• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Epic Battery Life Quadrupled after 2.21 update

I am not running anything other then stock

no battery saver programs or anything like that

the only battery app I have is the one that shows the percentage at the top left
 
I am noticing better battery life if I go to the running apps and clear cache and force quit the "Amazon.com mp3" "DRM service" "sprint navigation" "Quik video" and 1 or 2 other programs

after this I have much better bettery life

I want to know how to uninstall these programs that I will never use - quick I use but sprint navigation I never use, I never use amazon mp3 and I will never ever use anything with DRM on it so why does this crap have to be running all the time?
 
anticitizenone said:
I am noticing better battery life if I go to the running apps and clear cache and force quit the "Amazon.com mp3" "DRM service" "sprint navigation" "Quik video" and 1 or 2 other programs

after this I have much better bettery life

I want to know how to uninstall these programs that I will never use - quick I use but sprint navigation I never use, I never use amazon mp3 and I will never ever use anything with DRM on it so why does this crap have to be running all the time?
Click to expand...

you should just root your phone, i rooted and flashed midnight rom so all that bloatware was gone. My battery is truly amazing now without all those ridiculous background processes.
 
pflol said:
you should just root your phone, i rooted and flashed midnight rom so all that bloatware was gone. My battery is truly amazing now without all those ridiculous background processes.
Click to expand...

does the midnight rom have touchwiz or only launcherpro?

and better then that is it 2.2 or maybe even 2.3?
 
anticitizenone said:
does the midnight rom have touchwiz or only launcherpro?

and better then that is it 2.2 or maybe even 2.3?
Click to expand...

2.2, it comes with launcher pro but you can flash anything you'd like with that rom (if you like touch whiz flash it). I'm using ADW instead I uninstalled launcher pro. I like it becuase its very very clean. You choose what you want installed.
 
I decided to test this recalibration of the battery. I just unplugged my phone from the charger after having fully charged the battery. Its now 7:37pm CST. I also deleted the batterystats.bin using root explorer. lets see how this goes... :)

*edit*

Last night around 12ish I still had like 75% of battery left, so I plugged it back up since I knew I had to work this morning. But it now has a full charge and i'm taking it off now. (10:40am). I talk and text alot at work so it should get some pretty heavy use and really put my battery to the test. Let the games begin!
 
I hope this isnt normal, I just got my Epic a couple days ago, I didnt really mess with stock, I did the update.zip to 2.2 dk28, heres how my batery performs atm.

Wifi, bluetooth, gps, 4g, all off

Dolphin hd, notepad, meebo, launcherpro are all I've been using, plus the other stuff you cant get rid of without rooting. Screen brightness 30%, no touchtone sound or haptic feedback and stuff.

4:44 - 98%
4:47 - 97%
4:48 - 96%
4:51 - 95%
4:54 - 94% - 4% in 10 mins
4:56 - 93%
4:59 - 92%
5:01 - 91%
5:04 - 90%
5:06 - 89% - 10% in 22 mins

It also still goes down while its on and charging.

I read some about manually indstalling the update.zip that youd be running 2 roms, is that true, would it be using extra battery? Is it just dk28? Or is this a bad battery, was going to call spribt about it.
 
If your battery is going down that fast WHILE its plugged in then something is wrong with your battery. I was just reading these forums for about 30 minutes on my phone and it's sitll 95%. (not plugged in). I also never used dk28, i'm on eb13 2.2.

edit: if those levels are while the phone is not charging then that sounds correct (if you are reading webpages, i'ming) during those entire 22 minutes. esp if the webpages you're looking at are white. My battery used to drain at the same rate until I rooted.
 
Sorry, meant that its while not on the charger, it still goes down but not that slow on the charger.

I had meebo open but just logged on, wsnt actually iming, hust waiting for someone. I was only checking here and gmail on dolphin, so I guess they were white.

I'm just afraid to root, bricking and all, tho I dont know much about it. I'd certainly like to get rid of this stuff that comes pre installed, and have the android browser like before tho, and with gif support.
 
Well I for one can say that the update to EB13 didnt help my battery life at all. Im rooted running the MidNIGHT ROM BYOR edition so I only have the things I want on my phone (ex. Beautiful widgets, goSMS, WinAmp and a bunch of other stuff. The only thing I did today was talk on the phone for like 30 minutes, sent about 50 texts, downloaded an app from the market and make some ringtones using the market.

I unplugged my phone at 10:40 this morning and at 5:40 on the dot, it shut itself down. Thats 7 hours, not very good IMO. Im also running a live wallpaper which may have something to do with it. Im gonna set a regular wallpaper and test it again tomorrow.
 
Thats odd, I'm using using midnight too and every work day my battery has been about the same 630am-4pm and I'm normally @ about 40-50%.

normal day:

~50 texts
~30ish mins of talk time total
~Hour of pandora or so
~Check several forums, read engadget
~send emails

I use a livewallpaper too, but it's the nexus one it's dark grey though. In the past month I haven't even seen my phone get anywhere close to 25% and I'd say I use my phone alot at work.
 
battery life is slightly..... maybe 1 more hr out of it since the upgrade. still crappy...

i just figured out how to get crazy battery life.. over 22 hrs.... just leave it plugged in till noon then i can go till 10am the following morning before it dies :) i get most of my emails and calls by 12pm everyday.
 
People running straight stock phone shouldn't expect too much out of a single charge. The stock batteries aren't that great, and Android will eat them up, especially with all the crap Sprint puts on there, all the things running in the background which you have no control over.

There are a few things you can do to help, but they'll only help slightly. One is the airplane mode toggle when you first boot up your phone. Some say it helps, some say it doesn't. Basically some leftover code from GSM phones and it states the "time without signal" around 50% because it's supposedly looking for a GSM signal half the time of uptime. There's a longer explanation of this, but some have done tests and don't notice any real world gains.

Another is to end the DRM process as soon as you boot your phone. I do think this one has an effect, and shoud probably be done.

However, if you want to get real battery life out of an android phone, rooting it (unless you want to buy a bigger battery) is really your only course of action. It's really not difficult to do, especially if you take the time to read up on it before jumping right in. With certain apps available out there (Odin) it's extremely difficult to brick your phone. Odin allows you to get your phone back to it's stock state almost regardless of what you do to it short of putting a GSM ROM on your CDMA phone...
 
hayzooos said:
People running straight stock phone shouldn't expect too much out of a single charge. The stock batteries aren't that great, and Android will eat them up, especially with all the crap Sprint puts on there, all the things running in the background which you have no control over.

There are a few things you can do to help, but they'll only help slightly. One is the airplane mode toggle when you first boot up your phone. Some say it helps, some say it doesn't. Basically some leftover code from GSM phones and it states the "time without signal" around 50% because it's supposedly looking for a GSM signal half the time of uptime. There's a longer explanation of this, but some have done tests and don't notice any real world gains.

Another is to end the DRM process as soon as you boot your phone. I do think this one has an effect, and shoud probably be done.

However, if you want to get real battery life out of an android phone, rooting it (unless you want to buy a bigger battery) is really your only course of action. It's really not difficult to do, especially if you take the time to read up on it before jumping right in. With certain apps available out there (Odin) it's extremely difficult to brick your phone. Odin allows you to get your phone back to it's stock state almost regardless of what you do to it short of putting a GSM ROM on your CDMA phone...
Click to expand...

I haven't used a stock rom since I had the Moment. LOL. The day I brought my epic home I applied a one click root method. I was so blown away by the extended battery life on my Moment after rooting that I didn't think twice.

Im confused now because I've rooted my epic and removed all the unnecessary crap sprint puts on these things and the battery is still shabby. Where do you see the 'time without signal' meter? When I check battery usage I only see 'display' 'cell standby' and 'phone idle'. Is there an app out there that gives a more detailed explanation of whats using the battery?
 
Seddy said:
I haven't used a stock rom since I had the Moment. LOL. The day I brought my epic home I applied a one click root method. I was so blown away by the extended battery life on my Moment after rooting that I didn't think twice.

Im confused now because I've rooted my epic and removed all the unnecessary crap sprint puts on these things and the battery is still shabby. Where do you see the 'time without signal' meter? When I check battery usage I only see 'display' 'cell standby' and 'phone idle'. Is there an app out there that gives a more detailed explanation of whats using the battery?
Click to expand...

I just rooted my phone for the first time (any phone, as this is my first android phone) a little over a week ago. Honestly, every phone I get I will probably root it right out of the gate. Been a great experience, but it helped I read a ton before jumping in. I probably won't be an early adopter of anything simply because I rely on my phone too much and if I'm without it for an extended period of time, that could lead to bad things.

Time Without Signal = Settings -> About Phone -> Battery Use -> Cell Standby (click on it). That will give you TWOS as a percentage.

To answer your second question, yes, there is an app out there which will tell you what specifically is using your battery. I believe it's called "Spare Parts" but I've never used it, just read about it. Great reviews to get a good look at what's really going on.

As for the TWOS "bug", here's the gist: Most people seem to think it's draining your battery as it seemingly is ALWAYS searching for a GSM signal (see previous post as to why). However, many people have noted that the TWOS is usually exactly half of the uptime (or something like that, maybe it's double, I cannot remember right now) which really means it's not looking for a signal at all as it's had a perfectly fine CDMA signal the entire time it's been up. 50% + 50% = 100%. There's a good explanation in one of the posts in about a 350+ PAGE thread on XDA but I don't want to go searching for it right now.

So in the real world, it's not looking for a GSM signal, at least, not as far as the battery is concerned.

I would recommend putting a ROM on there for good battery life as well. I'm using the SyndicateROM Frozen (Standard) right now, and my battery is lasting MUCH longer than before. It has a scaleable kernal attached to it, so that probably makes the biggest difference. You can check out the thread for that ROM in the "All Things Root" section for more details. Highly recommended.
 
Was just 100%, took it off charger, checked time, closed everything but Meebo, turned screen back off then went to shower, checked it almost an hour later, 85%. It loses 15% in an hour from no use >.>, I sure hope rooting/roming will make that alot better.
 
ReignOfFire said:
Was just 100%, took it off charger, checked time, closed everything but Meebo, turned screen back off then went to shower, checked it almost an hour later, 85%. It loses 15% in an hour from no use >.>, I sure hope rooting/roming will make that alot better.
Click to expand...

is meebo an IM program? if its anything like aim was (and still might be) it never used to let my phone sleep. So i would lose battery 5 times faster since the phone was never actually sleeping (similiar to the media hub bug back a few months ago).
 
hayzooos said:
I just rooted my phone for the first time (any phone, as this is my first android phone) a little over a week ago. Honestly, every phone I get I will probably root it right out of the gate. Been a great experience, but it helped I read a ton before jumping in. I probably won't be an early adopter of anything simply because I rely on my phone too much and if I'm without it for an extended period of time, that could lead to bad things.

Time Without Signal = Settings -> About Phone -> Battery Use -> Cell Standby (click on it). That will give you TWOS as a percentage.

To answer your second question, yes, there is an app out there which will tell you what specifically is using your battery. I believe it's called "Spare Parts" but I've never used it, just read about it. Great reviews to get a good look at what's really going on.

As for the TWOS "bug", here's the gist: Most people seem to think it's draining your battery as it seemingly is ALWAYS searching for a GSM signal (see previous post as to why). However, many people have noted that the TWOS is usually exactly half of the uptime (or something like that, maybe it's double, I cannot remember right now) which really means it's not looking for a signal at all as it's had a perfectly fine CDMA signal the entire time it's been up. 50% + 50% = 100%. There's a good explanation in one of the posts in about a 350+ PAGE thread on XDA but I don't want to go searching for it right now.

So in the real world, it's not looking for a GSM signal, at least, not as far as the battery is concerned.

I would recommend putting a ROM on there for good battery life as well. I'm using the SyndicateROM Frozen (Standard) right now, and my battery is lasting MUCH longer than before. It has a scaleable kernal attached to it, so that probably makes the biggest difference. You can check out the thread for that ROM in the "All Things Root" section for more details. Highly recommended.
Click to expand...

I have a few questions about this SyndicateROM. Does it allow you to to install custom themes and mods? I was able to install these using the midNIGHT ROM and now that I have it, I would be crushed to lose it.

Also, what has to be done to go from one rom to another. If its too much to ask please point me to a thread with step by step instructions on the process. The reason i'm asking is because while getting the midNIGHT ROM, I had a problem when trying to do a hard reset using the death grip. The problem caused me to be without a phone until I got off work 8 hours later, and i dont want that to happen again.

Thanks in advance!

And BTW, todays battery test didnt go as planned. Second nature made me plug it in as soon as I got home without checking the 'time unplugged'. I blame the alcohol. LOL
 
Seddy said:
I have a few questions about this SyndicateROM. Does it allow you to to install custom themes and mods? I was able to install these using the midNIGHT ROM and now that I have it, I would be crushed to lose it.

Also, what has to be done to go from one rom to another. If its too much to ask please point me to a thread with step by step instructions on the process. The reason i'm asking is because while getting the midNIGHT ROM, I had a problem when trying to do a hard reset using the death grip. The problem caused me to be without a phone until I got off work 8 hours later, and i dont want that to happen again.

Thanks in advance!

And BTW, todays battery test didnt go as planned. Second nature made me plug it in as soon as I got home without checking the 'time unplugged'. I blame the alcohol. LOL
Click to expand...

1) Yes

2) My backup pro, nandroid backup, wipe (data, cache, dalvik) 3x, flash new rom
 
Newb pretty much hit the nail on the head. Yeah, you can theme and mod the crap out of SRF if you want to. I took pieces of the Emotionless Beast theme and put them over it just last night. Because of the ROM and kernal, you may have to verify whatever theme you're wanting to use is compatible with this ROM. Because of Carrier IQ, EXT4, etc. some of those older themes may not work.

And yes...make sure you have good backups and then just reflash after wiping the data/caches and then you can probably restore your apps. Restoring data usually isn't a good thing, but restoring the apps should be done. I've never had to use a backup, so I'm not even sure the right steps to take to restore your apps and the data that goes along with them (like game saves or something). If someone could post those up somewhere, I'm sure I'm not the only one who would benefit from them.
 
droid newb said:
1) Yes

2) My backup pro, nandroid backup, wipe (data, cache, dalvik) 3x, flash new rom
Click to expand...

Sounds simple enough... What If I dont wanna backup anything? Can I just skip to the wipe 3x then flash? All my contacts are backed up on Google and I have a list of all the apps I downloaded, and the apps I paid for pop up when I click 'my apps' in the market. All the texts and pictures I dont really care about and besides, the pictures that were sent to me can be dug up on sprint.com/picturemail so i'm good on that.

Thanks in advance

BTW. I toggled airplane mode and got some great results. I'm still going to try the SyndicateROM though.

17% of juice remaining
Time unplugged 10h 43m 54s
Cell Standby - 5%
Time without signal - 0% (it was 50% before toggling)

I figure I still have about 30 minutes of heavy usage before I get the 'connect your charger' message.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom