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FYI on extended battery and app killers

markdoc

markdoc

Android Expert
As a relative newbie to Android I had lots of trouble deciding on whether or not to get the extended battery and more importantly to use an app killer or not. There's a lot of info out there and I found opinions going both ways. Here's what I did and the proof that for me, I was right.
First, I got the OEM extended battery. At first the battery gave me 10 - 12 hours compared to 5 - 6 hours on the original battery. Good, but not great. With each charge it got a little better.
Then, after reading a good article on NOT using app killers and seeing that 75 - 80% of my battery life went to the display("Settings", "About phone", "Battery use") I uninstalled my app killer. This was a week ago.

Well my extended battery just needed a recharge at 15% and I looked in the settings under "About phone" and "Battery". I switched from the original to extended battery last charge(I charge my unused battery in the HTC dock while out of the phone). "Up time" was 32 hours and "Awake time" was 14. You can decide for yourself but I am convinced I made the right decision. I hope this helps anyone else trying to decide.
 
So youre saying it was better not to use the app killer and got tons more time out of the extended battery by not doing so?
 
OP you are correct, task killers are pointless on Android. What people do not realize is Android is Linux not Windows. Windows will allow things to eat CPU cycles in the background and go unchecked. Android does not do so. While there may be processes in the background they are not using cycles. When additional memory is needed Android will kill tasks that are not needed currently. If you use a task killer it may try to kill a task that will then open itself again then the process starts over. A task can not open without using cycles so you will see the loops eat into your battery life and possibly cause the phone to lag. While every once in a while there will be a rogue app that needs to be killed you can do it with Android's built in task manager. Settings > Applications > manage apps > click on rogue app > click force stop (don't bother trying this with system apps :))
 
markdoc said:
Yup. I got lots more time by doing both. Here's the link to the article I read FAQ: Why You Shouldn’t Be Using a Task Killer with Android. It pretty much says the same thing as Yeahha. The main crux is Linux vs Windows. If you check your battery usage you'll see that all the apps together use maybe 10% - 15% of the total battery charge. What's the point in an appt killer? It just uses a little more battery (very little) because it's on all the time
Click to expand...


The way it hurts the battery is killing processes that then reopen over and over
 
markdoc said:
As a relative newbie to Android I had lots of trouble deciding on whether or not to get the extended battery and more importantly to use an app killer or not. There's a lot of info out there and I found opinions going both ways. Here's what I did and the proof that for me, I was right.
First, I got the OEM extended battery. At first the battery gave me 10 - 12 hours compared to 5 - 6 hours on the original battery. Good, but not great. With each charge it got a little better.
Then, after reading a good article on NOT using app killers and seeing that 75 - 80% of my battery life went to the display("Settings", "About phone", "Battery use") I uninstalled my app killer. This was a week ago.

Well my extended battery just needed a recharge at 15% and I looked in the settings under "About phone" and "Battery". I switched from the original to extended battery last charge(I charge my unused battery in the HTC dock while out of the phone). "Up time" was 32 hours and "Awake time" was 14. You can decide for yourself but I am convinced I made the right decision. I hope this helps anyone else trying to decide.
Click to expand...
My friend has a Thunderbolt (so do I) and instead of buying the extended battery for $140.00 he just purchased a tag along battery that you simply plug in, doubling your battery life for only $40.00 from Verizon. I am thinking about doing the same.
 
Has anyone else here been disabling their task killers and finding increased battery life? Is there a scientific way to prove this theory??
 
There's some LONG scientific posts about that very topic.

But shortened version is: Linux is not windows, having apps cached in the background doesn't use any battery. Killing those apps means more memory and CPU use to restart from scratch.

If your killing an app that is supposed to be running all the time ie maps, it will restart and get killed, and restart over and over again waisting battery..

The only apps that really kill battery running in the background are ones that are syncing. If its not syncing, leave it alone.
Of course apps like mail and weather you may want syncing, or apps like phandroid, you may not..

Bottom line, task killers are a bad idea, just keep an eye on running programs and go from there.
 
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