I admit I'm pretty obsessive about the battery life so I did lots of tests to find out how to prolong it. Feel free to ask questions, and I'll answer if I have tested before. I just thought to put in everything I read/figured out and tested for someone who's curious about them.
Apps:
1) ALL battery monitoring apps/widgets drain more battery when they are on. Uninstall them.
2) NOLED uses A LOT of battery especially when there's an unread message/call. The only way I could decrease the drain was to increase the timing of the moving of the icon. Even still, the drain was significant
3) Use BetterBatteryStats to keep track of wakelocks occuring in your phone at night etc. Use Titanium Backup (paid version) to freeze those apps if you do not want to uninstall them
4) Some ROMs/kernel/modem drains less battery life, especially if they support under-volting/under-clocking. You might want to experiment with them. However, sometimes the low drain is due to being unable to connect
5) After flashing, use BatteryCalibration to wipe your Battery stats file when your battery is at 100%, and then use until its 0% and then charge while its off until its 100% + 30 minutes extra
6) Most apps to cut down on battery life takes up more battery then they save if you do the settings yourself. for instance, through personal experience, JuiceDefender.
7) Switching off FastDormancy does aid battery life as many networks doesn't support them. However, you might notice the effect on some games.
Standby Mode:
1) The screen takes up A LOT of battery. Try to use the dimmest brightness available to conserve battery life. You will not be able to see anything out in the sun though.
2) Try not to use push services. Make sure everything is only updated/refreshed manually (news/weather/currency/email/twitter etc)
3) Background sync has a very slight effect on your battery life but its not substantial at all. I keep mine on as without it, its not really a smartphone. What you should be aware of is the Auto-Sync option below it. Use at your own risk, that option sure sucks a lot of battery
4) Non-updating widgets such as clock etc will have almost 0 impact on battery life. Widgets like weather/AP news etc will have more substantial impact. Its pretty noticeable on your battery life when you use them.
5) Having an active cpu caused by a background app at night when you go to sleep can also cost about 20%-30% battery life on top of standby drain
6) Using a bright wallpaper/unlock screen does use up more battery life. Nothing too significant but there's DEFINITELY an impact depending on how often it flashes on your screen. This is just something to keep in mind, there's no point in having a good screen if you can't use it.
7) Try not to clear ram. Opening an inactive background app (which doesn't use any battery anyway because of the android linux architecture) use less battery than closing and re-opening the app from scratch.
8) Using Android Assistant, anything that takes up CPU process uses battery life. Just remember this...
You will notice truly background processes take up 0% CPU.
Wifi/3G/Reception:
1) Using GSM instead of WCDMA/3G will take up less battery life but your surfing speed would be slower. Might be worth it though so you can think about it.
2) Under Locations Settings, make sure Use Wireless networks is disabled. This has an habit to scan nearby networks even when your phone is asleep/not using GPS. Of course, this takes up quite a fair bit of battery especially if the networks are not strong enough
3) Manually select the network instead of using auto.
4) battery will drain more than normal if left to standby in a poor reception area. up to ~ 30% in 8 hours
5) switching on wifi when you sleep will drain less than 3G assuming reception is decent. Its about 1%/hr vs 1.5%/hr. Switching off mobile data and not switching on wifi will drain the least at ~0.5%/hr
6) Under Wifi sleep policy, choose the option to let your wifi sleep (Never when plugged in). Choosing option 1 (when screen turns off) uses a lot of battery life because it connects & disconnects & connects again all the time when your screen is off then on then off again etc. (Never) is bad because it just uses battery even when you are not using your wifi.
7) In an area of poor reception, and you are using 3G, you might get fast drainage of your battery because your phone will keep seeking for your mobile network signal and then drop it so its constantly active. You can either switch to GSM mode or move to a spot with better reception. Using wifi will help battery life here. This is where manually selecting your network helps slightly.
8) When using all the time, wi-fi drains less battery than 3G. HOWEVER, locating/connecting to a wifi network uses more battery. So if you are going to connect/disconnect a lot, you might be better off on 3G.
9) Screen time-out timer and Lock screen timeout will of course impact the battery life. Naturally, the lower the better.
For me, after tweaking, 8 hours of sleep will lead to around ~10% battery life drain while on 3G as my room has pretty bad reception. If I switch on wifi, battery drain is ~5%. Still trying to figure out how to lower this number
I'm on 2.3.4 Lite'ning 6.1, Speedmod T40 and KH3 modem. I heard 2.3.5 improves slightly on the battery life so I might try that out soon.
EDIT: Oh yeah, 1 last thing but this is not related to battery life. I have noticed a couple of people asking about home button lag. That's normal as it means your phone is 'waking up' from deep sleep/standby mode. This is actually good cos it means its conserving battery life instead of being active all the time. To tell if its active, you can notice that if you lock your phone and then press the home button, your screen will light up instantly. Some people has said you can minimize the lag by using a lower resolution/smaller memory size wallpaper/lock screen but I tested all kinds of combinations without any evidence of it working.
Apps:
1) ALL battery monitoring apps/widgets drain more battery when they are on. Uninstall them.
2) NOLED uses A LOT of battery especially when there's an unread message/call. The only way I could decrease the drain was to increase the timing of the moving of the icon. Even still, the drain was significant
3) Use BetterBatteryStats to keep track of wakelocks occuring in your phone at night etc. Use Titanium Backup (paid version) to freeze those apps if you do not want to uninstall them
4) Some ROMs/kernel/modem drains less battery life, especially if they support under-volting/under-clocking. You might want to experiment with them. However, sometimes the low drain is due to being unable to connect
5) After flashing, use BatteryCalibration to wipe your Battery stats file when your battery is at 100%, and then use until its 0% and then charge while its off until its 100% + 30 minutes extra
6) Most apps to cut down on battery life takes up more battery then they save if you do the settings yourself. for instance, through personal experience, JuiceDefender.
7) Switching off FastDormancy does aid battery life as many networks doesn't support them. However, you might notice the effect on some games.
Standby Mode:
1) The screen takes up A LOT of battery. Try to use the dimmest brightness available to conserve battery life. You will not be able to see anything out in the sun though.
2) Try not to use push services. Make sure everything is only updated/refreshed manually (news/weather/currency/email/twitter etc)
3) Background sync has a very slight effect on your battery life but its not substantial at all. I keep mine on as without it, its not really a smartphone. What you should be aware of is the Auto-Sync option below it. Use at your own risk, that option sure sucks a lot of battery
4) Non-updating widgets such as clock etc will have almost 0 impact on battery life. Widgets like weather/AP news etc will have more substantial impact. Its pretty noticeable on your battery life when you use them.
5) Having an active cpu caused by a background app at night when you go to sleep can also cost about 20%-30% battery life on top of standby drain
6) Using a bright wallpaper/unlock screen does use up more battery life. Nothing too significant but there's DEFINITELY an impact depending on how often it flashes on your screen. This is just something to keep in mind, there's no point in having a good screen if you can't use it.
7) Try not to clear ram. Opening an inactive background app (which doesn't use any battery anyway because of the android linux architecture) use less battery than closing and re-opening the app from scratch.
8) Using Android Assistant, anything that takes up CPU process uses battery life. Just remember this...
You will notice truly background processes take up 0% CPU.
Wifi/3G/Reception:
1) Using GSM instead of WCDMA/3G will take up less battery life but your surfing speed would be slower. Might be worth it though so you can think about it.
2) Under Locations Settings, make sure Use Wireless networks is disabled. This has an habit to scan nearby networks even when your phone is asleep/not using GPS. Of course, this takes up quite a fair bit of battery especially if the networks are not strong enough
3) Manually select the network instead of using auto.
4) battery will drain more than normal if left to standby in a poor reception area. up to ~ 30% in 8 hours
5) switching on wifi when you sleep will drain less than 3G assuming reception is decent. Its about 1%/hr vs 1.5%/hr. Switching off mobile data and not switching on wifi will drain the least at ~0.5%/hr
6) Under Wifi sleep policy, choose the option to let your wifi sleep (Never when plugged in). Choosing option 1 (when screen turns off) uses a lot of battery life because it connects & disconnects & connects again all the time when your screen is off then on then off again etc. (Never) is bad because it just uses battery even when you are not using your wifi.
7) In an area of poor reception, and you are using 3G, you might get fast drainage of your battery because your phone will keep seeking for your mobile network signal and then drop it so its constantly active. You can either switch to GSM mode or move to a spot with better reception. Using wifi will help battery life here. This is where manually selecting your network helps slightly.
8) When using all the time, wi-fi drains less battery than 3G. HOWEVER, locating/connecting to a wifi network uses more battery. So if you are going to connect/disconnect a lot, you might be better off on 3G.
9) Screen time-out timer and Lock screen timeout will of course impact the battery life. Naturally, the lower the better.
For me, after tweaking, 8 hours of sleep will lead to around ~10% battery life drain while on 3G as my room has pretty bad reception. If I switch on wifi, battery drain is ~5%. Still trying to figure out how to lower this number
I'm on 2.3.4 Lite'ning 6.1, Speedmod T40 and KH3 modem. I heard 2.3.5 improves slightly on the battery life so I might try that out soon.
EDIT: Oh yeah, 1 last thing but this is not related to battery life. I have noticed a couple of people asking about home button lag. That's normal as it means your phone is 'waking up' from deep sleep/standby mode. This is actually good cos it means its conserving battery life instead of being active all the time. To tell if its active, you can notice that if you lock your phone and then press the home button, your screen will light up instantly. Some people has said you can minimize the lag by using a lower resolution/smaller memory size wallpaper/lock screen but I tested all kinds of combinations without any evidence of it working.
