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Help anyone else get poor battery life?

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boitano928

Lurker
I've been using mine for a couple days now and finding the battery life seems very poor and not what i was expecting or advertised.I haven't even been doing much on it..using news apps, light web surfing, reading a book. Not doing any streaming video or gaming on it right now. I have it set to power saving mode, turn off wifi in sleep mode, gps and location services off.

Any one else experiencing this? or have tips on what can improve it?
 
boitano928 said:
I've been using mine for a couple days now and finding the battery life seems very poor and not what i was expecting or advertised.I haven't even been doing much on it..using news apps, light web surfing, reading a book. Not doing any streaming video or gaming on it right now. I have it set to power saving mode, turn off wifi in sleep mode, gps and location services off.

Any one else experiencing this? or have tips on what can improve it?
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What do you consider very poor?
 
As in by end of an 8-9 hour period of time battery is almost dead. And like I said..i'm not doing heavy usage. I had an original Ipad awhile back and with same type of usage I'm currently doing on the Infinity I would barely even see the battery life drop in a day. Maybe it's just an Android thing. Also, All reviews I read stated tablet was tested and got these results:

Asus site: "They claimed fully charged time runs up to 9 hours and 30 minutes with: * Battery life test conditions: Play 720p movie + Brightness@100nits + External microphone + Wi-Fi turned on and logged in to gmail"

Engadget Review: "The TF700 packs a 25Wh battery rated for up to nine and a half hours of runtime. Indeed, it lasted nine hours and 25 in our battery rundown test, which involves looping a video with WiFi on and the brightness fixed at 50 percent. That's still not as impressive a showing as the Prime, whose 25Wh cell lasted 10-plus hours in the same test. It also doesn't match the Acer Iconia Tab A510, new iPad or last year's iPad 2. That said, 9.5 hours should be plenty for most users, and it's longer than many other 10-inch tablets are capable of."
 
boitano928 said:
As in by end of an 8-9 hour period of time battery is almost dead. And like I said..i'm not doing heavy usage. Also, All reviews I read stated tablet was tested and got these results:

"They claimed fully charged time runs up to 9 hours and 30 minutes with: * Battery life test conditions: Play 720p movie + Brightness@100nits + External microphone + Wi-Fi turned on and logged in to gmail"

from Engadget: "The TF700 packs a 25Wh battery rated for up to nine and a half hours of runtime. Indeed, it lasted nine hours and 25 in our battery rundown test, which involves looping a video with WiFi on and the brightness fixed at 50 percent. That's still not as impressive a showing as the Prime, whose 25Wh cell lasted 10-plus hours in the same test. It also doesn't match the Acer Iconia Tab A510, new iPad or last year's iPad 2. That said, 9.5 hours should be plenty for most users, and it's longer than many other 10-inch tablets are capable of."

I had an original Ipad awhile back and with same type of usage I would barely even see the battery life drop in a day. Maybe it's just an Android thing.
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I guarantee you if I played a video on loop non-stop on my ipad via wifi, the tablet would be dead by 10 hours.

Something is excessively draining your battery. Either you have a faulty unit, or it's something specific to your setup. Hard to diagnose without more data.
 
If you're using a live wallpaper, get rid of it. In my experience those things just suck battery.
Check all your widgets and email clients to make sure they are not updating more often than they should.
 
I would love to be able to get 8-9 hours of life under those conditions. I'm closer to half that! I've posted about this on another forum and lots of people replied with the same exact issue. I can post a link to it if the mods here will allow it. You're getting much better performance than most people I've heard from, so be happy :)
 
takehiro12 said:
I would love to be able to get 8-9 hours of life under those conditions. I'm closer to half that! I've posted about this on another forum and lots of people replied with the same exact issue. I can post a link to it if the mods here will allow it. You're getting much better performance than most people I've heard from, so be happy :)
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Feel free to link to that other forum.
 
These are estimates since I haven't run the battery below 40% but it seems like I can web browse (mostly wifi) for around 4-5 hours (which seems wimpy) and play video 6-7 or so (these hours are approx based on the time it took to drain the battery to 40%). I've been meaning to run the battery all the way down once and do a full 8 hour charge to see if that helps. The tf101 definitely lasted longer.
 
It would seem that many people are reporting wifi causing a lot of drain. The question is what kinds of data transfer is happening on these devices.

While the workaround of shutting off wifi when the tablet is sleeping will help, I don't think it's the right solution. There are plenty of use cases I can think of where I would need network connectivity even if the screen is off. For example, I wouldn't want a download or upload to get cut off simply cause the screen timed out.

On all of my Android phones, I have never told wifi to sleep under any circumstances. Overnight drain on my phone on wifi and decent cell reception usually causes 4% battery drain. So, if there's no data transfer going on, wifi polling, or maintaining a connection with the access point uses very, very little battery.

For all those people claiming wifi is draining their battery fast, the only explanation is that a lot of data transfer is going on. I suspect these people simply aren't aware what apps are causing it. Widgets can definitely be a culprit. And check for things like IM clients (Talk) signed on in the background as well. Check sync settings; how many apps are set to auto-sync and at what frequency.
 
boitano928 said:
Thanks..I've looked at that forum to. Def seems like an issue many are having. Hopefully ASUS is looking into it to see if there is an actual problem that a firmware update could correct or if it's just a poor battery to begin with.
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I would be hesitant to blame this on a hardware issue just yet. The vast majority of issues regarding battery life on Android devices are readily solved by the user with some understanding. See my previous post. It could be that the default setup that ASUS created for the Infinity is too data-intensive. So it's a matter of identifying where the data transfer is coming from and disabling it.
 
Novox, the wifi off setting is based on when the tablet is asleep. I question whether or not the table is asleep any time the screen goes off. I suspect that in the case of an active download, to use your example, the table is not actually asleep, it has just turned of the screen to save battery. CPU Spy users have seen many instances where their device doesn't go in to 'deep sleep' (sometimes for days) even though the screen is off.

Personally, since way back on the Droid Eris I've set my wifi to off when the device is asleep, I've never noticed it having an adverse effect on usage. Of course that doesn't mean the TF700 might not do something different.
 
mhotovec said:
Novox, the wifi off setting is based on when the tablet is asleep. I question whether or not the table is asleep any time the screen goes off. I suspect that in the case of an active download, to use your example, the table is not actually asleep, it has just turned of the screen to save battery. CPU Spy users have seen many instances where their device doesn't go in to 'deep sleep' (sometimes for days) even though the screen is off.

Personally, since way back on the Droid Eris I've set my wifi to off when the device is asleep, I've never noticed it having an adverse effect on usage. Of course that doesn't mean the TF700 might not do something different.
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As I do not yet own an Infinity, I may be wrong in assuming that "sleep" equates to screen off. However, many (if not all) Android devices refer to "sleep" as screen off.

Example:
http://androidforums.com/htc-rezound/508974-what-happens-sleep-mode.html#post4019706

Also, screen off is a standard Android event that triggers onPause() and/or onStop() handlers. The infinity might have a separate "standby" mode, but that would be isolated to hardware and isn't part of Android's control. Therefore, I think any Android setting to shut off wifi during "sleep" refers to screen off.

Here's an experiment. Set the setting so that wifi shuts off always when in "sleep" mode. Turn off the screen and wait about 15 seconds to allow the radio to fully shut off. Then, turn the screen on and immediately look in the status bar to see if the wifi icon is there.
 
Under those circumstances, I'm sure it would be off.
The true test would be to start a large download, let the device time-out to 'sleep', and then see if the download completes or if it gets interrupted.

Perhaps after dinner tonight I'll do a little experiment.
 
ah, I ought to offer another clarification: every app has its own sleep/wake cycle. You can programmatically force an app to stay "awake" even if the screen is off. Therefore, the download test may or may not work, depending on which app is doing the download and how it was coded.

Service-based apps are designed to be awake in the background, either all the time or at controlled intervals. The stock battery usage app reports "awake" time even if the screen is off all the time, and this is due to apps that are designed to be active during screen off sleep.
 
Now you and I agree, screen off is not the only controller of 'sleep'. :)

BTW, I did the download test this morning. I started a download of the .26 upgrade from Asus, then put the device down and let the screen time out. When I went back to it about an hour later the download was complete, and wifi had to reconnect. Indicating that wifi stayed on and connected long enough to complete the download, and then turned off.
 
mhotovec said:
Now you and I agree, screen off is not the only controller of 'sleep'. :)

BTW, I did the download test this morning. I started a download of the .26 upgrade from Asus, then put the device down and let the screen time out. When I went back to it about an hour later the download was complete, and wifi had to reconnect. Indicating that wifi stayed on and connected long enough to complete the download, and then turned off.
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I think the takeaway here is that "sleep" and "awake" are not mutually exclusive within Android. The OS refers to sleep to mean "screen off," but due to Android's ability to multitask, the device can be using power (awake) even though it is technically asleep.

The key to diagnosing wifi battery life woes is to figure out what apps or widgets are backgrounded and frequently active. A good test would be to remove all widgets temporarily and check application sync settings (Settings > Accounts & Sync) and disable or reduce all non-essential stuff.

If battery life significantly improves, then start adding stuff back one at a time until you find the culprit.

Live wallpapers drain battery fast, but they shouldn't if the screen is off.
 
I agree that live wallpapers shouldn't drain the battery when off. But it seems that the key word there is SHOULDN'T. On my TF101, when I ran a live wallpaper it caused a noticeable drain on the battery even when asleep, I haven't tried one on the TF700.
The particular wallpaper I was using would change based on the orientation of the device. I was using the Asus 'water' wallpaper, the water flows 'downhill' if you tip the device. Maybe that wallpaper was constantly pinging the sensor to check for movement - it's possible others wouldn't have the same problem.

There is an app CPU Spy that I've used to see if anything was keeping the device awake. It doesn't tell you what the problem app is, but it's an indicator that 'something' is keeping it awake. It shows how much time the device has spent in each of it's CPU states (the variable speeds at which the processor will run). If 'deep sleep' isn't where it spends most of it's time when asleep, then something is amiss.
 
You are definitely on to something with that live wallpaper. It's definitely possible for the orientation event to trigger the app to resume while the screen is off. Very poor code if this is the case, but definitely can happen.
 
Whatever the particulars are in the case of WiFi drain, it's a problem with the stock tablet itself. I noticed it straight out of the box. Before I downloaded any apps or messed around with live wallpaper, it was already an issue.
 
Dang. I really hope this isn't too common of a problem. And I really hope that their is a firmware fix for it. My Infinity is set to arrive tomorrow, I went ahead and purchased it feeling that the reported issues have been few and isolated. I really don't want to find my infinity to be buggy, as I've been waiting for this machine for a long while, and decided to move forward instead of waiting longer for "something better."
 
pucrepeap said:
Dang. I really hope this isn't too common of a problem. And I really hope that their is a firmware fix for it. My Infinity is set to arrive tomorrow, I went ahead and purchased it feeling that the reported issues have been few and isolated. I really don't want to find my infinity to be buggy, as I've been waiting for this machine for a long while, and decided to move forward instead of waiting longer for "something better."
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It's not a deal breaker. I love almost everything about this tablet, it's a beautiful work of art that on the whole works superbly! Hopefully they will do something to decrease the battery drain but in the meantime, get the dock. It helps. :)
 
I've had my TF700 for less than a week, my biggest concern before getting it was this thread about battery life.

I'm happy to report I'm very satisfied with the battery life. I did a test, fully charged, It took 6 hours to drop 35%. By 12 hours I was below 20%. That's not too bad. Using balanced mode, I did a decent amount of web browsing, remotely controlled my pc for a half hour, played some games.

I received my dock yesterday for that added life. Together I can easily get a full day of moderate use out of it. Heavy use, watching videos, streaming, downloading non stop, high performance mode, gaming...I bet I could still get 10 hours out of the combo.
 
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