Root Battery vs. Performance

[rodgman15]

Quick question to those who may have the experience:

Is there a significant difference in battery life on Sense-less ROMs as opposed to Sense based ones? I only ask to try and help save myself some time from flashing 15 different ROMs just to achieve what i'm looking for. I've been using MidnightROM (Sense) since day 1, as it's fully functional and i've enjoyed my first run with Sense, but no matter what kernel and governors I just can't seem to achieve the battery life i'd like. I understand auto-sync, gps, data, under and overlocking factor in, but i'd like to be able to keep my phone "smart", while still maintaining excellent battery life. Any insight is appreciated, and thank you in advance!

 

[zaius42]

Quick question to those who may have the experience:

Is there a significant difference in battery life on Sense-less ROMs as opposed to Sense based ones? I only ask to try and help save myself some time from flashing 15 different ROMs just to achieve what i'm looking for. I've been using MidnightROM (Sense) since day 1, as it's fully functional and i've enjoyed my first run with Sense, but no matter what kernel and governors I just can't seem to achieve the battery life i'd like. I understand auto-sync, gps, data, under and overlocking factor in, but i'd like to be able to keep my phone "smart", while still maintaining excellent battery life. Any insight is appreciated, and thank you in advance!

A major factor in battery life is clock speed and screen-on time. You can have a sense rom that is a battery sipper and a sense rom that will discharge in a few hours.

As a matter of personal opinion I did not really get a desired battery life with midnight, but mobsters is right where I like to be. Both sense versions.

The evo itself has never been known for its battery life being good, either. More modern phones have much better life because of the hardware used as well.

I suggest flashing some different roms and seeing how they work for you. I was astonished on mobster v4 that it would use about 2-3% battery per hour idle. However, anytime you have the screen on and those processors ramp up you're going to drain pretty quick unless you're undervolted, underclocked and the screen is dim as hell. You can also try disabling the second core with kernel tuner and see if that helps.

On a side note, I was experiencing less than good battery until i noticed that maps was using battery even though I never used it. I checked into the app and noticed it was reporting my location to people but nobody was on the list (under latitude) this was a setting on a previous phone that google "saved" as a preference for that program, and it was also keeping a location history. So the gps was active a lot for no reason and it put a drain on the battery.

Short story, check your in-app settings and try different roms and you'll get a feel for just how long your battery will last.


Regards,

Z

 

[rodgman15]

Thanks for that insight zaius42. I'm going to try out Mobster's unlocked potential and compare it to Midnight's battery life. My key concern has been basically no matter what governor i'm using it's either at 192 mhz (underclocked), or 1188 (or whatever I may be overclocked to at the time), so i've been looking to smooth that out and eliminate that outrageous processor jump. I already have the screen almost as dim as it will get while still being legible at arm's length, but I can't seem to find a happy medium with my setup (I should stop being so anal for starters). But thanks again, and if anyone else has anything they'd like to throw in i'm all ears.

 

[Leslie Ann]

Actually, clock speed has very little effect on battery life. In some cases testing has even been shown that a mild overclock can even improve battery life on some phones (Optimus V for one).

Phones scale, in other words, it only uses as much as it needs, for as long as it needs it. On processes that are short term but need max power, an overclock will get the job done sooner and return to idle, while a slower clock speed will still be crunching. However, how you set the speeds and where voltage steps occur play a part in this, and if done wrong, can tear through a battery.

Does Sense use more juice.... maybe, but honestly, besides the obvious screen and radios, it's your apps, including launcher that eat up the battery most. The basic OS foundation matters little usually. I showed this when using a very basic stock Froyo and GB launchers while other CyanogenMod people were running the stock ADW launcher. My roms were getting better battery life, in some cases LOTS of extra life.

Widgets are the largest battery vampires though, particularly social networking widgets, even worse, social networking widgets with advertising.

Run the rom you want.
Use an efficient launcher, Launcher Pro is very efficient but I don't think Sense is all that bad, especially when you take other things into consideration...

If you use one, use an efficient weather widget, Beautiful Widgets and the built in Sense (NOT the standalone downloadable apps) are great. This is partly why Sense isn't so bad. I have heard Fancy widgets is only okay (I use it however). Some on the other hand, are pure leeches. The stock Google news/weather widget (Genie) is TERRIBLE!. It is constantly pulling in headlines, so that means it is constantly triggering GPS, and 3g.

News widgets are horrible. Ad driven widgets are bad. Social media widgets are bad. All of which are constantly checking and downloading updates and your gps location and sending it back.

 

[BackHandLegend]

Actually, clock speed has very little effect on battery life. In some cases testing has even been shown that a mild overclock can even improve battery life on some phones (Optimus V for one).

Phones scale, in other words, it only uses as much as it needs, for as long as it needs it. On processes that are short term but need max power, an overclock will get the job done sooner and return to idle, while a slower clock speed will still be crunching. However, how you set the speeds and where voltage steps occur play a part in this, and if done wrong, can tear through a battery.

Does Sense use more juice.... maybe, but honestly, besides the obvious screen and radios, it's your apps, including launcher that eat up the battery most. The basic OS foundation matters little usually. I showed this when using a very basic stock Froyo and GB launchers while other CyanogenMod people were running the stock ADW launcher. My roms were getting better battery life, in some cases LOTS of extra life.

Widgets are the largest battery vampires though, particularly social networking widgets, even worse, social networking widgets with advertising.

Run the rom you want.
Use an efficient launcher, Launcher Pro is very efficient but I don't think Sense is all that bad, especially when you take other things into consideration...

If you use one, use an efficient weather widget, Beautiful Widgets and the built in Sense (NOT the standalone downloadable apps) are great. This is partly why Sense isn't so bad. I have heard Fancy widgets is only okay (I use it however). Some on the other hand, are pure leeches. The stock Google news/weather widget (Genie) is TERRIBLE!. It is constantly pulling in headlines, so that means it is constantly triggering GPS, and 3g.

News widgets are horrible. Ad driven widgets are bad. Social media widgets are bad. All of which are constantly checking and downloading updates and your gps location and sending it back.

So how do we undervolt and what values do you suggest we do to save battery?