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Help OK, let's get real with battery life

S

Stingrayracing

Newbie
I have had my Bionic for about a week now and undecided about turning it in for a Razr. I love the phone but unsure about the battery life. Not sure if it will get any better with Razr either. Battery reports for the Bionic have been across the spectrum but everyone uses their phone differently. I am a light to moderate user and I get 11-13 hours per charge on 3G only in a weak signal area with the standard battery. So to get somewhat of a base line of what to expect with the Bionic please post:

*Hours you get per charge
*3G or LTE
*Signal strength
*Light, moderate, or heavy user
*Wifi use
*Any other pertinent data

I know when ICS is launched some of this will change (hopefully). Thanks for taking your time to give me your thoughts. I know the Razr already has some issues from the posts I have seen. I guess it is all a crap shoot until you actually use the phone for a while.
 
The results will be inconclusive. The approach used by different people is too wide. If you are using a mobile hotspot the drain is probably within the first hour. If you are using one of the teather approaches the drain is probably faster than the charge coming in on the USB cable.

The Razr does not have an extended battery. Logic would tell me that the Razr will be about the same as Bionic with standard battery.

GPS usage uses a lot of battery. Do people have GPS on or off? Do they even know? It is not obvious but the social locator App (whatever its called) uses GPS.

Conclusion ... too many variables for a simple "answers all" answer.

If you like the Razr ... buy the Razr.

I like the Bionic.

... Thom
 
I'll back up what Thom's comments. There's so many variables that it's very difficult to compare. The big thing to think about with the Bionic is that you can either buy an extended battery or a spare battery to last you through the day. With the Razr, you're pretty much SOL if you run low on battery and aren't near someplace to charge.

I prefer the Bionic myself also.
 
However, notice what he is saying - he's getting 11-13 hours on the stock battery.

That's not bad at all.

Last night my extended battery on similar usage again gave me well over 30 hours of life. I believe it finally collapsed after pushing 33+ hours.

Extended battery
Hours per charge: 15-18 Use: Heavy
Hours per charge: 28-34 Use: Light
Signal Strength: 90%+ full strength (4 bars)
Signal type: 3G away from home, WiFi at home
Battery and Data settings (Settings --> Battery & data manager:

  • --> Battery mode: Performance
  • --> Data saver: Disabled
  • --> Data delivery:
    • Background data: Enabled
    • Data roaming: Disabled
    • Data enabled: Enabled
    • --> Social applications:
      • Sync over WiFi only: Disabled
      • Data delivery frequency: Push
 
The Bionic and Razr have above average battery life with LTE disabled. If LTE is enabled their battery life is quite poor. The Bionic has the option of an extended battery however(This by itself is why I consider the Bionic to be a better phone). It gives the Bionic basically enough power for you to use the phone however you want all day in an LTE area without having to worry about running out.(Do expect to charge nightly however)

AnandTech - Motorola Droid Bionic Review - Dual Core with 4G LTE
 
Bottom line: smartphones drain batteries and if you do a lot on it no matter what phone/battery combo you won't make it 24 hours.
 
If you're not happy with the standard battery life, Verizon is selling an extended battery with the required back for $25. It does add some weight and thickness to the phone, it isn't bad and at least for me it's a reasonable tradeoff. For a comparison the Bionic with the extended battery is about as thick and heavy as an original Driod.
 
marine one said:
If you're not happy with the standard battery life, Verizon is selling an extended battery with the required back for $25. It does add some weight and thickness to the phone, it isn't bad and at least for me it's a reasonable tradeoff. For a comparison the Bionic with the extended battery is about as thick and heavy as an original Driod.
Click to expand...


I am quite a fan of the extended battery, I had one on my OG Droid and I must admit the Bionic is still a bit lighter and thinner than the OG, in fact if I don't have the extended in the phone feels too thin and light to me.

My usage easily gets through the day, if its a work day I'll have 60% at the end of the day depending on usage, 40% on the weekends.

Lowest I ever got it was 20% on a friday that I used 4 hours of the screen and an hour of gps, which to me is super heavy usage.
 
After I got the replacement Bionic, my battery life with 4G has been good. I may use 30% during the day. It is night and day difference from the first Bionic I had. I use the extended battery and it stays in 4G 98% of the time.

Kevin
 
marine one said:
If you're not happy with the standard battery life, Verizon is selling an extended battery with the required back for $25. It does add some weight and thickness to the phone, it isn't bad and at least for me it's a reasonable tradeoff. For a comparison the Bionic with the extended battery is about as thick and heavy as an original Driod.
Click to expand...

Is there something special that needs to be done to get this price? I get all the way up to the final Checkout button and the price is still >$37 following my company's employee discount.
 
I am running an extended battery in my bionic. i get 10+ hours on my phone with moderate use. i live in an area without 4g and where i work signal is very poor. gps is always off unless i use navigator and most of the time its not on unless an app is using it. bluetooth is off as well since i dont use any sort of bluetooth. where 3g signal is strong my battery can last 30+ hours with light use. 4g usually kills my battery faster and using wifi where available also saves battery.
 
@$100 it is not really worth it IMO.

With the Motorola extended battery I get a full day's (heavy) use out of the phone on a single charge, and it only cost $25. I got two of them for half the price of that 1 Mugen and I can swap at any time I want for ~30 hours of very heavy use, or, ~34 hours of light use.

In fact, I set a new record with my battery last night - see pics.

New record 1.jpg

New record 2.jpg

Yes, that is 24 hours plus 14 hours for a grand total of 38 hours on a single charge on my extended battery.
 
John I notice that you're on wifi half the time. Have you tried without wifi on? Whenever I am on wifi I notice i get longer battery life. My workplace has weak signals and no wifi so I get 12+ hours of moderate use and less than 10 on heavy use. However at home where the signal is much better and I have wifi I know I can get 30+ when it's idling. Usually I am on the computer so I tend to leave my phone alone.
 
I'm on my first day of using the bionic after initial set up. I only connected my email (Yahoo), Facebook, and Twitter accounts during the initial setup (..of course Google too).

So far I'm on 12.5 hrs from taking it off the charger and I have 30% battery left.

Pretty impressive for a 4g Android phone. Hopefully this type of battery life holds up.
 
You probably already know ... it is a good idea to "condition" your battery ... let it go to 0% then charge it to 100% ... repeat this three times.

... Thom
 
amageus said:
John I notice that you're on wifi half the time. Have you tried without wifi on? Whenever I am on wifi I notice i get longer battery life. My workplace has weak signals and no wifi so I get 12+ hours of moderate use and less than 10 on heavy use. However at home where the signal is much better and I have wifi I know I can get 30+ when it's idling. Usually I am on the computer so I tend to leave my phone alone.
Click to expand...

I haven't thought about that - I still get decent results when I am out of the house more than half a day, with no WiFi access, though.

I hate to turn off WiFi at home, but I'll try to do it soon as a test.
 
Thom Little said:
You probably already know ... it is a good idea to "condition" your battery ... let it go to 0% then charge it to 100% ... repeat this three times.

... Thom
Click to expand...

Not to call you out but conditioning/burning in/breaking in does not exist for these kinds of batteries. It's an urban legend.

Any difference you notice in battery life is purely coincidental and a result of any number of a bunch of different variables(Background apps running, reception differences, usage, etc..). Battery life has the appearance of getting better with time only because people play with their phones less once the new factor wears off.

Not once has any professional examination of the effects of conditioning these kinds of batteries resulted in a conclusion other than one suggesting that battery conditioning is nonexistent; There is no evidence what so ever to suggest that battery conditioning does anything at all.
 
dguy said:
Not to call you out but conditioning/burning in/breaking in does not exist for these kinds of batteries. It's an urban legend.

Any difference you notice in battery life is purely coincidental and a result of any number of a bunch of different variables(Background apps running, reception differences, usage, etc..). Battery life has the appearance of getting better with time only because people play with their phones less once the new factor wears off.

Not once has any professional examination of the effects of conditioning these kinds of batteries resulted in a conclusion other than one suggesting that battery conditioning is nonexistent; There is no evidence what so ever to suggest that battery conditioning does anything at all.
Click to expand...


So you never let your battery die all the way down then fully charge it?
 
dguy said:
Not to call you out but conditioning/burning in/breaking in does not exist for these kinds of batteries. It's an urban legend.

Any difference you notice in battery life is purely coincidental and a result of any number of a bunch of different variables(Background apps running, reception differences, usage, etc..). Battery life has the appearance of getting better with time only because people play with their phones less once the new factor wears off.

Not once has any professional examination of the effects of conditioning these kinds of batteries resulted in a conclusion other than one suggesting that battery conditioning is nonexistent; There is no evidence what so ever to suggest that battery conditioning does anything at all.
Click to expand...

Conventional wisdom seems to agree with your conclusiopn.

I do it on all new batteries. I don't have any battery problems. Wifi is on always. GPS is on always. Social locator is never on. The majority of my data transfer is Wifi.

It at least makes the owner of the device aware of what they are doing instead of chanting BSOD BSOD BSOD ...

In many cases they just weren't doing what they thought they were.

(I documented your commend in http://androidforums.com/motorola-droid-bionic/421050-useful-how-tos-tips.html item 12. Thanks.)

... Thom
 
dguy said:
Not to call you out but conditioning/burning in/breaking in does not exist for these kinds of batteries. It's an urban legend.

Any difference you notice in battery life is purely coincidental and a result of any number of a bunch of different variables(Background apps running, reception differences, usage, etc..). Battery life has the appearance of getting better with time only because people play with their phones less once the new factor wears off.

Not once has any professional examination of the effects of conditioning these kinds of batteries resulted in a conclusion other than one suggesting that battery conditioning is nonexistent; There is no evidence what so ever to suggest that battery conditioning does anything at all.
Click to expand...

While you say that, I have empirical proof with my previous phone (Motorola DROID) that conditioning the battery and using it the same as I was normally using it gave me over 2 hours more time on my 1.5 year old battery than before conditioning.

I've pored over loads and loads of literature (mostly online) saying the exact opposite of what I experienced, but one thing you have to realize is that at least a small part of the battery performance in an Android phone is based upon the built in (to the operating system) battery statistics that it creates and keeps a log of. The conditioning process doesn't necessarily remove those stats unless you're rooted (which I am, both on my BIONIC and previously on my DROID) but conditioning the battery, with an inclusion of battery stat wiping, gave me new life on the same battery that I had been using in the phone for the previous year.

The full discharging followed by the full charge may not have accounted for anything, but the erasing of the pre-existing battery stats surely did.

2 hours of extra juice is nothing to sneeze at when you're using Nav every day, using Pandora every day for 4-5 hours per charge, etc. - I'm talking some pretty heavy loads on the phone on a continuous basis while unplugged.
 
I can +1 everything that John stated for my Motorola Droid ( which I'm still using until tomorrow when my Bionic that I just ordered Friday arrives ). Between conditioning my battery for 5 recharge cycles and whatever the phone's OS learned with the battery statics... my Droid has had substantially longer battery life than when I first got it. Prior to the conditioning, after a full day of work, I'd normally have around 30% - 40% battery left and afterword that increased around 20% more overall...

Those types of increases have been reported by enough users that my repeating them doesn't add much to the discussion other than just one more similar report.

What else I've got to add though may or may not apply to cell phone LIPO batteries... It applies to the RC ( radio control ) model industry for electric airplane, car, and boats using the LIPO batteries they commonly use.

The RC LIPO batteries have a stabilizing chemical added to them in order to lengthen their life while in storage at the warehouse and on the retailer's shelves. The stabilizer is used to limit battery drain during that time period. It is neutralized by conditioning the batteries with around 5 charge/recharge cycles.

I also need to point out that there is a BIG difference in the type of LIPO's used in RC models vs the ones used in a cell phone. A RC LIPO is capable of a very high current output where the cell phones do not need that type of current. As a result, the RC LIPO isn't expected to have a very long working life, their on shelf storage charge ( when it isn't being used at all ) is also limited compared to a cell phones LIPO which will retain it's charge much longer when not in use. In otherwords, an RC LIPO will not retain a full charge for very long when it is just on the shelf... a cell phone's LIPO can retain it's charge much longer when not in use.

So the chemistry used in both types of LIPO's is different and what applies to an RC model battery may not apply to a cell phone's battery... but it does show that there is good chance that conditioning a battery for a cell does have some possible correlation since other types of LIPO batteries do require it.
 
Hey johngalt i have you beat hehe and with plenty of battery life left hehe. This is with very light use of my phone. My phone is 100% on 3G. I used it to check my messages and very few calls. Usually I have IMO running in the background but havent turned it on all weekend. I been home most of the time and did a few store trips. So far the best battery time ived had. I did recently apply the powerboost from the Purity 2.5 pax which also seemed to have fixed my 3G drops i was having recently.

CAP201111280233.png


CAP2011112802331.png
 
Lol - nice - but my phone was on more than yours was.

Still, though, these are more than good enough results for me not to worry about having to do much else to the phone - in standby mode it gets great battery life, an in performance mode with heavy use I can still get a working day's worth of use from my extended battery.

Can't shake a stick at that.
 
I've had the Bionic basically since it came out and the battery life has been the major drawback for me. I have to carry a charger with me whereever I go regardless of usage or reception. It will only last half a day.

I was scoping some after-market extended batteries on amazon but then found out about the (no-login trick) $25 extended battery discount on the vzw site. Just ordered it! Hopefully my woes will be over!!
 
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