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[Verizon] Two most annoying things about my Nexus

darkcyber

darkcyber

Android Expert
1. I really dislike the horrible battery life on the Nexus. I have tried just about every different rom and kernel and I really haven't seen much of a difference in battery life. Sure, you might squeeze an extra few minutes out here and there, but overall the Nexus is a bad phone for battery life...period. :(

2. What I call keypad dialer lag. I have seen this on numerous roms. I go to dial a phone number and bring up the keypad and press like the first and/or second digit and then the keypad doesn't respond, it just freezes. I will get a popup something like it has stopped responding...report it, OK, or wait. This is probably more annoying than the bad battery life.

This post is root related because these problems seem to span across various custom Roms.
 
I suspect you have a bad battery. I really think I did. I tried a couple of ROMs with my standard battery and never did get very good battery life. Gave in and bought the extended, and even though it's only a 13% increase in battery size, my battery life got dramatically better. Between that and AOKP/leankernel, my battery life is currently at least double what I was getting on the standard battery and stock.
 
darkcyber said:
1. I really dislike the horrible battery life on the Nexus. I have tried just about every different rom and kernel and I really haven't seen much of a difference in battery life. Sure, you might squeeze an extra few minutes out here and there, but overall the Nexus is a bad phone for battery life...period. :(
Click to expand...

Is this your first Android phone? The battery life on the Nexus is WAY better than my HTC Droid Incredible was. I mean 3-4x, with the same usage patterns. This despite the much bigger screen, 4G and a not-as-yet battery-optimized version of Android (Gingerbread had a long time to mature).

What kind of usage pattern do you have? Can you post some screen shots of your battery usage info and screen on time? You may want to invest in bettery battery stats to help identify if there are one or more apps with partial wakelocks preventing the device from going into deep sleep.

2. What I call keypad dialer lag. I have seen this on numerous roms. I go to dial a phone number and bring up the keypad and press like the first and/or second digit and then the keypad doesn't respond, it just freezes. I will get a popup something like it has stopped responding...report it, OK, or wait. This is probably more annoying than the bad battery life.

This post is root related because these problems seem to span across various custom Roms.
Click to expand...
The keypad thing I have not observed. I tried to reproduce it. So you just:

1. open up the phone/dialer app
2. go to dial tab
3. start entering a number (it hangs here?)

It doesn't do that here, though I'm not stock. I'm on AOKP b26. Don't recall having that problem when I was running stock, rooted 4.0.2 though either. Perhaps try the 4.0.4 leaked OTA to see if it was fixed and/or search the google code/bug report site for a similar issue and star it or start one if none exists yet.
 
*idroid* said:
More good than bad for me. Maybe you should just get the razr maxx.
Click to expand...

LOL! Did think about that :D

I have the VZW extended battery.

I take it off charger around 6:30 am and usually by around lunch it's nearing the 60 - 70% area and by the time I put it back on charger at night, usually around 9 pm (if I don't have to charge it some during the day), I'm usually down to around 30%. That is with lite use. If I use it much at all, battery stats are much worse.

jkc120,

No, not even close to my first android. My last android was the Droid X, which got much, much better battery life than the Nexus. And yes, that is correct on the dialer issue. I just returned to stock rooted and seeing how that does.

I like the Nexus, just wished I didn't have to have an extension cord plugged in all the time :eek:
 
So you don't go through the whole battery in a day typically and you're not happy with that?

What kind of signal strength do you get? Are you always on 4g? Do you have it set to sync constantly? Are all your apps set to sync or only the essential ones? Do you have apps set to auto update? Do you use Lightflow? What is your screen brightness level? Have you used better battery stats or bad ass battery to figure out what is using your battery?
 
darkcyber said:
I take it off charger around 6:30 am and usually by around lunch it's nearing the 60 - 70% area and by the time I put it back on charger at night, usually around 9 pm (if I don't have to charge it some during the day), I'm usually down to around 30%. That is with lite use. If I use it much at all, battery stats are much worse.
Click to expand...

Post screen shots of the battery usage, screen info, and cell standby when you get down to 30% or so the next time. I think you have one/more of the following:

a. a bad app running and chewing up CPU and wake locks
b. a faulty battery
c. brightness set too high (what brightness are you set to?)
d. in a very marginal signal area and it's fighting constantly to keep a signal
 
JJDH said:
That's not bad battery life at all....that's damn good
Click to expand...

Well, honestly, it's impossible to say that it's good or bad at this point, until we see the screen on time, cell standby (% time w/o a signal) and the battery info showing what the top battery drainers are.
 
darkcyber said:
Well, I guess I compare it to the Droid X when I could get through the whole day and still have tons of battery left when I plugged it in at night. :)
Click to expand...

Unless you are using them identically, it's really like comparing apples and oranges.

We need the battery info as I've asked for, but also:

- what screen brightness do you have it set to?
- is 4G on?
- are you in a weak or strong signal area?
- do you use any power saving apps?
- do you have many apps installed with sync enabled?

etc, etc. Without more info, we can't help you troubleshoot, because I assure you there is a very high possibility that there is something fixable to improve your battery life. Help us help you. :)

But if you're just here to rant, at least let us know so we can stop trying to help. LOL
 
sneakking said:
So you don't go through the whole battery in a day typically and you're not happy with that?

What kind of signal strength do you get? Are you always on 4g? Do you have it set to sync constantly? Are all your apps set to sync or only the essential ones? Do you have apps set to auto update? Do you use Lightflow? What is your screen brightness level? Have you used better battery stats or bad ass battery to figure out what is using your battery?
Click to expand...

I do not live in a 4G area, so the only time I'm on 4G is usually when I travel to a larger city maybe on the weekend.

Emails are set to sync once an hour and so is WeatherBug Elite and that is about it. No auto updates...do not use Lightflow. Have tried auto on screen brightness and try to keep it set to the darkest setting and that does help, but when I get outside can't see my phone so usually have to change it to a brighter setting. No on the battery stat thing...will grab those and see.

It may be perfectly normal battery life for the Nexus. I just got used to being able to use my X all day, even heavy, and still have lots of battery left.
 
darkcyber said:
I do not live in a 4G area, so the only time I'm on 4G is usually when I travel to a larger city maybe on the weekend.

Emails are set to sync once an hour and so is WeatherBug Elite and that is about it. No auto updates...do not use Lightflow. Have tried auto on screen brightness and try to keep it set to the darkest setting and that does help, but when I get outside can't see my phone so usually have to change it to a brighter setting. No on the battery stat thing...will grab those and see.

It may be perfectly normal battery life for the Nexus. I just got used to being able to use my X all day, even heavy, and still have lots of battery left.
Click to expand...

Given that information, it sounds like you have a bad battery or a cpu-hog app of some sort. That is not normal life for that minimal of use. By comparison, I have:

- 4G enabled (but I'm on wifi most of the time)
- gmail set to auto sync
- brightness at 40% (unless outside, then 80%)
- 20-30 sms a day or so

And with AOKP b26 and Lean Kernel 2.3.0, I'm at about 75% from about 8:30am to 10:30pm, give or take. But my screen on time is usually only about 30 minutes during all that time as I am usually too busy at work to do more than check email and sms.
 
darkcyber said:
I do not live in a 4G area, so the only time I'm on 4G is usually when I travel to a larger city maybe on the weekend.

Emails are set to sync once an hour and so is WeatherBug Elite and that is about it. No auto updates...do not use Lightflow. Have tried auto on screen brightness and try to keep it set to the darkest setting and that does help, but when I get outside can't see my phone so usually have to change it to a brighter setting. No on the battery stat thing...will grab those and see.

It may be perfectly normal battery life for the Nexus. I just got used to being able to use my X all day, even heavy, and still have lots of battery left.
Click to expand...


so far so good

add those apps, they will help you figure out what's going on

since you have no 4g in your area do you have it set to cdma only? you can use the 4g toggle app to help get to those settings quicker

the other thing that would help is if you have a strong wifi signal, setting it to wifi if you have that at home or at work saves battery
 
With respect to the dialer lag, I experienced this as well, but I quickly switched to another dialer as the stock dialer does not have speed dial capabilities. I have alternated between Touchpal Dialer, Dialer One, and Go Dialer (right now I am using Go and like it the best of the three).
 
Liquid ROM v1.0 has fastest performance and significantly better battery life than anything else that I've tried.
 
If you want stock, then I would suggest using the 4.0.4 "leaked" release. I haven't seen any custom ROMs built on this yet, but the stock ROM apparently does provide some much needed battery optimization. 4.0.2 and 4.0.3 custom ROMS aren't necessarily terrible with regards to battery life, but the 4.0.4 by all reports is even better.

I also don't think that is bad battery life. Obviously it is worse than the DX (which I also had prior to the GN), but 4G and dual core eats away at the battery. I bought the extended battery and carry around the original battery as backup. The extended battery will last me most days without any issues, but if I have a really heavy use day or I'm getting terrible signal strength, I can always pop in the OEM battery when the extended battery dies. I have yet to need more power than that even on the worst days.

I have a die hard Apple friend that really gave me grief about the "terrible battery life" of the Galaxy Nexus. He shut up after I sent him some screen shots of my battery life (15-18 hours with power still left) and reminded him that even if my battery dies, I simply change it out for another pre-charged battery and have enough power to go another round. He obviously cannot swap out the battery on his iPhone. ;)
 
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