Root Need help making a decision please

[Scotlac]

Hi guys,

I recently upgraded my OG Evo to the Evo LTE. I'm having a few issues with the phone and I'm thinking about jumping ship to the Galaxy S3. I've always been a huge fan of the community around the Evo and I'm hoping you guys can talk me down off the ledge.

My main concern is the battery life. I'm just not very impressed with the battery life on this phone. For instance, I'm at 70% right now, the phone's been off the charger for 8 hours but it's only got 30 minutes screen on time. It's basically just been sitting in my pocket all day. The best I've done so far is 3.5 hours of screen on time. I got at least that good of battery life on my OG Evo with custom ROM/kernel.

By comparison, people on the S3 forums are reporting 5-6 hours of screen on time. There are days when I'm a fairly heavy user and battery life is quite important to me. Couple that with the non-removable battery and I'm a little concerned about this phone.

I'm certain that once we get some custom kernels floating around that battery life will improve but I've noticed that most of the battery drain comes from the screen and I'm not sure how much kernels can improve that......

Again, I loved my OG Evo and I really, really like this phone as well. What are your thoughts on the matter? Do you think it's possible for this phone to get 5-6 hours screen on time with a custom kernel?

Thanks so much for your advice!

 

[pwrmedia]

Hi guys,

I recently upgraded my OG Evo to the Evo LTE. I'm having a few issues with the phone and I'm thinking about jumping ship to the Galaxy S3. I've always been a huge fan of the community around the Evo and I'm hoping you guys can talk me down off the ledge.

My main concern is the battery life. I'm just not very impressed with the battery life on this phone. For instance, I'm at 70% right now, the phone's been off the charger for 8 hours but it's only got 30 minutes screen on time. It's basically just been sitting in my pocket all day. The best I've done so far is 3.5 hours of screen on time. I got at least that good of battery life on my OG Evo with custom ROM/kernel.

By comparison, people on the S3 forums are reporting 5-6 hours of screen on time. There are days when I'm a fairly heavy user and battery life is quite important to me. Couple that with the non-removable battery and I'm a little concerned about this phone.

I'm certain that once we get some custom kernels floating around that battery life will improve but I've noticed that most of the battery drain comes from the screen and I'm not sure how much kernels can improve that......

Again, I loved my OG Evo and I really, really like this phone as well. What are your thoughts on the matter? Do you think it's possible for this phone to get 5-6 hours screen on time with a custom kernel?

Thanks so much for your advice!

To be honest, I asked myself this question less than 48 hours after I purchased the LTEvo last week as well. Once the phone settled in, and I stopped doing any major tweaks for the time being, the battery config began to set in and its life improved dramatically. I've gone from 8-10 hours initially w/ the same screen-on time you've mentioned, and increased to right around 16hrs on average.

One thing that a lot of people forget to factor in regards to screen-on time is exactly WHAT the phone is doing while the screen is on. For example, you'll get less batt. drain running a music player as opposed to streaming a movie. Or, using Wifi primarily over Sprint's 3G. YMMV.

So, while you'll probably still feel the itch to jump to the S3 after reading this, please understand that you'll encounter the same issues w/ that phone as well, or any device for that matter. More usage = more drain. Custom kernel or not, the variance between what you're running and the amount of time your screen remains on is going to be large, regardless of phone.

 

[EarlyMon]

I ran mine unmodified for a week, and I was able to get a consistent battery drain of 10% per hour while streaming anime via wifi with the screen on auto-brightness.

That's 10 hours (theoretically) of screen on/wifi streaming time.

Something's not ok with your basic config.

Even though it's a not root question, let's discuss it here and see where your next best step is.

Let's start with your cell signal - try Open Signal Maps - are you tower hopping or is your phone getting a signal dropout or something?

Once we have the basics covered, then we can discuss root options to improve even more.

Hope this helps!

 

[Scotlac]

I ran mine unmodified for a week, and I was able to get a consistent battery drain of 10% per hour while streaming anime via wifi with the screen on auto-brightness.

That's 10 hours (theoretically) of screen on/wifi streaming time.

Something's not ok with your basic config.

Even though it's a not root question, let's discuss it here and see where your next best step is.

Let's start with your cell signal - try Open Signal Maps - are you tower hopping or is your phone getting a signal dropout or something?

Once we have the basics covered, then we can discuss root options to improve even more.

Hope this helps!

You see!! This is why I love this community so much. I've never met a more helpful group of people in my life.

I'm not familiar with this app but I just downloaded it. It does appear by looking at the map that the signal is jumping around between 2-3 different towers.

What other info do you need?

Thanks so much Mon!!

 

[Granite1]

Like Early Mon pointed out, signal strength plays a large role in your battery consumption. Today I was able to run my battery down to around 30% after 10 hours. That was with 80% without a signal. What that means is my phone was pumping power into the radios 80% of the time to try and connect to the network. I had my OG evo in the same environment a few weeks ago, and I was only getting 5-6 hours to completely dead with that signal strength.

Screen on time is a major drain to your battery no doubt, but there are more factors to consider. Are you connecting to mobile data while the screen is on? Are you utilizing 3G or WiFi when available? Do you have every data hungry app syncing constantly in the background?

These factors will play a major role in your battery consumption, no matter what phone you have, even the iPhone. Conservation of energy is a comological constant, you can't get something without giving something in return.

Tweaking your setup will help this dramatically, and like EM stated above root only options will help even more. No matter what you choose, we're here to help you on your quest. Just ask and We'll do our best to get you where you want to be.

 

[EarlyMon]

You see!! This is why I love this community so much. I've never met a more helpful group of people in my life.

I'm not familiar with this app but I just downloaded it. It does appear by looking at the map that the signal is jumping around between 2-3 different towers.

What other info do you need?

Thanks so much Mon!!

My pleasure, we're all in this together.

I've had the original Evo, the Evo 3D, now this one - this one's radio is, from what I can see, every bit the equal of the OG Evo (lab tests put it a skunk's hair below the OG, but in practice, it should be great).

That sort of tower performance is going to kill any phone, so we need to see if it's your towers and some freak thing that happened just when you got your phone - or if you have a flaky phone - or if you've always had that going on, it's just more noticeable now.

First, please update your PRL and Profile in that order, see if that stabilizes it.

If not, next, try going maybe a quarter mile in any direction from your house and see if the problem changes and you get a solid lock.

If you do, call Sprint, and have them get going on tower maintenance for you, and ask for the schedule - if you get any run-arounds (pretty likely), ask to talk with Tier 3 support (with a smile in your voice).

If you can't get a good lock anywhere, ask Sprint to schedule an appointment for you at your nearest store/service center for an RF test on your phone. I had that with my Evo 3D, turns out it was a bad radio section, that test got mine cheerfully replaced, instead of a runaround.

Reach Sprint by dialing *2 on your phone and tapping the option to talk to them.

If they want you to reset your phone, ok, but first go in to Wallet and reset it from within the app so you don't brick it.

Sorry, hope this helps!

 

[Scotlac]

I updated PRL and Profile. I appear to be getting a more solid lock on the tower. I'll see how that affects my battery life tomorrow.

Screen on time is a major drain to your battery no doubt, but there are more factors to consider. Are you connecting to mobile data while the screen is on? Are you utilizing 3G or WiFi when available? Do you have every data hungry app syncing constantly in the background?

I have the phone connected to WiFi when that's available and I'm using Juice Defender to manage connections when the screen is off. I've got everything that's syncing set to it's longest interval.

Thanks again guys!

 

[Granite1]

I updated PRL and Profile. I appear to be getting a more solid lock on the tower. I'll see how that affects my battery life tomorrow.



I have the phone connected to WiFi when that's available and I'm using Juice Defender to manage connections when the screen is off. I've got everything that's syncing set to it's longest interval.

Thanks again guys!

No problem any time.

I'm glad the PRL and profile update helped.

Pretty soon we should have custom kernels to use, so once those drop we'll probably see much better battery consumption.

 

[Scotlac]

Wow, I can already tell that updating the PRL and Profile has made a HUGE difference! It's odd though because you would think something like that would show up in the power consumption list.

I'll report back later with just exactly how much of a difference it's made but in the meantime maybe you guys could help address a couple of other concerns that I have.

1. The whites on my screen have a distinct yellowish tint. I saw several people speaking about how this might be related to the glue drying and that it would get better as time went on. I do believe that mine has gotten less obvious over the last few days but it's still definitely there. How does your screen look? Is this something I should wait to see if it improves or just go ahead and exchange it? (Thursday is Day 14 for me so I have to make a decision soon)

2. I read somewhere that Myn was jumping ship to the S3 because the same model was going to be on all of the major carriers. This got me worried about the dev support on this device. Do you guys still feel like we're going to have a strong developer community working on the Evo LTE?

As always, thanks for your help!

 

[pwrmedia]

Wow, I can already tell that updating the PRL and Profile has made a HUGE difference! It's odd though because you would think something like that would show up in the power consumption list.

I'll report back later with just exactly how much of a difference it's made but in the meantime maybe you guys could help address a couple of other concerns that I have.

1. The whites on my screen have a distinct yellowish tint. I saw several people speaking about how this might be related to the glue drying and that it would get better as time went on. I do believe that mine has gotten less obvious over the last few days but it's still definitely there. How does your screen look? Is this something I should wait to see if it improves or just go ahead and exchange it? (Thursday is Day 14 for me so I have to make a decision soon)

2. I read somewhere that Myn was jumping ship to the S3 because the same model was going to be on all of the major carriers. This got me worried about the dev support on this device. Do you guys still feel like we're going to have a strong developer community working on the Evo LTE?

As always, thanks for your help!

1) My screen looks fine, though admittedly I'm not as observant as others in regards to different hues, saturations, etc. As long as I can tell what colors are what, I'm fine.

2) Considering the phone has been out for less than one month (10 days if you want to start from "official" release date), the amount of developer support shown thus far is a positive sign. There isn't too much that can be done kernel wise @ the moment as HTC hasn't released source yet, but tweaking and misc. goodness rolls out daily. So no need to worry, this phone is going to see a lot of lovin' for quite a while!

 

[Scotlac]

So, yesterday at this time I was 8 hours in with 70% battery left. I had 30 minutes of screen on time and I had basically done nothing with the phone except tote it around in my pocket.

Today, with just the PRL and Profile updates, at 8 hours in I have 61% but this has been a much heavier day. That's 1 hour and 15 minutes of screen on time, much of which was surfing the web over 3G, plus 30 minutes of voice calls.

All in all, I would say that is a very significant improvement!!

 

[Granite1]

Yup, signal strength plays a big role in battery life. Glad you got it worked out!

Stick around with the root crowd, there's going be some really cool stuff dropping in the near future.

As always any questions you have, just post em up. We'll do our best to help you out.