Help Do I have a bad battery?

[neemo6]

Have had this phone now going on about a week. The whole time I have owned it, battery has been EXTREMELY HORRIBLE!! Coming from a winmo device that had wifi and bluetooth on all day and would have no troubles holding a charge for 24 hours. I feel lucky to get 10 with the Droid, w/o wifi or bluetooth. If i want to listen to music or browse web I know that as soon I get home from work the phone will need to be plugged in. A 20 minute phone call will kill at least 20% of the battery life. I feel like I cannot use this phone as its intended, music, web, maps, games , etc etc. In the video section here there is a video doing a battery life test w/ screen never shutting off, music contiuously playing and even a 1hr drive using navigation. There is absolutely no way my phone could handle all that and last what his phone did. Is the battery bad on my phone or is this typical life on this phone and Im better off with something that can keep up w/ me?

 

[johnlgalt]

Nope - that is about average for a DROID with both on all day, YMMV.

There was a spirited debate about letting it drain all the way down before charging (and since the DROID auto shuts off before actually reaching a 0 level I cannot see that being a problem) but sine these are LiON batteries (I think that is the accepted abbreviation) there is no real memory effect that builds up like with NiCd batteries used to.

That being said, after the day I got it, I noticed that when I left WiFi and BT on my battery dies quickly - but i I shut down either / both when not in use (like when I am in class) then my battery lasts a much longer time.

I also have been on vacation from college over the last several weeks - if I am not actively using the phone, I have gotten as long as 24-30 hours on the phone - but if I use it, that drops proportionally to how much I used it.

 

[KeithG]

It's all fairly subjective, due to the multiple variables involved.

My experience with my standard habits, I get an easy 18+ hours per charge. I disconnect it when I get out of bed, and my Droid does not see the charger again until I go to sleep. So figure 7am - 1am ... usually I still have > 40% left on the phone.

I have wifi on, (and on never sleep) gps on, brightness is usually turned off, unless I'm in the car. Then the phone is, wifi + bluetooth + gps + brigtness auto.

Your battery may indeed need to be replaced. However ... there are many variables that affect battery life.

@ full tilt.. the phone should last between 3-5 hours = watching youtube / or other video over wifi.

The average use case, for the phone is approx 10 minutes of use per hour. The rest of the 50 minutes of that hour are in sleep mode. If you have installed applications, they could be causing the phone to wake up from sleep so much as to not let the phone fall back asleep...

I would suggest installing "spare parts", select battery usage. Use the top drop down and select "partial wake usage". Cycle through the 2nd drop down from last charge, last boot, all time. See what sticks out. Especially look for .. partial wake usage of any app, after your last charge (and don't use the phone) that you think shouldn't be waking up the phone.

If your a "heavy" user which ... is anything over the 10min aggregate time per hour.... you may be beyond this phones limit. But it doesn't hurt to complain to your verizon store get them to replace the battery

The battery and usage pattern on this phone is more than sufficient for my needs. YRMV


@johnlgalt

There was a spirited debate about letting it drain all the way down before charging (and since the DROID auto shuts off before actually reaching a 0 level I cannot see that being a problem) but sine these are LiON batteries (I think that is the accepted abbreviation) there is no real memory effect that builds up like with NiCd batteries used to.

Read it, and not trying to add fuel to the fire, but ... the conditioning isn't for the battery per say, as it is setting the battery discharge profile (personality) as every battery has a slightly different one. The software on the phone stores the personality over several charge - discharge cycles... it makes the software better able to estimate how long until the system has @ current usage before it needs to be charged again.