Help Help me get better battery life

[Wayno-san]

Hi,
I got my EVO about 3 days ago and for the first couple of days I got horrid battery life. I'm talking about 4 hours, 5 max. Since then I've read through a ton of battery threads and made some changes... mainly in disabling 4g, Wifi, bluetooth, and GPS when I don't need them, changing the update frequencies of most of the background programs. When I disabled the google talk application and updated the PRL my battery life made a turn for the better. After charging the phone before I went to bed last night it lasted ~16 hours... mind you the first few it was just sitting on the cupboard while I slept. The phone "Awake Time" was 17.4% of the total time. I guess I would consider this light usage?

I still think I may be having a problem because the drain under load seems excessive at about 10% per 30 minutes of moderate surfing. Just surfing here, not streaming videos or playing 3D games. Also, I noticed that the signal strength often varies wildly... like from 2 bars, to filled bars, back down to 1 bar, all withing a second or so. Is this normal?

I've included some relevant screenshots and am hoping for some feedback on what you guys think. Is this the best I can expect or is there still something I can try.

Other info:
Not running live wallpaper
Mobile Network always connected (settings in attachment)
Roaming (automatic)
Background data (ON)
Auto Sync (On)
Facebook for HTC Sense, live feed & contacts (8 hours)
Google (Calendar, contacts, and gmail)
News (manual)
Stocks (4 hours)
Weather (3 hours)

Thanks in advance.

 

[htcevolee]

Kill facebook for a day or so if you can live without it and see if that helps. Also try chargin via USB to computer vs wall outlet. Also make sure to get a good full charge and discharge then recharge full.

Maybe where you live you dont get great cell reception? How many bars do you avg.? i disable BT and GPS unless in need it.

 

[Wayno-san]

@htcevolee:
Facebook only syncs every 8 hours so should be OK I would think. I'm trying the USB charging method tonight and will see if it makes a difference (aside from taking longer to charge). I've read that it does.

Where I live is fine... I get about 5 bars... where I work is another story... usually 1 or 2 bars. I work on the 4th floor and reception there is worse than on the ground floor for some reason. I guess Sprint towers do not radiate much in the vertical plane.

BT and GPS are only enabled when needed just like you do... although I noticed that GPS is pretty good about not being actively on unless used (if you can believe the little satellite dish icon).

 

[htcevolee]

If it dies faster at work then its because you get bad reception. The phone constantly searches for good reception in bad reception areas and kills the battery quick. We had this issue in our building so we put in Sprint repeaters inside our building and now our batterys last ALOT longer. =)

Dont forget to update your PRL today, new version came out.

 

[Wayno-san]

The PRLs do not automatically update?

 

[htcevolee]

No Sir you have to do it from the Settings Software update manually. Current version is 60667

 

[Wayno-san]

@htcevolee,
Are you serious?!? I would have thought that the process now-a-days would be a little bit more automated than that. Seems like this would put a strain on Sprint customer support from people complaining about coverage/signal strength only to have them tell you that you just need to update your PRL.

I used the USB charging method last night but my usage was totally different so it's impossible to say if it made any improvement. I did what I would describe as "heavy surfing", watching video and such - attached is the resulting discharge curve. It looks like the discharge rate is roughly 25% per hour! I'm also not sure why the discharge rate increased at around 11:00, I didn't touch the phone until about 11:45 (which you can see as the screen turning on).

I was surfing over WiFi from just after 1:00 to about 2:00, and then I switched to 3G. The discharge rate appears to be about the same with either radio which appears to contradict what some have said; that WiFi uses a lot less juice. It would be helpful to see the actual current draw with both radios before making a conclusion.

I'd love to see or hear how this compares to others' experience when using the phone in a similar fashion. Please post your charts if possible.

 

[rickyaustin]

Just FYI you don't need to disable GPS, it only sucks power when you're doing something that is asking for it. It's not like the 3G radio constantly searching/connecting/using power.

I was getting less than 4 hours on standby, and my issue was solved with a combination of a complete reformat of the phone and SDCard and better app management.

I don't know if the reformat helped or not, but it helped me personally start from scratch. I had a couple things pulling constant 3G that I didn't know, and getting those worked out were key. I now have gone 18+ hours to about 30% battery.