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Help Purchased New LG Spectrum. Battery life concerns. Need your help.

coderaz said:
Ogg has been a standard on Android since 1.5. Look in /system/media. :)
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That is where I found them on the Spectrum, but on the Evo, at least all the roms I flashed, including the Evo stock rooted, they were mp3 or wav. Same with the Samsung Moment, although I think it was all .wav on the stock ROM.
 
WOW, just read the first page of this thread and my head is spinning. I'm new to the smart phone world and totally confused. To root (don't even know what that is yet) or not to root? How to delete pre-loaded apps? I'm gonna have to read more when I have time, but this seems like a great place for info and look forward to learning more about my phone.
 
Do NOT delete system apps.... Freeze then instead. If you delete system apps, you won't be able to take ota updates.

Sent from my VS920 4G using Tapatalk 2 Beta-3
 
Neph81 said:
Honestly, give the phone at least three days of discharge/recharge before deciding if the battery life will be good for you. The first charge/discharge is completely off.
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That has been my experience, but I bought extended batteries for both mine and my wife's (AMAZING BOGO sale ending 03/31/12, BTW) after dealing with a DInc for 2 years. After 2 weeks, my battery gauge is darned accurate. I am thoroughly impressed with the phone but am disappointed with the lack of notification before the battery gives out its last gasp and the phone dies.

Neph81 said:
Secondly, a lot can be done to your phone without root. Home apps like ADW will redo your home screen and allow a lot better flexibility with your phone. You can also add widgets to your home screen to turn 3g/4g on or off with the touch of a button.
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I am still looking for a good widget for turning off the 4g or switching it to 3g only. Any recommendations? One excellent program I found, Llama (Llama is a Location Aware Mobile Application), allows you to turn off data, change the volume, run apps, and tons more based off of location, time, and other programmable parameters. The best part of the app is that the location is not determined with using GPS, that battery-draining beast, but the cell towers that the phone is already detecting and using. It has boosted my battery time to almost 2 days with light internet usage.

Neph81 said:
On to your final point thou, not much that comes out today will give you more then a day of battery life with 4G on a stock phone. Customers haven't demanded loud enough for it yet. The closest would be the Droid Razr Maxx, but even then it's not great. Going back to 3G is almost impossible for new phones as there is zero market for that unless you go for a non-smart phone.
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Big Red has decided to not have any new smartphones (iPhone likely excepted) that are not 4G phones. As for the Razr Maxx, the battery life is amazing, especially given the rather slim form factor, but the inability to access the battery compartment was definitely a factor in my choice to not purchase it.

Am contemplating rooting my Spectrum tonight. (Read: It will likely happen in the very near future, I just want to make sure my research is done first.)
 
NonZeroSum wrote: "still looking for a good widget for turning off the 4g or switching it to 3g only"

Would the 4G Toggle app work? I guess it's more of a shortcut, but it looks like it might take you where you need to go with ease.
 
stef7 said:
NonZeroSum wrote: "still looking for a good widget for turning off the 4g or switching it to 3g only"

Would the 4G Toggle app work? I guess it's more of a shortcut, but it looks like it might take you where you need to go with ease.
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It's a shortcut. I am pretty familiar with Android menuing. I am simply lazy and want to be able to switch network modes with a single button press to reduce battery drain. The 4G Toggle simply drops you into the Network Mode/System Select window.

Thanks, though! :o
 
Other than slightly lower battery consumption, why would you want to reduce the phone's capability from '4g' to '3g'?
 
Here is an interesting battery test for you, not what I expected at all...

I've posted some speed test results on my Spectrum, but nothing prepared me for this real life Speed/battery test today (currently still going)


I figured, since I get ~14Mb-20Mb Up and Down on speed test, I should get a reasonable speed for actual usage... Here are some facts

My phone was charged to 100%, I unplugged it specifically to do this (it was not planned as a test), it had been fully charged for 10-25 minutes and still plugged in.

I have done this before with my HTC Evo on 3G under similar conditions and do not recall the results being even close (battery wise).

I am currently in the process of uploading a 690MB file via LTE from my spectrum using AndFTP (according to some feedback on the app, users are getting upwards of around 3MBps transfer rates, so I do not think it is the app). It started at 45.6KB/s and since moved up to 256.7MB/s but is now back down to 153.2KB/s it moves at about .5KB/s every 25-45 seconds either up or down, normally trending, it is either going up or coming down, not up and down, if that makes sense... These are the exact same speeds I get when using it on Sprint's 3G service with my Evo, when I had it.

I think it has been going for a good hour, I'll know after it finishes...

But here is the kicker, my battery is currently at 34% and the file is only 87% complete. I have not had the screen on very much during this process, only to check the progress every now and then (but I mostly left it to turn itself off after the screen off timeout, instead of turning it off myself each time), and I did a few times touch the screen to keep it going. I have not used my phone for anything else while the transfer was running, I have not used the notification pull down, nor pressed any buttons (besides power/lock) and have not tried to use any other apps.

I did not take periodic screenshots, although I hit one just a second ago. I'll add it plus the system monitor screen for the phone battery/display usage to this post after it finishes and gets some charge back...

No BT or GPS is enabled, the phone has been moderately warm.

a6f880a0-70e9-f6e6.jpg


a6f880a0-7107-02af.jpg
 
Nothing shocking there... Lte takes huge amounts of battery power for upload and downloads. Streaming music over your data connection will take much more juice than if the files were on your phone already.

Sent from my VS920 4G
 
My main concern was how slow the upload went, I know it is not the system on the other end, as my desktop uploads to the same place at 700KB/s - 1900KB/s

That is what drained the battery was the duration, here is a speed test from the same seat in my house (duplicate image i posted on another thread)

a6f880a0-7268-0b40.jpg
 
By any chance, did you hit your data allotment? Maybe you were throttled. And maybe they use some intelligent throttling when they see you using a protocol like FTP. :rolleyes:
 
Did you see my post about speeds? Those burst tests are not good examples of true phone/pc Internet Speed. They use bursts to max a connection, which is why they are rarely smooth, but they are NEVER accurate portrayals of true bandwidth. . If you want a true test of speed, download or upload a huge file and use various attempts to show different port connections.

Sent from my VS920 4G
 
Yes I know about the unrealistic speeds from speedtest, however when sprint, where speedtest gets 1.3MB/s down and 850KB/s up, on 3g, and gets the same speeds for ftp, I see an issue. As for my data usage, I got in under the double data plans, since I am coming from sprint...

a6f880a0-d692-4b1e.jpg
 
Verizon isn't Sprint. Two different networks and you'd never get 1mb on 3g cdma with Verizon... I've tried over the years.

Sent from my VS920 4G
 
after reading through this thread and knowing my programing skills are minimal [no rooting or whatnot] i let the battery run down 2% and then charged just to 100% [instead of leaving it overnight]. i thought newer batteries arent supposed to develop a memory, but now my battery easily lasts 24 hrs instead of the 8 i was getting.

my phone usage is for emails, fb, games, pics, maps, and an alarm clock. no video and rarely streaming music.
 
Hey guys, I thought I'd give an update. I'm the original poster:

I like my Spectrum now. I turned off 4G AND unchecked Wifi unless I want to use the browser (which it prompts me that it will auto turn on wifi for) and my battery at best has lasted me 5 and 1/2 days. Typically I can go 3 or 4 days with texting and a few phone calls before I need a charge now. I have not rooted my phone. This is on the standard battery that came with it.

Next, this is a question for you tech guys. Recently LG keyboard has begun crashing typically once per day during texting. I have to reboot the phone or typing does not work when the phone is horizontal. The letters don't show up in the text box when I type. I think it was because of a recent droid update.

Also, I can't access my verizen mobile to check my texting usage this month. I haven't logged in since I got the phone, and when I tried to create an account today it said "account locked for multiple password attempts," then it said contact customer service. Do they have an online service or do I have to call?

Thanks fella's.
 
I'm glad you didn't run for the hills immediately and kept the Spectrum. It's a really nice smartphone once you get it set up the way you like. A simple question, though: why did you get a smartphone if you basically don't use it?

Anyway, I recommend you get a different keyboard. I've used SwiftKey since it was an Amazon Free App of the Day. I love it and everyone to whom I've recommended it has loved it enough to purchase it.

If you don't want to buy a new keyboard, have you tried Swype? It's included with the Spectrum. And you could use it like a "normal" keyboard if you don't feel like tracing around.

As far as My Verizon Mobile, I would recommend using the app to reset your password. If you can't do it on the phone, go through a computer's browser. If it STILL doesn't work, call VZW.
 
With the default Camera? I don't think so.

However, as an alternate, there is an option in the lgCamera download to shut it off.
 
Correct. The lg camera doesn't (though mine doesn't make the sound anymore), but others, like the one in cyanogenmod and instagram allow you to turn the sound off.
 
As previously mentioned, somewhere on these forums, the sound is now tied into the media volume I believe, if you turn your media volume off, there should be no shutter sound.

It would be nice to have an app that adjusted the volume when certain apps run... I've been trying to convince the Dev of sound manager to incorporate location and app based volume settings for a year now. He is not too interested.
 
OK, so what app is it that will let me turn the shutter sound off?

Also, I'm really new to this app stuff and not one to spend hours searching out possibly useful aps. Do you have any app recommendations or maybe better versions of useful apps that came with the phone?
 
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