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Help New Triumph owner--poor battery life

veg-0-matic

veg-0-matic

Member
So I got my Triumph last week (mfg date 11/11) and while I love the big screen, I'm going out of my mind with the lousy battery life! So far today, I unplugged from charger (12+ hours) at 7:30AM. Turned on Bluetooth for 45 mnutes and other than that, have not used at all. At 9:00 the battery was at 85% and at 10:00 it was 70%. It's now 11:00 and the battery is at 60%--and I haven't even used the phone! I'm not in a poor signal area.
I have Easy Battery Saver in Super mode (WF/BT/3G off unless being used). Originally had Juice Defender but it didn't seem to be doing anything at all. Screen brightness is low, Auto Sync is off.
Am I doing something wrong here? I've read through all the battery posts and I don't think I'm missing anything. My OV started out with dismal battery life, then it suddenly jumped tremendously when I stopped using and uninstalled the Facebook app. I don't have the FB app installed on this phone.
I called Virgin yesterday, but because the phone is less than 30 days old, they said to return it to Amazon and get a replacement. I don't want to do that because I'll be without a phone. I'll try to squeak by for 30 days this way and try to get Virgin to replace either the phone or the battery, because I'm pretty sure they'll send a replacement before I send back mine.
Is this battery life unusually bad for the Triumph? Or are my expectations just too high?
Thanks!
veg
P.S. I plan to eventually install CM7 on the phone, but not until I'm sure I have a good one.
 
I just noticed that "Time spent without sleeping" equals the amount of time since being unplugged. Shouldn't the phone be sleeping while the screen is off?
 
veg-0-matic said:
So I got my Triumph last week (mfg date 11/11) and while I love the big screen, I'm going out of my mind with the lousy battery life! So far today, I unplugged from charger (12+ hours) at 7:30AM. Turned on Bluetooth for 45 mnutes and other than that, have not used at all.
Click to expand...
FWIW, I don't run any sort of Battery maximizer SW. I use BT on the way into work for 35+ minutes when I am streaming Pandora to the car radio, just after coming off a full charge when leaving the house. My email is being checked every 5 minutes. It can go all day.

You probably have a mis-calibrated battery. You can't wipe the calibration without being rooted (and then I'm not sure what file to remove). But go through some full charge and discharge cycles. I think it takes 3, and see if the predicted remaining is a bit better.

Or it is possible you have a sub-optimal battery. Suggest then you call Motorola and tell them you want a replacement battery gratis. After all, their site fails to even list it as an accessory for purchase, but they have them.

When you get it... charge it fully before using and then some. Run it all the way down, till the phone auto-shuts off. Then charge it all the way back up. Do this a few times so it can calibrate properly.

There may be a quick way of doing this if rooted, maybe one charge cycle, not sure. Google it.
 
I had poor battery life with Juice Defender "Free". I bought the full-version and I havent had an issue since. I chose "Aggressive" for the scenario and I can leave my phone unattended for 2-3 days and still have 50-60% battery left. Of course, JD wont help if your a heavy-user. It only hepls when the phone isnt being used by turning off services etc. I alos had to creater "rules" for streaming music so that the service isnt halted when the screen goes dark - easy process though.

Im also running the MIUI OS - not sure if thats helping.

Im very happy with my MT as it is now. Great battery life and very reliable.
 
Well, it looks even worse today. I had BT on for about 90 minutes, made a 2 minute phone call and sent one email. Phone has been idle most of the day. Took it off charger at 7:30 this morning and at 2:30 PM, battery level is 17%.
I installed Badass Battery Monitor yesterday and it said that the email program woke device in the area of 870,000 times. That seemed a little high (!!) to me so I deleted my email (Exchange) account and recreated it. When I checked this morning, the monitor said that email only woke device two times.
So when I looked earlier, the monitor said that the Android system was using 97% of the power, and email only like 0.3%. Checking it right now says that The Android system is using 33.2% and email is up to 16.4%. And now email says number of times waking device is 1,250,448.0 with 55 Wake locks. I have no idea what Wake Locks are...
Is my phone borked? It's not going to do me much good if the battery runs out without really even using it.
 
Wakelock (3 different types I think) are called to keep the system from sleeping and/or the screen on during certain processes that should not be interrupted.

Sounds like you've found your problem... Your email program.

Is there some settings in it, like maybe set it to manual or something, so it only checks email when you open it? Maybe try a different app for it?
 
the stock rom isnt great with battery. that much is fact.

I myself NEED extreme battery life so instead of futzing around with battery extending apps and BS like that, I just went all out and bought 3 spare batteries at 5$ each on ebay. now I worry less about the length of individual charges and just swap.

however, the CM7 reloaded rom is THE best as far as battery life is concerned. none of the froyo roms or ICS compare.

I left it on 3G only and havent charged it since yesterday morning. its barely at 70% with light use. with heavy use it drops down to 0 in 8-10 hours, thats why I carrys the spare batteries, but its still much improved over the stock rom and froyo roms, which did nothing near this for me.

and yes, some apps will drain battery without telling you so in the battery stats screen.

Maps is known for this, as well as Email (not Gmail) and less common is the fact that MOST free apps have advertisements, the ad system in the app pulls data from 3G and uses the GPS even when the phone is sleeping, destroying any chance you had of getting good battery life.

one solution is to install ad-free android. if you like helping the devs and dont mind ads, thats fine and good, but installing ad-free is really for the benefit of the phones battery. i noticed a huge improvement with it, becuase i always suspected ads were a major drain. now the story is out over all the tech blogs
 
Well, it gets a little stranger.
Tuesday, the battery had completely run down at 4:00 and the phone shut itself off. I charged it overnight and then yesterday, after using the phone more than I ever have (though still not that much, really), I still had 40% battery left when I put it on to charge at 10:PM! I don't understand this at all.
I checked email several times, had BT on for maybe an hour, took a couple of pictures, checked FB a number of times (leaving the browser open as long as I could to see how much the battery would drain), and played several rounds of Words With Friends.
Today at 11:00, battery is at 85%, having used BT for 45 minutes and sent two emails.

I have every intention of installing CM7, I just want to wait a bit until the battery situation is settled and I'm reasonably sure I don't have to return my phone.

Thanks for all the help! I can't wait to see how the battery's going to do today.
 
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