Help Too fast battery to drain

[djgpenny]

I use a Samsung Vibrant. Switched recently from a Treo 680. I loved my old phone but the Vibrant is a google (pun intended) times nicer!

One issue I have is the battery drain! My Treo used to go 2-3 days no problem. My Vibrant needs to be charged everyday or it dies=bigger electric bill for those of you who pay for your own juice! What's your experience like? Any tips?

Samsung Vibrant
Battery Drain: One day
General Usage: light phone use, light web browsing, light number of apps running in the background, no games

 

[sitlet]

Thats normal with that powerful of a phone. as phones get more powerful, batteries havent, so they wont last as long. If you root your phone, you can use setcpu to reduce battery drain. I was getting about 10 hours before rooting. After rooting, I can now go over 2 days.

 

[djgpenny]

Awesome idea! I want to root my phone eventually to get more performance out of my Vibrant, but want to be sure I totally know what I'm doing first. Two days worth of battery time sounds really appealing...

 

[lordofthereef]

What do you consider light? Just wondering, as it can be different for all people. When my phone is idle, sitting on the desk, it drains 2-4% an hour. When I am using it (generally web browsing, no gaming really) I am draining about 10-15% an hour. Lesser end of the spectrum when I am reading a book on the nook app or upper end of the spectrum when I am browsing the internet. I also found that for me the automatic light sensor has the screen much brighter than it needs to be. It is actually more comfortable sometimes for me to turn it down, which I am sure saves on the battery some. For the sake of discussion, I should say I am rooted as well.

 

[djgpenny]

I would consider light meaning using the phone for maybe 5-15 min total per hour. A user doing this would, if they are like me, check their email/messages/calendar regularly but briefly or refer briefly to a particular app, or make an occasional phone call. Aside from the phone calls, I imagine checking email (if sync is at 3-5 min time threshold) etc. would require minimal juice.

Medium usage might be accessing the web, and greater phone call usage. 15-30 min.

Heavy usage might be running games, and other power sucking apps frequently: 30+ minutes per hour.

As for the light, I'm totally with you! It drains so much energy! I have had trouble finding a good app that takes the display brightness down below 5%, which I would be totally comfortable with. Brightness Toggle Widget is a super basic but most effective app I've found. It has an option to drop the brightness to "0%" which is not true, but the lowest I've managed to find so far. Any suggestions?

 

[Wata88]

I use my vibrant a lot. sometimes all day playing, watching videos, doing calls and even editing documents. since it can do it all why waste it? It last all day and sometimes a day and a half! If you look at your settings, about phone and then battery use the thing that uses the most of your battery is your screen. i use a widget called power control under adroid widgets on the main screen. this will let you know what are the main things that are draining your battery. after I stared lowering my screen light(which has three different levels) my battery improved a lot. I hope this helps.

 

[fencepost]

The simplest way to change the brightness without taking up screen space is to drag your finger across the notification bar. Right-to-Left dims, Left-To-Right brightens.