To those who say the Fascinate's battery sux

[nitsuj17]

What does it do?

there is a known issue with the droid incredible (and other htc phones if i recall) where the system reports the battery being at 100% and fully charged when in reality its probably 93-95% full.

that is why on an incredible you may notice that almost instantly when off the charger the phone drops down 5-7% in 5 minutes.

apparently this cant be correctly with software updates, and the only way to *fully* charge the phone is *bump* charging.

basically once the phone hits 100% and the led goes green. you leave the phone plugged into the wall and power-off. you ll notice the led goes orange indicated a not full charge.

once the led is green again...you are at 100%

 

[Bearly]

The "data pulling apps" -- how can I ensure that they do NOT pull data? They're not always active in the background (via System Panel), am I right? I have some of those apps but they don't seem to show up as running in background.

Would this be the "background data" setting that I should turn off? If so, I'd like to still receive my gmail, albeit maybe just in set intervals (and nothing being gmail/calendar as auto pulling data).

What setting should I adjust?

 

[Jodiuh]

basically once the phone hits 100% and the led goes green. you leave the phone plugged into the wall and power-off. you ll notice the led goes orange indicated a not full charge.

once the led is green again...you are at 100%

This happens w/ my Fascinate.

When I first read "bump charging" I had this picture in my head of 2 HTC's "fist bumping" in the air and instantly becoming charged.

 

[reisb]

This may need to go in another topic, but last 3 days, battery has been substantially worse. It's not from adding any apps. I look at my battery useage and click on cell standby. It usually says Time without signal 0%-5%.

Last 3 days, it's in the 40%-60% range. Called verizon and shocker, no towers are out...

 

[Gangularis]

Turn off your wifi.. your battery life will dramatically improve. If I have wifi on, it will drain over night.. If it's off, it will be almost full charge still in the morning, without charging.

 

[reisb]

Turn off your wifi.. your battery life will dramatically improve. If I have wifi on, it will drain over night.. If it's off, it will be almost full charge still in the morning, without charging.

No wifi, no gps, no bluetooth.

Just started in last 3 days. I'm now at almost 10 hours unplugged and 53% time without a signal according to battery useage.

 

[Gangularis]

No wifi, no gps, no bluetooth.

Just started in last 3 days. I'm now at almost 10 hours unplugged and 53% time without a signal according to battery useage.

I leave GPS on. It doesn't really make as huge a dent in battery life as wifi does.

 

[reisb]

This may need to go in another topic, but last 3 days, battery has been substantially worse. It's not from adding any apps. I look at my battery useage and click on cell standby. It usually says Time without signal 0%-5%.

Last 3 days, it's in the 40%-60% range. Called verizon and shocker, no towers are out...

OK, so I didn't really figure out WHY, but...
Over past 3 days, I tried powering off/on the phone with power button and that didn't work. Last night I figured I would try pulling the battery. BAM, now I'm fine.

No idea how that would change my signal strength, but today 5 1/2 hours since unplugged, 0% without a signal. hmmm

 

[imneveral0ne]

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17392812/snap20101227_023117.png[/IMG

not bad for almost 9 hours i think lol

 

[Jodiuh]

not bad for almost 9 hours i think lol

There ya go.

How many hours was the display on?

 

[miyooper]

Didn't use the phone much over Christmas being around family most of the time, so decided how far it would go. Had about 5percent left, 20 min talk time, just over a hour of screen time, some texting, a couple pictures taken and some Pandora. Have a couple weather widgets, 2 clocks, 2 calender widgets and a headline one.

 

[imneveral0ne]

There ya go.

How many hours was the display on?

how do you figure that out?

 

[Jodiuh]

Tap display. Tap any of them for more detail. Cell standby's a fun one and you'll see CPU time for apps.

 

[imneveral0ne]

Tap display. Tap any of them for more detail. Cell standby's a fun one and you'll see CPU time for apps.

ahh, well too late now lol. that was last night, and the phones charging/tethering atm

 

[Jodiuh]

Sure...

On a lighter note, I took it from the wall down to 60% in about 3 hours yesterday.

 

[GHR]

I have a standard stock battery in my Fascinate and it will last a couple days if I have the GPS and WiFi turned off. If I use the WiFi, the battery will last 8 hours max; If I use the GPS, I'm lucky to get 4 hours. It doesn't seem to matter which apps are running or if I'm talking a lot. I did get a 1500 mah battery from EBAY and it's great. I use it when I'm away from home and using the GPS mapping and nav services, and it will last a couple days. It came with a new back case for the Fantasy, because it's twice as thick as the standard battery, so I don't use it most days.

 

[Jodiuh]

I'm getting a lot better battery life w/ screen filter. Typically use 55% ~ 70% setting. I have noticed the thing gobbling up a hundred megs of ram though.

 

[rowuncw]

One thing I haven't seen discussed very much with regards to the Fascinate battery life is cell reception. I got my Fascinate over the Christmas holiday and seemed to get pretty decent battery life considering how much I was playing with it. I expected battery life to gradually improve as I settled in to the phone.

As it turns out I get horrible cell reception at my desk at work. My understanding is that this can drain the battery quite a bit faster than if you had a strong signal, especially with auto-sync enabled. Considering I spend about 9 hours in the building, this could be sucking my battery and I would really have no hard stats to confirm this, right? So could the variation in battery life be due to cell strength? Can those with a 1-2 day+ life confirm they have a strong signal throughout the day?

 

[miyooper]

I think that signal strength will make a difference. At home I have a good signal and easily can last a couple days. But taking it to camp with a week signal it drains faster and have to make sure I plug it in every night.

 

[rigglemania]

My contribution to this thread:

DJ05 rooted (with some manual debloating) + geeknik stupidfast 1.54 undervolted.

 

[thornbeck]

One thing I haven't seen discussed very much with regards to the Fascinate battery life is cell reception. I got my Fascinate over the Christmas holiday and seemed to get pretty decent battery life considering how much I was playing with it. I expected battery life to gradually improve as I settled in to the phone.

As it turns out I get horrible cell reception at my desk at work. My understanding is that this can drain the battery quite a bit faster than if you had a strong signal, especially with auto-sync enabled. Considering I spend about 9 hours in the building, this could be sucking my battery and I would really have no hard stats to confirm this, right? So could the variation in battery life be due to cell strength? Can those with a 1-2 day+ life confirm they have a strong signal throughout the day?

Check Settings > About phone > Battery use > Cell standby
Under "Use details" you will see "Time without a signal".

I have seen mine listed over 50% sometimes and it shows with the low battery life. My signal strength at work depends on where I sit my phone. Some places on my desk get 3 bars, while others show 0 bars. I also sit on the top floor right next to the windows. Even outside the signal bars are always jumping. Very rarely does the phone keep a 4 bar signal lock.

I wonder if it has something to do with the way 3G operates. Kind of like wireless B can stretch further than wireless G, but can only run at 10 Mb.

I also noticed my phone constantly jumps from cell tower to cell tower. Even when I am sitting still.

Tim

 

[reisb]

Check Settings > About phone > Battery use > Cell standby
Under "Use details" you will see "Time without a signal".

I have seen mine listed over 50% sometimes and it shows with the low battery life. My signal strength at work depends on where I sit my phone. Some places on my desk get 3 bars, while others show 0 bars. I also sit on the top floor right next to the windows. Even outside the signal bars are always jumping. Very rarely does the phone keep a 4 bar signal lock.

I wonder if it has something to do with the way 3G operates. Kind of like wireless B can stretch further than wireless G, but can only run at 10 Mb.

I also noticed my phone constantly jumps from cell tower to cell tower. Even when I am sitting still.

Tim

Yes, as you can see from my posts above, signal strength has everything to do with this. When you get to the "battery use" screen, be sure to click on "cell standby" to confirm "time without a signal".

This has to do with Fascinate's bad signal. It is a known problem (along with the GPS) and I hope Mondays update (if there is one) is this more than 2.2.

My wife has an Eris and she and I when is same restaurant, etc, she has 1 bar or so and I bounce from 0 to 1 to 2 and back. Her battery status shows 0% without a signal and mine just rises the longer I'm there. Highest I've had at and of day was 68%.

I can go 2 days if I'm in great coverage to 10 hours if not.

 

[thornbeck]

If Fascinate users have a case, what type of case? If the Fascinate, by itself, gets poor signal strength, how does a full protective case (sides and back) affect signal strength?

On a side note, I've been at my desk for about 8 hours and my "Time without a signal" is 27%. So my phone has only had service for 2/3rds of the time at my desk.

-Tim

 

[92GreenGT]

I'm going to start working on this to see what improves my battery life. Right now I'm running DJ05 and the supplied kernel file but I run Wifi/GPS on all the time and text quite heavy. I get around a full day of usage right now but I hardly make phone calls and our signal is usually about a bar. I also use Beautiful Widgets with refresh set to 30 min and the facebook widget set to update pretty quick, also the FML widget updates regularly.

Going to try turning Wifi/GPS off first and see where that gets me. I want to try a new kernel file out too, which is recommended?

 

[thornbeck]

I just check my "Time without a signal" and it is 32% for 13 hours. I was even at home all day today. I guess cell service is bad at my home and my work.

I wonder where the cell service is actually good?

Very disappointed in the cell performance of the Fascinate.

My wife is sitting next to me with her Blackberry and she is getting 3 to 4 bars constantly. While my Fascinate reads 1 to 2 bars and sometimes Zero.

- Tim