Help Battery and a few other questions.

[Maimer]

I charged my battery for a full 8 hours today. I unplugged it, plugged it back in, and recharged a few times as well. I left it on and went to work at 8 PM. It's 2:00 am and I'm at 40% battery life. Now, I really only stream pandora.. and I did it for maybe an hour or so? I sent a few texts, played angry birds for about 5 minutes. My settings are...

Brightness 20%
Screen timeout 15 seconds
ALL sounds/vibrations off
I run the system panel and end any tasks I'm not using.
I don't use sense.

Android System : 39%
Cell Standby 26%
Phone Idle 19%
Display 10%
Mediaserver 4%

Up time 5:45:50
Awake time 2:38:46

I just got the phone like 2 days ago so I'm wondering if it's normal to have such a low battery after only a few hours of seemingly light use? I'm beginning to think it's pandora. I like the phone for the music capabilities, would playing music off the phone from a player drain the battier slower than streaming?

Any apps I can download to improve battery/power management?

 

[Maimer]

I upped the brightness a bit, considering the screen was a bit too dark. Are there any popular/common apps notorious for battery drainage?

 

[Maimer]

Also, using juice defender now..

 

[DaDeeva]

If you are using the stock battery, then 40% is about right. I would invest in a 1800 battery to get little more power and usage.

 

[cartisdm]

You say you don't use Sense. Have you already flashed a new ROM on your phone? If not, you may have a misunderstanding of what Sense is. If so, then you should consider a new ROM/kernel.

I am running Virtuous 3.2 with Lous #7 Kernel and the 1800mAh battery from HTCExpress (I bought two plus a wall charger for like $30). Now I get nearly 7 hours of uptime with 15-25% to spare. I don't even worry about charging my phone anymore. I just run it till it's dead then swap out batteries. My phone never has to be plugged in, it's amazing!

 

[euph_22]

If you are using the stock battery, then 40% is about right. I would invest in a 1800 battery to get little more power and usage.

Agreed, that seems about normal (maybe a little more drain than average, but it's hard to know what you consider "you use" is). It's definitely worth getting an extended battery.

It's also a good idea to calibrate the battery. Let it drain all the way (till it dies, then I usually boot into recovery, and let that sit till it dies, but you really don't have to), then let it charge all the way.

 

[jayjay1122]

I charged my battery for a full 8 hours today. I unplugged it, plugged it back in, and recharged a few times as well. I left it on and went to work at 8 PM. It's 2:00 am and I'm at 40% battery life. Now, I really only stream pandora.. and I did it for maybe an hour or so? I sent a few texts, played angry birds for about 5 minutes. My settings are...

Brightness 20%
Screen timeout 15 seconds
ALL sounds/vibrations off
I run the system panel and end any tasks I'm not using.
I don't use sense.

Android System : 39%
Cell Standby 26%
Phone Idle 19%
Display 10%
Mediaserver 4%

Up time 5:45:50
Awake time 2:38:46

I just got the phone like 2 days ago so I'm wondering if it's normal to have such a low battery after only a few hours of seemingly light use? I'm beginning to think it's pandora. I like the phone for the music capabilities, would playing music off the phone from a player drain the battier slower than streaming?

Any apps I can download to improve battery/power management?

Agree with the others, and the fact that your phone is clearly "sleeping" (Up time of 5:45:50 vs. Awake time of 2:38:46) tells us that it appears to be usage draining the battery.

There are several other battery options that we recommend; HTC 1500, Seidio 1750 and HTC Express 1800, if you want to keep the stock back cover and some larger options that require a different back cover. All are viable options to extend your usage substantially!

Good Luck!

 

[zemerick]

I charged my battery for a full 8 hours today. I unplugged it, plugged it back in, and recharged a few times as well. I left it on and went to work at 8 PM. It's 2:00 am and I'm at 40% battery life. Now, I really only stream pandora.. and I did it for maybe an hour or so? I sent a few texts, played angry birds for about 5 minutes. My settings are...

Brightness 20%
Screen timeout 15 seconds
ALL sounds/vibrations off
I run the system panel and end any tasks I'm not using.
I don't use sense.

Android System : 39%
Cell Standby 26%
Phone Idle 19%
Display 10%
Mediaserver 4%

Up time 5:45:50
Awake time 2:38:46

I just got the phone like 2 days ago so I'm wondering if it's normal to have such a low battery after only a few hours of seemingly light use? I'm beginning to think it's pandora. I like the phone for the music capabilities, would playing music off the phone from a player drain the battier slower than streaming?

Any apps I can download to improve battery/power management?

Ok, first thing that pops to mind is that you mention just over 1 hour of usage, but the phone says over 2.5. You mention killing stuff you arent using, so i wonder if something was stuck awake for awhile, then you killed it.

Next, yes battery life gets better over the first week while the phone calibrates. Nothing actually changes in the battery, the phone just uses more of it as it learns just how much charge the battery holds.

yes, playing music off your phone will use a good deal less power than streaming it off the internet...although your stats do not suggest pandora used all that much.

Finally: i do not recommend the seidio battery because it has been reported the actual capacity is 1500, yet it costs a lot more than the htc 1500. Even if it was 1750, the cost is more on par with a 3500, so its still overly expensive.

 

[Podivin]

When you kill tasks with the system panel do you find yourself killing the same task over and over? If so, leave it alone - because you are probably killing something the phone needs to work, so it's having to use a little extra battery to restart that task each time it needs it. This is true for tasks where you really don't know what they are, if it's something you KNOW you started (Pandora, Angry Birds, etc) and you think it shouldn't still be running then go ahead and kill it. Otherwise try letting the phone do what it wants to do and see if that helps.
VERY rarely do I have to kill an app/task on my phone, in fact I don't even really spend much time wondering about what's running. When I first got an Android smart phone I did, but now I just let it do it's thing...
My usages is typical to what you mentioned in the OP and I don't have any problem going from 5:30 am to 10pm without a charge, usually with about 25% remaining when I plug it in for the night.

 

[zemerick]

When you kill tasks with the system panel do you find yourself killing the same task over and over? If so, leave it alone - because you are probably killing something the phone needs to work, so it's having to use a little extra battery to restart that task each time it needs it. This is true for tasks where you really don't know what they are, if it's something you KNOW you started (Pandora, Angry Birds, etc) and you think it shouldn't still be running then go ahead and kill it. Otherwise try letting the phone do what it wants to do and see if that helps.
VERY rarely do I have to kill an app/task on my phone, in fact I don't even really spend much time wondering about what's running. When I first got an Android smart phone I did, but now I just let it do it's thing...
My usages is typical to what you mentioned in the OP and I don't have any problem going from 5:30 am to 10pm without a charge, usually with about 25% remaining when I plug it in for the night.

Ah, that's a good point I forgot to mention.

With 2.2, the phone will auto-restart quite a lot of the pre-loaded stuff. However, they are just cached, and do not actually run, so killing them actually causes more battery drain than ignoring them would.

I honestly can't remember the last time I killed an app. If the app has an option to quit, always use that ( such as Pandora and Angry Birds ), else use the back button, and lastly home. Generally home is used for task switching and leave the previous app running for awhile before Android gets around to killing it, but for the Browser home effectively stops the app from actually running as long as you were not at a site that frequently auto-refreshes.