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Battery drain... REALLY?!?!

calikat421

calikat421

Lurker
I've had my Evo Shift for less than a week now and I'm getting severely frustrated by how quickly my battery is draining. I've gone from having a Blackberry Curve for the last couple years which held a full charge for at least six hours with very minimul use. With texting almost all day and phone calls I still made it all day without it dying on me. This morning when I took my phone off the charger and played one word on Words With Friends... in a matter of a couple minutes it dropped from 100% to 94%.

I don't have 4G on
I don't have wifi on
Auto sync is off
brightness is set to automatic
screen timeout is 1min
Email schedule is set to check every 4 hours during peak times
Vibrations are set to OFF
Background animations are off

That's all I can think of off the top of my head... please ask about any others that may be causing an issue and I'll let you know what my settings are for that.

PLEASE TELL ME THIS ISN'T NORMAL!!! I really like this phone... I just HATE HATE HATE the battery drainage!
 
i came to the Evo Shift from a Samsung Moment... THAT got the battery use you are talking about... i am a moderate to heavy user of my phone and data and i regularly get 16 hours out of my phone before putting it on the charger. 24 if i dont use it that much.

sounds like you have a bad battery... id look into having sprint replace it.

i have wifii on at home only
i use 4g rarely as the signal by me is crap
i dont use gps
i txt, im and have my gmail pushed, my exchange refreshed every 10 mins and twitter syncing every hour as well as facebook
 
Mine does the same thing. I don't think it's a bad battery. I think what happens is when you leave it on the charger for awhile after it's fully charged, it discharges a little bit. It will still say 100%, but it's not completely charged, so it will drop 4%-6% not long after unplugging it. I just unplug it until it drops a bit and plug it back in until it's fully charged and then unplug it again, and it's good to go.

Also, I've found that setting the brightness to automatic drains it rather fast. I just set mine to around 25% and it lasts longer.
 
Check Google Talk is not connected. Check Account sync settings and social networks apps for any that are trying to stay constantly updated.
 
And set your screen timeout for a shorter time. To 15 or 30 sec. I put mine to 15 and it helped battery life, IMO.
 
Joshbear said:
Mine does the same thing. I don't think it's a bad battery. I think what happens is when you leave it on the charger for awhile after it's fully charged, it discharges a little bit. It will still say 100%, but it's not completely charged, so it will drop 4%-6% not long after unplugging it. I just unplug it until it drops a bit and plug it back in until it's fully charged and then unplug it again, and it's good to go.
Click to expand...


Thats how mine is too. Do you have any apps that show you what you have running in the background?
 
Once it reads fully charged (which doesn't take long) it will bump charge. It doesn't continuously charge all night. If you take it off the charger, reboot it and put it back on, it will fully charge, and not drop to 94% quickly. I usually do just that, but without the reboot on my way to work in the mornings, and it usually lasts a couple hours in the 90% range. But don't worry... unless you are data intensive and even though it seems to drop quickly, it will last for quite a while. I usually get 20+ hours out of one charge, with gtalk on, gmail being pushed and me checking a few different forums and other random stuff about once an hour. If your battery drains quickly, with normal use (by quickly I mean a couple hours) you may have an issue.

BB is way more battery friendly than android, so it is tough to compare them. The processors are smaller, they do A LOT less, and have tiny screens. All that adds up to good battery life. Android has come a long way from where it began and it will only continue to get better....;)
 
I've done the charge till its full, unplug turn off charge again until green light comes on, unplug turn on and charge one more time until light is green, and I've seen better battery life.
 
A couple comments from my experience.

I chose to not use auto brightness, because of the battery drain with the display constantly adjusting the screen brightness to accomodate the backgroud lighting. I typically live with 25% manual brightness. There is a free app called brightness profile that allows you to setup your own preset levels which I liked because I could have a Low, Medium and High setting that I could easily switch to. The new Gingerbread 2.3 has a Brightness Widget that I am now using, although for my needs, the lowest brightness level of that widget is not low enough.

If you go to Settings, then About Phone and then Battery, is your awake time close to your Uptime? If so, your issue is that some program/process is running even when your screen is off.

I have had that happen when I installed something from the Market that was not developed well. Uninstalling it fixed the problem.

Have you installed much software on the phone?

You should also turn off Enable Always on mobile data, which is under Settings, Wireless & Networks, Mobile Networks.




calikat421 said:
I've had my Evo Shift for less than a week now and I'm getting severely frustrated by how quickly my battery is draining. I've gone from having a Blackberry Curve for the last couple years which held a full charge for at least six hours with very minimul use. With texting almost all day and phone calls I still made it all day without it dying on me. This morning when I took my phone off the charger and played one word on Words With Friends... in a matter of a couple minutes it dropped from 100% to 94%.

I don't have 4G on
I don't have wifi on
Auto sync is off
brightness is set to automatic
screen timeout is 1min
Email schedule is set to check every 4 hours during peak times
Vibrations are set to OFF
Background animations are off

That's all I can think of off the top of my head... please ask about any others that may be causing an issue and I'll let you know what my settings are for that.

PLEASE TELL ME THIS ISN'T NORMAL!!! I really like this phone... I just HATE HATE HATE the battery drainage!
Click to expand...
 
calikat421 said:
I've had my Evo Shift for less than a week now and I'm getting severely frustrated by how quickly my battery is draining. I've gone from having a Blackberry Curve for the last couple years which held a full charge for at least six hours with very minimul use. With texting almost all day and phone calls I still made it all day without it dying on me. This morning when I took my phone off the charger and played one word on Words With Friends... in a matter of a couple minutes it dropped from 100% to 94%.

I don't have 4G on
I don't have wifi on
Auto sync is off
brightness is set to automatic
screen timeout is 1min
Email schedule is set to check every 4 hours during peak times
Vibrations are set to OFF
Background animations are off

That's all I can think of off the top of my head... please ask about any others that may be causing an issue and I'll let you know what my settings are for that.

PLEASE TELL ME THIS ISN'T NORMAL!!! I really like this phone... I just HATE HATE HATE the battery drainage!
Click to expand...

I have a BB work phone, and an EVO shift. There is NO WAY an Android phone will even come close to the BB in battery life. Not yet. Iv got the Gorilla (cheapo) 3500ma battery, and its better, but still will not outlast my BB...
 
You're problem might not be your phone or battery. You stated that you were playing Words With Friends? That game is a battery KILLER for many phones (much more so than other games, I did some comparisons using Battery Monitor), including my wife's MyTouch 4G and my LG G2X, but not on my Motorola Atrix. It drains the battery even if you exit out of the app. You have to use a task killer to end the process or reboot your phone.

When I first bought my G2X one of the first things I did was install Words With Friends and start playing (I love that game). It took about 3 hours to go from a full charge to 30%. I was really upset and close to returning the phone until I figured out what was going on. Now I only play Words With Friends when I am near a power outlet and my battery life is normal (about 12-16hrs to go from 100% to 25%).

You can find more people with this problem with Words With Friends on another thread in this forum.
 
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