come out with something similar (high spec'd phone with a honking battery). Engadget did a battery test with the maxx looping a video stream and it took 16hrs to kill it
. Let me poke around some top end phone forums and the interwebs, see if I can't give you some pros and cons for devices available now and maybe coming soon for VZW. Your phone shouldn't be as hard as installing a stereoI'd try a new one. If you can get a good deal on the extended battery, you may wanna try that too. I get 16 hrs. on the ext battery with fairly heavy use. I agree with others that this is currently VZW's best phone. It is a battery hog though. I believe the 4G > 1X issue are ALL due to VZW network problems. They have intermittent glitches on top
A.Nonymous
Extreme Android User
I'm not up do date on the up and coming phones, but you can't go wrong with the MAXX as an alternative (aside from the locked bootloader
Size is a big deal for me. I know the Maxx has a 4.3" screen just like the Rezound does, but it's bigger somehow. You can put them on top of each other and the Maxx is bigger. I like ICS, but the GNex and it's 4.6" screen are way too big and it's three bills. I really don't want to spend that much on a phone. $200 is my cap although the less I spend the happier I am.
iowabowtech
root@android:/ #
anon,
If you're losing battery way fast, pupkact is right, you probably have a dud. My wife's rezound was draining in about 4-6 hrs even when not being used. With the screen on, I could watch the % drop. Exchanged it and now she's running 16-20 hrs under the same circumstances and at the same physical locations. (@work x hrs, @home x hrs)
If you're losing battery way fast, pupkact is right, you probably have a dud. My wife's rezound was draining in about 4-6 hrs even when not being used. With the screen on, I could watch the % drop. Exchanged it and now she's running 16-20 hrs under the same circumstances and at the same physical locations. (@work x hrs, @home x hrs)
A.Nonymous
Extreme Android User
I got the phone Monday around noon. This is basically what I've got battery wise:
Monday - phone was dead in 3 hours. It had just come out of the box and wasn't fully charged and I was downloading a billion apps and testing 4G speeds. No biggie.
Tuesday - Got 13 hours of usage without using my BT headphones like I normally do.
Wednesday - Got 7 hours of life. Was running BT streaming around the office.
Thursday - got 8 hours of life. Sat on wifi for three of those hours. The rest of those hours I was doing very heavy BT streaming from my phone to the headset.
I really need to get 12-13 hours no matter what I'm doing with the phone to be happy with it.
Monday - phone was dead in 3 hours. It had just come out of the box and wasn't fully charged and I was downloading a billion apps and testing 4G speeds. No biggie.
Tuesday - Got 13 hours of usage without using my BT headphones like I normally do.
Wednesday - Got 7 hours of life. Was running BT streaming around the office.
Thursday - got 8 hours of life. Sat on wifi for three of those hours. The rest of those hours I was doing very heavy BT streaming from my phone to the headset.
I really need to get 12-13 hours no matter what I'm doing with the phone to be happy with it.
This got me thinking and Googling. Do you toggle off your bluetooth when you aren't using it? Especially when it isn't in proximity of your earpiece. Some phones (several, but I didn't take notes
) keep searching for paired devices and drain the battery like the 3G/4G antenna does during an outage.Also, what are you using for streaming. I'll see if the are any issues with that.
P
pank
Guest
Should have mentioned that I also have TT / I use that to back up all apps with data, etc. I just like having one pure clean backup that I don't need root to use.
A.Nonymous
Extreme Android User
This got me thinking and Googling. Do you toggle off your bluetooth when you aren't using it? Especially when it isn't in proximity of your earpiece. Some phones (several, but I didn't take notes
Also, what are you using for streaming. I'll see if the are any issues with that.
I'm never off BT. I have a BT headset I wear all the time. In the car I'm streaming to the headset (now BT streaming to my head unit. Yay!!) When I get to the office and settle down at my desk, I swap out the headset for a set of BT headphones and I stream to that. If I get called out of the office to go work at a client site, I put the headset back on. I usually don't stream when I'm at the client site, but the headset is always connected. Only when I'm at home am I not on BT, but the battery has been dead long before I got there.
I'm just streaming audio that's stored on my phone to the headset. I haven't fired up Mog or Pandora or the like. I would kill the battery for sure.
I can't say that I've ever tried it, but I think you can restore just the apks w/o the data using TB. Can't say for sure though.
mustardtiger
Member
Given your stated usage expectations and habits, as well as your requirement to get 13 hours out of it every day, I don't think you can flatly state or even assume there's anything "wrong" with the Rezound per se.
Any of the Verizon 4G phones aside from the Razr Maxx probably aren't going to get you there in terms of the kind of battery life you're looking for, so unless you're ready to jump to the Razr Maxx, the Rezound is probably as good as it's going to get in a 4G standard-battery phone at the moment.
Why not just get an extra standard battery and keep it as a backup? You can charge one up every night, and it would only take 10 seconds to swap the spent battery for the fresh one. Sure, it's one more thing to carry/keep track of but maybe not so bad of a compromise. There's also the extended battery, but that thing is a big ol' chunk.
I might have missed it, but do you charge at all during the day? In the car or at work? Just curious.
Any of the Verizon 4G phones aside from the Razr Maxx probably aren't going to get you there in terms of the kind of battery life you're looking for, so unless you're ready to jump to the Razr Maxx, the Rezound is probably as good as it's going to get in a 4G standard-battery phone at the moment.
Why not just get an extra standard battery and keep it as a backup? You can charge one up every night, and it would only take 10 seconds to swap the spent battery for the fresh one. Sure, it's one more thing to carry/keep track of but maybe not so bad of a compromise. There's also the extended battery, but that thing is a big ol' chunk.
I might have missed it, but do you charge at all during the day? In the car or at work? Just curious.
A.Nonymous
Extreme Android User
I haven't been charging at all. I got spoiled by not having to do it with the DInc2. I can get a day and half of usage like I did on Monday on my DInc2 and can get 10-12 hours with ease on it. I'm willing to compromise and charge in the car as the phone is sitting there doing nothing anyway, but when I'm in the office I'm often up walking around and don't want my phone tied to my desk.
That's an excellent point streaming + BT = big battery drain. Even if you are in your car for an hour a day I bet you would get 2hrs more battery life charging while you drive.
A.Nonymous
Extreme Android User
I was on wifi from about 9ish until 1400ish. It was 75%. I charged on the 5-10 min drive back to the office. Now it's at 40% after streaming podcasts for the past 2 hours. This is just streaming podcasts I had previously downloaded. I'm afraid if I actually streamed Pandora or Mog like I do on my DInc2 that I would crush the battery in now time. The battery is the only thing about this phone that I don't like it. I really have no other gripes other than the factory reset thing.
T
TxGoat
Guest
Is bluetooth the only alternative for you? Are you sure you're not just in love with the technology just for the sake of having that technology on? I know some people that just absolutely have to have the bleeding edge of tech even if it's counter-productive to their needs.
When I worked at AT&T, I had a technician call for 2nd level support. He couldn't get a plug-in Wifi adapter to work on the customer's desktop. I asked him to describe the setup and he had the gateway sitting RIGHT NEXT TO THE DESKTOP. I asked him why he couldn't just run an ethernet cable from the gateway to the desktop. He said the customer insisted on having a wifi connection to his desktop. For some reason the customer thought Wifi was a better connection than a cat5 connection. Of course this customer wasn't as bad as one guy I overheard at my local electronics store trying to set up a wireless network at home. His current network at home was Dial-up and he was trying to add wifi to that network.
If you can hard-wire your phone to the devices you typically use for bluetooth (aux-in for car stereo for example) then that would be your best bet to saving battery life. Otherwise, I don't think you're going to find another phone that provides the all around performance you're looking for. If you do decide to switch to a different phone, keep in mind that you won't be able to switch back. I know some guys that jumped off of the Rezound bandwagon for a Nexus and do they ever regret it.
When I worked at AT&T, I had a technician call for 2nd level support. He couldn't get a plug-in Wifi adapter to work on the customer's desktop. I asked him to describe the setup and he had the gateway sitting RIGHT NEXT TO THE DESKTOP. I asked him why he couldn't just run an ethernet cable from the gateway to the desktop. He said the customer insisted on having a wifi connection to his desktop. For some reason the customer thought Wifi was a better connection than a cat5 connection. Of course this customer wasn't as bad as one guy I overheard at my local electronics store trying to set up a wireless network at home. His current network at home was Dial-up and he was trying to add wifi to that network.
If you can hard-wire your phone to the devices you typically use for bluetooth (aux-in for car stereo for example) then that would be your best bet to saving battery life. Otherwise, I don't think you're going to find another phone that provides the all around performance you're looking for. If you do decide to switch to a different phone, keep in mind that you won't be able to switch back. I know some guys that jumped off of the Rezound bandwagon for a Nexus and do they ever regret it.
A.Nonymous
Extreme Android User
I'm willing to plug into a charger in the car which eliminates that as a battery drain. I really want to do wireless streaming there as I want to be able to do BT calls over my car stereo. I could plug in a pair of headphones to the phone when I'm at work listening to stuff, but when you're pulling servers and computers around, the less wires you have to catch on stuff the better. Plus, I really love these headphones.
If I jump (which I'm inclined to do), it'll be back to the DInc2 I was using. It does everything I like to do and has the battery life. Screen isn't as good. Camera isn't as good. Is only 3G. I can drop a Sense 3.5 ROM on it though. I don't see anything else on the market I'd be inclined to jump to, but I'm certainly open to suggestions.
I'm toying with the idea of having Tasker turn on 4G only for certain apps like downloading podcasts, streaming media, etc... and leaving it just on 3G for things like syncing email. I still think I'm going to kill the phone in a hurry streaming media like that.
If you figure out a way to toggle between 3G and 4G with Tasker, please share. I failed at that.
T
TxGoat
Guest
Is manually toggling 3G/4G from Settings> Wireless & Network not an option?
A.Nonymous
Extreme Android User
A.Nonymous
Extreme Android User
Sadly, I'm afraid I'm going to have to eat $35 and take this phone back. I just can't go back to being tethered to a cable all the time like I was with my DInc.
I'm willing to make some compromises like charging when I'm in the car and using 3G for background data and 4G for data hungry apps, but I can't find a way to do that automatically. I'm still looking into it though. If I can find a way to toggle LTE off/on based on what app I'm using AND that drastically improves battery, I'm happy. Background syncing doesn't need 4G, neither do most of the apps I use.
I'm willing to make some compromises like charging when I'm in the car and using 3G for background data and 4G for data hungry apps, but I can't find a way to do that automatically. I'm still looking into it though. If I can find a way to toggle LTE off/on based on what app I'm using AND that drastically improves battery, I'm happy. Background syncing doesn't need 4G, neither do most of the apps I use.