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Help Spotify on Galaxy S2 = Awful?

I have the same problem with SGS2. Kills my battery in hours. I have to charge my phone 2 or 3 times per day now if I listen music. My old HTC Wildfire lasted much longer with same usage. I hope spotify does something to this problem. Otherwise I will stop using spotify for a while.

EDIT: I think my old wildfire used something like 20-50% CPU when using spotify. I might remember it wrong. On SGS2 spotify uses less than 0,5% when listening local music and 6-17% when listening offline-playlists.
 
Update: For some reason Spotify seems to heat up my phone when screen is off. Phone is cold when screen is on and I am listening music but starts warming when I turn screen off. Battery doesn't get hot, only upper part of the phone. It is just like the prosessor is running 100% load or something. Really weird. I wonder if this Spotify problem or whether this is in any way related to the suspend-bug.
 
I think its safe to say that Spotify is a waste of money on the Galaxy S2 and they have ignored several emails from me for various queries, so do not hope for a resolution anytime soon.

I get 19 to 20 percent spikes when playing Spotify songs and sucked through 10 percent battery in 20 minutes on the bus to work today (screen was off and volume was low).

The only alternative that does not murder your battery is Napster mobile...but the application is shocking (no forward and rewind button for example!) and the audio sounds like its 64 or 96kbits.
 
Has anyone tried grooveshark?

A lot like spotify but may have better support and I think it's a tad cheaper.

Other then that you can always go back to downloading mp3's ;)
 
I tested grooveshark. Uses about 0.5-6% CPU at the beginning of the song (10-20s) but returns to zero after a while. Keeps phone awake. UI seems quite stable. However, it is little bit confusing. Seems a little unfinished. Music wasn't very well-organized. I don't like it.
 
I did some more research on this problem:

First I started to listen Spotify.

Test 1: I pooled cpufreq readings (while() do cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_cur_freq; sleep 15; done) and waited about 5 minutes. Result: 200Mhz, almost constant. Then I turned the screen OFF and waited for 10 minutes until the phone began to feel hot. I checked cpufreq pools. Result 1200Mhz, constant, at least 3-4 minutes. Cpufreq returned to normal after I turned the screen ON.

Test 2: top -m 20 -d 60. I waited 5 minutes. Result: spotify cpu usage 4-17%. Then I turned the screen OFF and waited for 15 minutes until the phone began to feel hot, again. I checked the latest top output. Result: spotify cpu usage 49%. Cpu usage returned to normal after I turned the screen ON.

If I understand this correctly, this means that the spotify retains a whole cpu core for itself forcing it to run at full clock. This might be the real reason why spotify kills my battery.

I reported this to the spotify-group by email. I hope that they will do something about this problem.

http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/gui_process_uses_a_whole_cpu_core_when_screen_is_off

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UPDATE:

I just received a reply to the original e-mail: "Please note that the Galaxy SII is not supported by Spotify yet. Having a Galaxy SII (dual core) app is something we want to do at some point but as with all development plans we don't discuss future releases. When we have something to say about a dedicated dual core app we'll be sure to let everyone know."

I suspect this has nothing to do with dual core processor. My understanding is that Android 2.3.* doesn't even have a full dual core -support (meaning that normal app sees only one core, OS two). Correct me if I am wrong... I would guess (based on my Wildfire+spotify experience) that this problem occurs with other phones too. SGS2s more powerful processor just makes things worse. Both cores run at 1200Mhz and one at full speed...

I am testing review-version (0.4.9.175). Preliminary results seem good. No heating yet.

I posting future updates into: http://getsatisfaction.com/spotify/topics/gui_process_uses_a_whole_cpu_core_when_screen_is_off
and
http://androidforums.com/android-applications/359753-spotify-makes-phone-hot-kills-battery.html
 
Does anyone know how to search local music on spotify? With my nexus s I just held.down the men button and then I could type to searchjq.
 
oh no, this all sounds terribly upsetting.
i just got a GS2 today and just installed spotify, not really used it yet. if what i'm reading here is true then the phone is not yet supported by the app? that's rubbish :(
i've been using spotify on my HTC Desire for nearly a year now, happily paying
 
I find Spotify works fine for me on my SGS2. My only gripe is that you can't organise playlists/albums into folders like you can on IOS. Unfair!
 
i too find spotify brilliant on the SG2.

Never used before, so maybe my expectations are lower.

But use frequently in the evenings to stream music, and use offline at work during the day - can't say I've noticed significant battery drain.

??works better with different firmwares??

personally i think is
 
Spotify is brilliant on my S2. I'm not going to bother measuring how much CPU usage spikes while it's open, I'll just say that it doesn't seem to hammer my battery and works fine.

The only issue I have with it is that occasionally it stops playing my music and goes offline. Not sure why, annoying when it happens while I'm driving!
 
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