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What battery life times are YOU seeing?

I

insaneoctane

Newbie
I think my battery life SUCKS, but I'm new to the droid scene, coming from a Blackberry.

Here's what I'm getting:

I can't make it through a day of use with my phone!
I unplugged it this morning at 7:00am
Surfed the web for solid 1.5 hours on the way to work
Phone sat at work with minimal use (1 hour maybe?) for next 8 hours
I'm about to go home, and my battery is already YELLOW!:eek:

Here's what battery info say:
12h 11m since unplugged (It's 7:38pm now, so that works out)
Uses of battery:
76% Display
06% Cell Standby
05% Application #1
04% Internet
04% Android System
03% Phone Idle

Now, the 76% display says:
Time on 3h 31m

Cell standby says:
Time on 8h 46m
Time without a signal 4%

I understand application #1 is high because it was trying to use GPS without reception...so I can fix that one.

But, the others seem out of my control! It seems like just looking at the screen is killing this thing! I have the screen brightness set for auto.
I'm led to believe that these phones can only run the display for about 4 hours????
Do I have a bad battery?
I'm on my second "full charge/depletion" cycle, so I don't expect it to get much better.
HELP!
 
Dude, I am in the same boot. I was thinking the same thing. I had the 9700BOLD and that phone would last 2 days with massive abuse, I can't get thru the day either. If I don't charge it in the ride, or by usb at work, I can't make it home :( without it dying...
 
Well you must remember that Android phones have higher powered processors and are also running more services in the background. Blackberries have basic processors, low res screens, and don't run background processes constantly hence better battery life. Talk to anyone with an Android phone and you'll find that a day of usage will leave you hunting your charger when you get home at night. I'm a very heavy user and I get about 12-14 hours so I'm doing quite well.
 
I am constantly on my phone at work while on breaks. I get 2/20 minute and a 30minute. During this time i am NON stop youtube, break, defiantly web and if the wife responds to some text that too. Occasionally ill watch some TV.com or a movie i downloaded and or slacker radio(which is always dropping recently). BTW unplug from PC @ 5pm and replug @ 5am to 6am. I got almost 17 hours yesterday i was pushing it :P

If i am watching a movie while on brake and instantly go to slacker while working i HAVE to plug in much sooner. All depends on what i am doing for the day and my mood. I would say anywhere from 8 to 12 hours with it being used. Now i have gone without using my phone other then the occasional delete of an email and im good for a full day.
 
If I unplug in the morning (6 or 7 am), I'm dead on the way home by 5 or 6pm. Normally, I try to save my battery by charging it only when it dies. But with this phone, I'm gonna start leaving it charged at work.

Battery life truly sucks. I'd rather have more bulk to accommodate a battery that can at least last me 24hrs. Not die on the way home when I need to call my family and take care of some personal biz...
 
I may have to start a new thread for this... but I want a contest to see who can get the longest battery life.
But, here's the catch...I want to measure it by display on time. My logic is this- anybody can turn their phone on and disable everything, put it in airplane mode and not use it. That doesn't do anyone any good! Since the display is clearly the biggest pig on these phones, let's measure that. All you have to do is when your phone is almost dead, hit MENU-SETTINGS-ABOUT PHONE-BATTERY-BATTERY USE-DISPLAY- Then tell us your longest "time on"
 
I'm on a MyTouch Slide, and I am getting about 24-26 hours with average use. I plug it in every night, so I rarely see yellow unless I make long phone calls. I've uninstalled the Weatherbug widget and just installed a shortcut to weatherbug on my desktop, and I also have solid black wallpaper. Between those 2 changes alone, my battery life increased by about 8 hours. GPS and sync are always on. The other thing I did that helped immensely was to uninstall task killers. I don't care what anybody says, they do NOT increase battery life. It took a couple days after uninstalling it to see a difference, but it was obvious after that. Maybe it took a while for the phone to 'relearn' how to kill tasks on its own? I don't know, but it works!
 
i get incredible battery times with my mytouch 4g, but
i do all the things that make the battery last.
first off, i have found that you must move the "display" brightness
way way down, you can't just put it on "auto". i don't know why
but the mytouch 4g screen eats up the battery like crazy, but
if you turn the brightness way down you get super long battery life,
and i honestly don't really notice any difference in the screen.
i have "background data" turned off at all times, so if i want to
go into the market it will ask me to turn on 'background data"
i do all my own syncing, if i want to check mail, i sync it myself,
i keep my phone on "e" or edge at all times, all my phone calls are made
on edge, all my texts are on edge, there is NO difference between
edge and 3g/4g for calls and texts, except using edge uses almost
zero battery and 3g/4g rips up the battery. honestly, i use edge for
light web browsing, if i want to do heavy web browsing i will switch on
wi-fi or 4g, but when i am done it is right back to "e".
when you are at a location, say your job, and you in a cement builidng
with no reception, your phone will continually fight to search and find
reception, but it never will, so if you know you will be at a certain place for
hours on end with no reception, put your phone into airplane mode, and
you will not lose any battery. these are just a few tips, but i guarantee you
that if you do this you will gets days out of your battery.
 
one more thing, don't install every darn app in the market, just
to say that you have them on your phone. if you don't need or use it,
get rid of it. i feel the less b.s. you load up on your phone the
less chance of rogue apps doing harm to your battery.
this is just my opinion, but if you are asking how to save battery
life than i would follow this.
 
buckeyedroid said:
i get incredible battery times with my mytouch 4g, but
i do all the things that make the battery last.
first off, i have found that you must move the "display" brightness
way way down, you can't just put it on "auto". i don't know why
but the mytouch 4g screen eats up the battery like crazy, but
if you turn the brightness way down you get super long battery life,
and i honestly don't really notice any difference in the screen.
i have "background data" turned off at all times, so if i want to
go into the market it will ask me to turn on 'background data"
i do all my own syncing, if i want to check mail, i sync it myself,
i keep my phone on "e" or edge at all times, all my phone calls are made
on edge, all my texts are on edge, there is NO difference between
edge and 3g/4g for calls and texts, except using edge uses almost
zero battery and 3g/4g rips up the battery. honestly, i use edge for
light web browsing, if i want to do heavy web browsing i will switch on
wi-fi or 4g, but when i am done it is right back to "e".
when you are at a location, say your job, and you in a cement builidng
with no reception, your phone will continually fight to search and find
reception, but it never will, so if you know you will be at a certain place for
hours on end with no reception, put your phone into airplane mode, and
you will not lose any battery. these are just a few tips, but i guarantee you
that if you do this you will gets days out of your battery.
Click to expand...

Please don't take me the wrong way, but why would you bother to buy a great phone like this if you have to shut 99% of the things down or limit half of it's features. Calls on edge? This is a 4g phone! The screen is Gorgeous, dimming it all the way down is a drag! I'm coming from a blackberry as well. The phone is amazing in so many ways but there has to be a better battery type or some sort of solution. I use my phone for business and i get about 3-5 hours at most off the charger.
 
buckeyedroid said:
i get incredible battery times with my mytouch 4g, but
i do all the things that make the battery last.
first off, i have found that you must move the "display" brightness
way way down, you can't just put it on "auto". i don't know why
but the mytouch 4g screen eats up the battery like crazy, but
if you turn the brightness way down you get super long battery life,
and i honestly don't really notice any difference in the screen.
i have "background data" turned off at all times, so if i want to
go into the market it will ask me to turn on 'background data"
i do all my own syncing, if i want to check mail, i sync it myself,
i keep my phone on "e" or edge at all times, all my phone calls are made
on edge, all my texts are on edge, there is NO difference between
edge and 3g/4g for calls and texts, except using edge uses almost
zero battery and 3g/4g rips up the battery. honestly, i use edge for
light web browsing, if i want to do heavy web browsing i will switch on
wi-fi or 4g, but when i am done it is right back to "e".
when you are at a location, say your job, and you in a cement builidng
with no reception, your phone will continually fight to search and find
reception, but it never will, so if you know you will be at a certain place for
hours on end with no reception, put your phone into airplane mode, and
you will not lose any battery. these are just a few tips, but i guarantee you
that if you do this you will gets days out of your battery.
Click to expand...

I am glad this works for you, but to me this makes no sense. Why have a smartphone if you turn off all functionality that makes a smartphone so useful? I want my phone to tell when when have new email, or notifications. If I have to manually do this, I might as well not even have a smartphone, just use my old Razor.
 
well, first off, calls and texts on edge, don't use
much battery at all, calls and texts over 4g use insane battery
life. and, i guarantee you would not know if you were talking on edge or 4g. i understand what you mean about having to "turn things off"
and on, but this thread was started about battery life,
i am just telling you how to get super battery life, if you don't care
about battery life than of course you don't have to think about these
things, but the FACT IS, without doing some preventative things
you will be stuck with a dead battery. i am just giving suggestions on
some options that have worked for me.:)
 
buckeyedroid said:
i get incredible battery times with my mytouch 4g, but
i do all the things that make the battery last.
first off, i have found that you must move the "display" brightness
way way down, you can't just put it on "auto". i don't know why
but the mytouch 4g screen eats up the battery like crazy, but
if you turn the brightness way down you get super long battery life,
and i honestly don't really notice any difference in the screen.
i have "background data" turned off at all times, so if i want to
go into the market it will ask me to turn on 'background data"
i do all my own syncing, if i want to check mail, i sync it myself,
i keep my phone on "e" or edge at all times, all my phone calls are made
on edge, all my texts are on edge, there is NO difference between
edge and 3g/4g for calls and texts, except using edge uses almost
zero battery and 3g/4g rips up the battery. honestly, i use edge for
light web browsing, if i want to do heavy web browsing i will switch on
wi-fi or 4g, but when i am done it is right back to "e".
when you are at a location, say your job, and you in a cement builidng
with no reception, your phone will continually fight to search and find
reception, but it never will, so if you know you will be at a certain place for
hours on end with no reception, put your phone into airplane mode, and
you will not lose any battery. these are just a few tips, but i guarantee you
that if you do this you will gets days out of your battery.
Click to expand...

Ok. This sounds interesting and I tried to do most of it today, but I'm not clear on how to get it done as you've described.

Questions:
1. What do you mean by turning off background data? Do you mean un-ticking [Settings->Accounts & sync->Background data]? Is that all?

2. Do you do anything to [Settings->Wireless & networks->Mobile network settings->Enable always-on mobile data? Mine is default to enabled.

3. When you say use EDGE and not 3G/4G do you mean [Settings->Wireless & networks->Mobile network settings->Network Mode]? If so, which one is EDGE and which is 3G/4G? I have GSM or WCDMA or GSM/WCDMA auto.

Thanks
 
1. yes
2.no, mobile network stays on or enabled
3.gsm means edge or 2g - wcdma meand 3g/4g
when placed on wcdma the phone will always
go to 4g if it is available if not available it will go
to 3g(there will be an "h" in the notification area
when on 3g or 4g and there will be an "e" when on
gms/edge/2g(all of which mean the same thing)

i will tell you right now, the 4g is a battery killer, there
is no way around it, anyone that tells you different is lying.
like i have said before, there is NO way to tell if you are talking on
edge or 4g(quality of sound), texts messages don't know any difference either,
but the battery does for sure.
now, of course data transmission on the internet will be faster
on 4g than on edge, but i just tap on wi-fi or i tap on 4g, when i am
done i turn it back off. i guarantee you will see incredible battery
results.
 
That sure seems like a lot of trouble to go through for battery life. Why does it matter if you're phone is almost dead when you get home at night? You're home, just plug it in. I guess I just don't get it/don't care.
 
Buckeye-
I like your suggestion of disabling 3g/4g when not needed. I'm hoping this will make some improvements.

Question about WiFi-
I've seen conflicting views about having WiFi enabled. Many say to always disable WiFi when it's not needed. Though I've seen other information that WiFi uses less battery than searching for data network, so it's actually better to use WiFi if it's available. Your thoughts on this? Is there a way to turn off phone/data search while WiFi is turned on?

Also, re: syncing-
I need to sync my gmail and gCalendar. I would be ok with calendar only syncing every few hours, but can't seem to find any way to change this. Is it really not possible to change the frequency at which gmail and calendar sync? Bummer, if so.

I also can't seem to find any way to adjust frequency of TMobile contacts sync. I just read a post elsewhere that said even with tmobile contact sync disabled, it still syncs once a day - which as an acceptable frequency level for me. Trying this now to see if it works!
 
my view is that if you are not using wi-fi it should be turned
off. i don't know if i am right or not, but it works for me.
i could never find a way to set the sync times for gmail,
someone told me it is a push application that cannot be changed,
that is why i do my own syncing. it is just a personal choice.
as for t-mobile contacts, i found it easier to get rid of them and
only use all google services. the googles contacts is much better than
the my tmobile contacts, if you plan on staying with android phones
then it is in your best interest to get off the t-mobile contacts and
fully integrate into g-mail contacts.
even if you change phone carriers some day, just turn on
your new android phone and boom, all your info is right in the phone.
 
Is there a way to set the default contacts setting to Google when you add new contacts? Mine always starts with t-mobile, then I must change if I want to add a new Google contact...

Also, is there a shortcut to turning off background data?
 
t-mobile was really sneaky with the contacts, it's
almost like they trick you into putting them into mytmobile.
no, i have not found a way to make google the default when
you enter a new contact onto your phone.
as for the back ground data shortcut, i have not really looked
for one, so i can't answer that.
 
Now that is something I didn't notice before. I've only added one or two contacts since I got this phone but they are not in my google voice contacts. Damn Tmo that was a sneaky one.
 
Wife and I having same problem. We can't make it through a work shift. Bye the time we get in the car the phones are dead. That really sucks, because the extra charges I'm going to have to do at work and in the car will probably make the longevity of the batter really poor. Other then that the phone is fantastic.
 
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