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Battery Life - The Good The Bad and The Ugly

Does your phone drop 10% quickly in the morning after a full night of charging?

  • Yes

    Votes: 436 79.3%

  • Nope

    Votes: 74 13.5%

  • Not sure

    Votes: 40 7.3%
  • Total voters
    550
I leave my auto syncing on, but I leave bluetooth, wifi, and 4g off all the time. I don't have a bluetooth headset, or 4g access here, so I have no real need for them to be on yet, lol. WiFi comes on and off as I see fit, but other than those few things, I leave the rest alone. I don't mess with the roaming.... I don't mess with turning off mobile internet... I just use my phone.

Reboot it, see what happens throughout the day, then post back here later.
 
Thefoodman52 said:
I leave my auto syncing on, but I leave bluetooth, wifi, and 4g off all the time. I don't have a bluetooth headset, or 4g access here, so I have no real need for them to be on yet, lol. WiFi comes on and off as I see fit, but other than those few things, I leave the rest alone. I don't mess with the roaming.... I don't mess with turning off mobile internet... I just use my phone.

Reboot it, see what happens throughout the day, then post back here later.
Click to expand...

Ok, I'll see how it drains throughout the day and then try again. I have almost all auto-syncing/updating turned off as well. I noticed that when my phone was idle, it drained at about 1% per hour (or even a little less than that), which is why I was surprised to see that it dropped 10% this morning after no use. Perhaps it's just that trickle charge issue, although I never noticed it that drastically before.
 
I flashed a new kernel the other night. I fell asleep at 98%. I woke up to 76%. I don't get the batt life on this phone. I leave GPS and auto sync on. Wifi from time to time. I just make sure I have a charger wherever I am. I also bought a car charger for that added boost between home and work, etc. Sick of reading batt tweak threads and such. It's just fact that the batt sucks ass on the EVO.
 
JohnJSal said:
As I said in another post, ever since I got my Evo two weeks ago my Battery Use showed Android at 96%, Cell Standby at 2%, and Phone Idle at 2%. Last night I turned off my phone for the first time and now the list is different. Android is only 23%, the other two are in the 30%s, and Display is 6%. Is this normal?

On a possibly unrelated note I noticed that my battery was 100% when I turned the phone back on this morning, and after almost two hours of absolutely NO use, it was 90%.
Click to expand...

I saw a similar issue regarding "time without signal" on the Epic forum that solved an issue with my wife's Epic. The problem was that the the CDMA wasn't holding on to a signal like it was supposed to. The workaround was to turn airplane mode on and back off again. It somehow resets the antenna and fixes the problem, it may be worth a try, she was in the 40's abd 50's on TWS and is now at 2-3%.
 
madiom said:
I saw a similar issue regarding "time without signal" on the Epic forum that solved an issue with my wife's Epic. The problem was that the the CDMA wasn't holding on to a signal like it was supposed to. The workaround was to turn airplane mode on and back off again. It somehow resets the antenna and fixes the problem, it may be worth a try, she was in the 40's abd 50's on TWS and is now at 2-3%.
Click to expand...

Right now my TWS is 6%, but usually it's 2% or less. Granted, my 3G signal in this area isn't great. Right now I'm on WiFi anyway, so I dont know how that would affect the TWS percentage.
 
Thefoodman52 said:
If the list has Android listed as 96%, that means your phone isn't sleeping like it should be. Other wise.... the second list is normal.

As for the battery dropping that fast, mine usually drops the first 10-15% like it's not even there most of the time, but it still lasts normally through the day. It's because (I've watched my phone do this as well) once it hits fully charged when it's plugged in, it stops charging the battery completely. Then, it'll let the battery drain normally by letting the phone run off the battery (still plugged in) then once it hits 90%, it'll throw back on the charge. Remedy for this: about 20 minutes before you have to leave, unplug your phone, and plug it back in.
Click to expand...

I thought it stopped at 95%?
 
::sigh:: I'm confused. My Evo just sat idle for almost an hour and the battery didn't drop at all from 67%. But after about 5 minutes of internet use (on WiFi) it's now at 60%. I've never seen it go down that fast.
 
The ONLY way I can get my Evo battery to last the whole day is to turn off my "mobile" switch when I'm not using anything that requires it. That works awesome!
Otherwise, if its on, my battery is dead 6 hours later. Apps? very few.
 
Thefoodman52 said:
As for the battery dropping that fast, mine usually drops the first 10-15% like it's not even there most of the time, but it still lasts normally through the day. It's because (I've watched my phone do this as well) once it hits fully charged when it's plugged in, it stops charging the battery completely. Then, it'll let the battery drain normally by letting the phone run off the battery (still plugged in) then once it hits 90%, it'll throw back on the charge. Remedy for this: about 20 minutes before you have to leave, unplug your phone, and plug it back in.
Click to expand...

A quick question about this. I understand the trickle charge theory, but even if this is what was happening, would my battery widget have shown 99% when I unplugged the phone? Shouldn't it have shown 95% or 90%, or whatever the battery was actually at?

I'm using Battery Widget, which is accurate to within 1%. It seems to drop slightly faster than the actual % (i.e. the widget will hit 15% about a minute before the low battery warning pops up on the phone). So when it read 99%, I assumed that meant 100% and fully charged. Why would it show that if it was really starting at somewhere around 90%?

Edit: And for the record, I've clocked about 1.5 hours of actual use today (internet, market browsing, about 8 minutes of youtube) and my battery is at 53%. :(
 
AHWagner said:
I mainly use my phone for texting, is it normal for the battery life to drop 20-30% in two hours?
Click to expand...

I would say no to this . If you are mostly texting it shouldnt be dropping that much in two hours . I have had days when I just text , and my battery doesnt drop that much . I would say you have something running or causing a drain in the background . If it were me I would do a battery pull and restart , continue to watch your discharge . Maybe the battery pull and restart will kill whatever is draining and clear it for you .
 
SouthernEvo said:
I would say no to this . If you are mostly texting it shouldnt be dropping that much in two hours . I have had days when I just text , and my battery doesnt drop that much . I would say you have something running or causing a drain in the background . If it were me I would do a battery pull and restart , continue to watch your discharge . Maybe the battery pull and restart will kill whatever is draining and clear it for you .
Click to expand...

I wouldn't immediately recommend a battery pull, seems a little drastic. First I'd check the Running Apps list and see if anything unusual is there. Maybe a reset too, but not necessarily a battery pull as your first option.
 
Thanks for the help guys, Seems like I had The Weather Channel running for some reason. I stopped the service via Running Services in the Applications Settings. I have no idea why it was running, because I never use it...maybe I should uninstall it lol
 
I'm still having battery issues. My up time and awake time are always the same. I have deleted every app that I downloaded since I bought the phone in June. No matter what i uninstalled it seems like something is still causing the phone to run in the background. When I go into the "applications - manage applications - running" section, why do some of the apps that I uninstalled still show up in the running section (like facebook, nascar, qik....).

Everything else is turned off like wifi, 4g, gps, bluetooth. Everything is up to date on updates. My battery is yellow by 1pm after unplugging at 8am with just normal use. Very frustrated with this phone...
 
I have an EVO and when I am on 3G, it lasts a day on a battery charge without any problem. However, where I work now has a strong 4G signal (on speed test I am consistently getting 8mb down, 1mb up). My house also gets 4G, but weaker. However, I notice that the battery drains a lot faster on 4G. Is this normal? If I am getting a solid signal and it isn't searching, why it is draining the battery faster than 3G? Is there any work around?

I would love to leave 4G turned on since where I spend 90% on my time (home and work) gets a 4G signal. But when I leave 4G on, my battery is almost dead by noon. Does anyone here leave 4G on all the time without major battery issues? As a second resort, is there a good widget to turn it on and off quickly? Thanks.

Jason.
 
I left my fully charged phone on 4G one night when I went to bed and the battery was almost dead 7 hours later. 3G lasts longer but WiFi gives by far the best battery life.
 
If you look at the green lines going down.Its in Airplane Mode,Sync off. I have no idea why it just drains on its own. Anyone have any ideas?
 

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OK...How about lets charge our phones to the light turns green and unplug it. Post the time you unplugged it and then post the time you get a low batt warning. No green light shut off plug in till green unplug do again stuff.

I'm curious what the results are going to be. I'm charging to green right now. Time will come in a bit.
 
You need to set strict criteria or test is pointless.

What should each person be running? Are they going to run any app? Any wallpaper? (certain colors makes the battery last longer) Brightness settings? Etc.

If I'm watching movies till it dies while you "wait" for all the charges run out, there's going to be a huge difference. Not to mention there are apps running in background that checks weather/email/time...you get my point...
 
Well, I obviously can't tell people what to do with their phone. I suggest you just post what you did to cause your batt to die in 4 yrs.....ie watching movies, games, etc.
 
well, if i didn't use my phone at all...it would last days due to the kernel i have flashed. it seriously goes hours before even 1% drops when the phone is on standby. using it, however, is a different story. drops rapidly due to the FPS unlock that's baked into the kernel. but i think that balances out...extremely slow drain when not in use/fast drain when in use.
 
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