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Bionic battery: all Cell Standby / Phone Idle, drains fast?!

jenlion

Lurker
I have a few days left for my 14-days-to-decide on the Bionic. I've solved the camera-crazy-slow issue by using Vignette. I still have a major issue with battery life, though. I know I COULD get the extended battery, but I don't think that will fix it if the regular one can't get me through a day!

I removed facebook and most other apps yesterday. I have not rooted yet. Phone charged overnight.Currently, battery is at 60%, after 7 hours on battery. I've done NOTHING with it, almost -- I read an article on msnbc and I took a picture.

Cell standby has eaten up 48% ad Phone idle has eaten up 44%. I'm seeing mixed explanations for that online, nothing that makes sense. Display is at 5%, the Android OS at 4%.

Even days that I use my phone a lot as a phone, the actual phone usage never takes more than 10% of the data. I've heavily used FB, Beejive, and Kindle other days, and they barely register.

I left bluetooth on for a few hours one day. It registered 17% of the battery use! It only connects to my car, and that only for two short trips that day!

And forget about wifi. I can almost watch the battery drain.

It's nice that the screen isn't a huge drain, but the 60% thing is for real. My phone shuts itself off every night by 10pm if I don't find time to charge it. It hits the 15% warning before dinner. And that's true even on days like today where I barely touch the thing. It's just there.

I went in yesterday and turned some of the crap off -- weather service, etc -- when I removed FB and other things I installed just in case. Some of it just switches itself back on. I don't want to have to fight that, I want the phone to just last a day.

I've seen suggestions to turn off 4G. I don't want to try that because the whole point of the phone is 4G. If I can't have that, then I might as well turn it back in and get the droid 3. Cheaper (smurf camera and all... grr.. starting to consider the iphone! ack!).

Is there any good explanation for the battery drain, and for phone idle / cell standby taking up the bulk of it? I really want to love this phone, but it's making it very hard when I can't keep a charge or keep BT on for even an hour.
 
I wonder if a high "cell standby" means you have a weak signal? My CS is currently at 30%. I can go an entire day (24 hours) with moderate usage on an extended. With TONS of usage, I easily get by from 6AM to after 9PM. I've got lots of apps, 4G on , Wifi on, GPS ON. the only thing I hardly ever use is Bluetooth, to give u an idea.
 
I just moved up from a Droid 2, though, and I'm sitting in the same exact places. Could the Bionic simply hate a weak signal that much more than other phones? If it continues sucking, I'm taking it back for a different phone by the weekend, and the D3 is my next choice -- I miss the keyboard -- but seems they should have pretty much same cell tech, no?
 
I just moved up from a Droid 2, though, and I'm sitting in the same exact places. Could the Bionic simply hate a weak signal that much more than other phones? If it continues sucking, I'm taking it back for a different phone by the weekend, and the D3 is my next choice -- I miss the keyboard -- but seems they should have pretty much same cell tech, no?

if your other phone(s) haven't had issues with weak signals causing battery drain, then I think it's safe to cross off that theory. If I were you though, I'd get the extended battery. there have been numerous discussions on many boards about how much people like the Bionic with the ext batt.
 
Yeah, but I don't want to throw good money after bad. If the phone simply being ON is going to drain a regular battery in less than a day, it will soon drain an extended battery in less than a day. I don't want a phone that drains that fast just by being switched on -- that's just wrong. Really disappointed.
 
Yeah, but I don't want to throw good money after bad. If the phone simply being ON is going to drain a regular battery in less than a day, it will soon drain an extended battery in less than a day. I don't want a phone that drains that fast just by being switched on -- that's just wrong. Really disappointed.
fine. return the phone--you aren't happy with it. :)
 
Is it running hot? Mine was running really hot and dying after 3-5 hours of no use. I got it replaced and battery life is a lot better. I just got the phone yesterday and today its gone 17.5 hours and its still at 60% after 40 minutes of being on the phone. Try to get it replaced, if it still sucks you can always wait for something better that will probably come out in the next month or less.
 
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