Database Users

Battery live

Hi
Yesterday arrived my dev phone 1 and I am very hapy with it bu battery level is at 20% at 18:00. Is this normal?. I dont want to switch the band to 2g. I keep gmail synched with direct push but google talk not. anyone with same prpoblem?
Thanks

yeah, the standard battery in the G1 is ****ing terrible
not a lot you can do except buying an extended battery (which is a very good idea! )

The only thing I have found to extend my battery Life has been discussed previously a few times on these boards...
1. Turn off Wifi, when not in use. (Toggle WiFi from the Market is Great)
2. Turn off GPS, when not in use. (Toggle GPS from the Market also great)
3. Turn down the screen brightness.
4. (not sure if this makes a big difference) But sometimes if I do not need my feeds or background running apps throughout the day I will restart my phone, or run through a few applications that are not pulling web cache. This way you dont have auto update feedreaders in the background running. It seems like it works for me, but that could very well be wishful thinking. Also turning of things like Twitroid update etc...
Hope that helps.

recasper said:
The only thing I have found to extend my battery Life has been discussed previously a few times on these boards...
1. Turn off Wifi, when not in use. (Toggle WiFi from the Market is Great)
2. Turn off GPS, when not in use. (Toggle GPS from the Market also great)
3. Turn down the screen brightness.
4. (not sure if this makes a big difference) But sometimes if I do not need my feeds or background running apps throughout the day I will restart my phone, or run through a few applications that are not pulling web cache. This way you dont have auto update feedreaders in the background running. It seems like it works for me, but that could very well be wishful thinking. Also turning of things like Twitroid update etc...
Hope that helps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i do #4 as well, it seems to help, since i have root i just go into terminal and type su [enter] reboot [enter] and when it turns back on its usually doing bettery with the battery
as for opening programs, would advanced task manager serve the same purpose (closing apps that arnt needed and using memory, because if its using memory isnt it in some way using battery power?)

Thanks.
I am porting CommMgrPro to Android (Similar to Locale but much more powerfull). In this way I will switch to 2G, turn Wifi off, disable connections, etc, etc, etc automatically depending on my location/weekday/hour.
Greetings
Dani

Hi All
I have a brand new G1 and, like you, I was suprised by the short battery life.
I also thought about selling the phone but apart from that problem I like it very much.
I noticed that the permanent 3g wireless connection was the real draining battery application.
So the solution I found now is: to disable the permanent connection. I downloaded APNdroid application from the market and I use it everytime I need to toggle connection on and off.
I also tried to leave the WIFI on and i saw that it does not consume much battery.
I did not tried with the GPS.
I am using a good tool to toggle and to fine check the battery level: Useful switchers
I can now say I am pretty satisfied with the phone.
Greeting
Lollo

lollonet said:
Hi All
I have a brand new G1 and, like you, I was suprised by the short battery life.
I also thought about selling the phone but apart from that problem I like it very much.
I noticed that the permanent 3g wireless connection was the real draining battery application.
So the solution I found now is: to disable the permanent connection. I downloaded APNdroid application from the market and I use it everytime I need to toggle connection on and off.
I also tried to leave the WIFI on and i saw that it does not consume much battery.
I did not tried with the GPS.
I am using a good tool to toggle and to fine check the battery level: Useful switchers
I can now say I am pretty satisfied with the phone.
Greeting
Lollo
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes. It was the same problem there was in HTC Hermes/TyNT and TouchPro/Diamond. I created bandswitch in the past and will create two little toggles to switch 3g/2g with and without time limit....

Conditioning
Try Conditioning the Battery...
I have gps on, 2g, brightness at 50% and screen timeout at 30 secs, everything syncing and I get around 5 or 6 hours of use...just like the company says I should.
Run your battery completely dead...
Charge your phone for around 8-12 hours...
Repeat for about 6 days...
You should see improved battery life.

I have 3g, wifi, bluetooth, brightness at 50% and screen timeout at 30 secs, everything syncing with 1-2 hours of music/video with 30 SMS, about 20 mins of calls......I am now getting about 8hrs on the new ones from HTC (the 04).

Interesting Battery
Well now that I have had a week of use I have noticed that the (old) "02" batteries would last about 4-5hrs and go until 1% before turning off, with a slow count down. The (new) "04" batteries stay at a high number (about 6-7hrs) until they get to 15% and within a few mins turn-off....as I recall I saw postings of 'quick' count downs, so I wonder if you either get a slow drain down with about 4hrs of use OR about 6 hrs of use with the last 15% a very quick shutdown....I'll keep monitoring these new HTC batteries to see if it was just one of those "weekend" things or if this is the trade off...was caught off guard as I had been getting 30 mins or so when I had 15% left and the G1 would stay on until 1%..."teach an old dog new tricks".....

How often do you recharge your Hero?

hi,
I would like to know how often you recharge your Hero?
With moderate to low usage I'm recharging every day and I'm thinking that autonomie on my Hero is really very bad. Before I used Polaris and I had to recharge every 2 or 3 days.
I'm thinking that maybe my phone have manufacture default. On official web page they say that autonomy on standby is 440 hours, its like 15 days, mine keeps barely 1 day, wtf!!!
Even during night when I don't use it all and put on plane mode battery loses 20%.
whitealien

i recharge everyday with mild usage. gaming - usually keep it plugged in.

with moderate usage i recharge my GSM Hero every 2-3 days. by moderate i mean, like 1h Wifi, 2h mp3, 0.5h phone usage, 1.5h online activity over 3G.
Thats about it. And even if i multiply the usage above by two, it will last two days.
During flightmode inthe night, it loses about 5-10%.
so it seems something is sucking really bad on your battery!
Cheers,
Chaos42

I would say I charge mine every 2-3 days. I'm a relatively low user but wifi is on all of the time and I use it for browsing a bit in the evenings when I don't have my PC turned on. GPS, mobile web and bluetooth is off for the most part.
My wife has the same phone and her battery life is a little shorter than mine but she has the mobile web on and uses hers a bit more then me so I would guess around 1.5-2 days.
My battery is rated at 1350mAh which I think is standard.

I have to charge it every day.
Unplug it from charger at 0700 and by 2200 it has less than 10% battery.
But I have WiFi on for over twelve hours a day, mobile web on and quite a few things updating online!

Background apps may be draining your battery
Hi whitealian,
Check the application list to see which applications are running in the background. One of them may be draining your power.
You can check the task list using Estrongs File Explorer (start the app, then menu->Task Manager). There are plenty of other task managers, of course...
In my case, I think it was ShopSavvy that was running in the BG. Once I removed it the battery performance was much better. See this post.
You can also use one of the apps that turn on/off wifi based on location. A quick market search finds "Y5 - Battery Saver". Haven't tried it myself yet!
Good luck!

mobile.dev said:
Hi whitealian,
Check the application list to see which applications are running in the background. One of them may be draining your power.
You can check the task list using Estrongs File Explorer (start the app, then menu->Task Manager). There are plenty of other task managers, of course...
In my case, I think it was ShopSavvy that was running in the BG. Once I removed it the battery performance was much better. See this post.
You can also use one of the apps that turn on/off wifi based on location. A quick market search finds "Y5 - Battery Saver". Haven't tried it myself yet!
Good luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for advice. I was not using ShopSavvy, but I had doubts that either I got faulty device or some app is draining battery.
I called customer service and they advice me to put phone in safe mode and test it for awhile. It extended a little my battery life, but still recharge every day. Next step was to reset to factory default. This is what I did yesterday and now I'm at the end of second day since last charge and I still have 40% left, what seems to be normal, but still a little to early to judge that everything is good.
I still don't know from where battery drain was coming. Probably from some app.
I'm putting my bet on NewsRob - google feed reader. It was the only app that was using network in background (apart from mail and tweeter sync).

too often. mostly once a day.
but when i'm at home im ususally plugging the as adaptor in either way, because i'm afraid to have to little battery left if i leave the house without a 100% battery level. (this can happen fast if you sync a lot of rss feeds, surf the net, have an exchange server connection and gmail push and so on...)
They really need to make better batteries. They should last 2-3 days on full force usage.

Shahpur.Azizpour said:
They really need to make better batteries. They should last 2-3 days on full force usage.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I wish it could

I think once every 2 days, but at night I have the ''phonestuff'' turned of using it as an alarm clock only. I do use the mobile internet connection all day. Tried once without that and got almost 4 days out of one charge.
I agree they have to make better battery's but I don't think the hero's that bad.
I had a diamond wich I had to charge almost twice a day when data was on...
So for me the hero's a big improvement.

I too get 2 to 3 days use out of a charge. Got rid of standard HTC Twitter client and replaced with Twidroid Pro. Only have Gmail push synchronization on.

I am pretty sure you are aware if the standard HTC SMS app battery drain issue?
Someone pointed out that HTCs SMS app constantly drains the battery, because it stopps the phone from entering standby mode. You can replace it by going into Applications menu, open "Messages", "Clear defaults" and install HandCent. As soon as a new SMS comes in, it will ask you which app you want to handle SMS messages. Choose HandCent, make it default and you are set.
Gave me a huge battery performance boost.

every day. that is the only bad issue of my hero.

I charge mine daily when I go to bed as it's usually giving me the 15% warning about 24hrs after I last charged it.
The joys of smartphones

At least once a day.
I've got a desk stand so it sit's in that for a constant juicing up, when im in the car I put it on to charge.. At work its on USB charge.. Basically I just juice it whenever I can..
I dont think theres anything wrong with yours.. they just have bad battery life.
If you think thats bad try the fossil palm powered watches.. i have to take it off every couple of hours to charge it!

Too often. Exchange, gmail, 1 additional pop3 inbox, facebook every 2hrs, twitter every 2hrs is enough for my phone to barelly hold a charge for a day. But when actually using the phone (music, calling), it doesn't hold even a day.

klaus27 said:
I am pretty sure you are aware if the standard HTC SMS app battery drain issue?
Someone pointed out that HTCs SMS app constantly drains the battery, because it stopps the phone from entering standby mode. You can replace it by going into Applications menu, open "Messages", "Clear defaults" and install HandCent. As soon as a new SMS comes in, it will ask you which app you want to handle SMS messages. Choose HandCent, make it default and you are set.
Gave me a huge battery performance boost.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tried it. I installed Handcent, but when I want to want to make it default, the button is greyed out. What am I doing wrong?

klaus27 said:
I am pretty sure you are aware if the standard HTC SMS app battery drain issue?
Someone pointed out that HTCs SMS app constantly drains the battery, because it stopps the phone from entering standby mode. You can replace it by going into Applications menu, open "Messages", "Clear defaults" and install HandCent. As soon as a new SMS comes in, it will ask you which app you want to handle SMS messages. Choose HandCent, make it default and you are set.
Gave me a huge battery performance boost.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's a US only thing though, right? The European ones don't suffer with that issue AFAIK.
...Which I'm glad about as I sometimes have to charge my hero twice a day. Data is on all the time when I'm out and I'm a pretty heavy user of it. In terms of calls perhaps an hour a day, and not a huge number of texts (more than ten would be unusual). I do use the phone to listen to music quite often too.
I think the apps in the background thing is what needs to be checked. I use a news widget and Facebook and Weather and a travel one which I think adds up to a lot of refreshes. I'm thinking about making a Sense Profile (or whatever it's called) that has nothing on the homescreens at all for times when I might want to be a bit more frugal with battery life.
I do think it's somewhat ridiculous that the phone is capable of doing so many things but that if you have it do them it withers and dies. I would've thought the way to calculate battery life would be to have the phone doing the things that people will want to do with it and work from there. It seems that battery life is calculated by turning the phone into as dormant a state as possible and then tip toeing around it trying not to disturb it.
I get by though.

tatwamasi said:
That's a US only thing though, right? The European ones don't suffer with that issue AFAIK.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I cannot confirm that. I have a European one and mine drained the battery. I searched the net and with this trick I came from ~1 day to over 2 days with moderate usage and push enabled all the time.
tombond said:
Tried it. I installed Handcent, but when I want to want to make it default, the button is greyed out. What am I doing wrong?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, have you cleared the default for message application?
You probably want to google it or just read over this posts:
http://www.phonenews.com/improving-sprint-htc-hero-battery-life-9720/
My battery went even better once I configured Locale to go into airplane mode during night time and stopping sync services during work time. I don't need push when I am at work (timescal set, no GPS), because there I have all my mailboxes open and directly connected.

Some more tipps to improve battery performance.
Disable 3G - Set to "only 2G" in mobile network settings
Set display timeout to 30s or lower
Remove as many widgets from your homescreens as possible (I only have calendar)
use task killer app to check which apps are still running in the background and try to tweak their settings to not autoload or don't notify you on updates - and of course kill them
disable screen animations
uncheck WLAN for location checking
don't check your mailboxes too regular
disable vibration totally. disable haptic feedback for the keyboard as well

stock battery life

So just got my incredible today, after the initial tooling around i charged it (was taking forever on my computer, anyone else have this issue?)
and now i took it off, and answered some texts and changed a couple settings but otherwise didn't touch it much. Like around a half hour later it is now at 88 percent..... seems a bit much.
only widgets that i have pulling from the internet are engadget, htc weather, and the facebook widget. Think it might just be the early status of the battery? anyone else have good reports or any battery life saving tips?
edit: also brightness is like at half, and gps/wifi/bluetooth are not on

Yeah, I have also noticed that it seems to take forever to charge it. I drained it from fully charged down to about 35% in less than 4 hours of moderate usage. I have had it plugged into my USB port for 2 hours and it is only back up to 52%.
Not so great.

I plugged it into the wall after a bit on my pc and it charged alot faster, must be just a pc charging issue, though it is disappointing.

th3drow said:
So just got my incredible today, after the initial tooling around i charged it (was taking forever on my computer, anyone else have this issue?)
and now i took it off, and answered some texts and changed a couple settings but otherwise didn't touch it much. Like around a half hour later it is now at 88 percent..... seems a bit much.
only widgets that i have pulling from the internet are engadget, htc weather, and the facebook widget. Think it might just be the early status of the battery? anyone else have good reports or any battery life saving tips?
edit: also brightness is like at half, and gps/wifi/bluetooth are not on
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your PC USB doesn't supply as much power as the standalone charger. It will always take significantly longer to charge using the PC USB as opposed to the standalone charger.

Anyone know when the VZW extended battery is coming (2150mAh) and how heavy/large it'll be?

th3drow said:
So just got my incredible today, after the initial tooling around i charged it (was taking forever on my computer, anyone else have this issue?)
and now i took it off, and answered some texts and changed a couple settings but otherwise didn't touch it much. Like around a half hour later it is now at 88 percent..... seems a bit much.
only widgets that i have pulling from the internet are engadget, htc weather, and the facebook widget. Think it might just be the early status of the battery? anyone else have good reports or any battery life saving tips?
edit: also brightness is like at half, and gps/wifi/bluetooth are not on
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
anything that pulls anything from the internet will eat your battery. personally i don't need to be that connected to tech, i run apps when i need them, turn off anything that pulls from the internet and update weather/email/and such when i need to.
if you want to be constantly connected to tech, its gonna come at a price. this is true with any smartphone. just be thankful you can have battery back-ups, haha. id' suggest picking up a spare

Ya i understand that, currently the only thing i have pulling from the internet at the moment is my weather, which does it once an hour,I took the other widgets off.
This morning i woke up, took it off the charger, took the alarms off and answered some texts adn i think checked the weather, like 15 minutes later it was at 90 percent, it went down like 3 percent within like a minute off the charger.....

th3drow said:
Ya i understand that, currently the only thing i have pulling from the internet at the moment is my weather, which does it once an hour,I took the other widgets off.
This morning i woke up, took it off the charger, took the alarms off and answered some texts adn i think checked the weather, like 15 minutes later it was at 90 percent, it went down like 3 percent within like a minute off the charger.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
go to your sync settings and change the refresh time of your internet apps... stock setting is every 15 min.... I have mine set for every 4 hours... if you need info on the fly you can always manually sync it when you want it... my phone has been on for 10 hours and its only used 1 little bar since I set my settings this way... I do email refresh every 2 hours also like I did on my winmo phone

hmm when i go to accounts & sync i only have the backup assistant, google and weather. The only one that will let me change when it syncs is weather. I don't see where i can change how often it syncs my gmail/contacts/calender, or anything else. So i'm guessing you just cant change those

th3drow said:
hmm when i go to accounts & sync i only have the backup assistant, google and weather. The only one that will let me change when it syncs is weather. I don't see where i can change how often it syncs my gmail/contacts/calender, or anything else. So i'm guessing you just cant change those
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the google sync is your gmail which you can't change but it just pushed to your phone when you get an email... I dont use my gmail as my primary
click add account and it will give you a list of the auto sync apps... facebook... and facebook for htc sence(friend stream) , twitter, flickr

Wow, I was almost going to complain about being @ 35% battery 13 hours since a charge. Moderate use as well.
Anyway, do you have good reception where you are at? If it's ducking in and out of service, your battery will eat it quicker.
The following run in the background all day:
eBuddy
SipDroid
Advanced Task Killer (automatically set to kill apps)
Exchange/Active Sync
Gmail/Calendar/Contacts
Weather (set to 3 hrs)
Roughly 40 minutes of calling
For my settings:
WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS are all off.
Location Off
Privacy (My Location Off)
Brightness ~30% (Automatic off)\
Orientation disabled (likely has nothing to do with battery)
Haptic feedback off
All vibration settings off (drives me nuts anyway)
Audible selection/tones off
Screen timeout 1min
I have been an android user since almost day one and over the years those settings seem to yield the best results.

mycomputerisjunk said:
Wow, I was almost going to complain about being @ 35% battery 13 hours since a charge. Moderate use as well.
Anyway, do you have good reception where you are at? If it's ducking in and out of service, your battery will eat it quicker.
The following run in the background all day:
eBuddy
SipDroid
Advanced Task Killer (automatically set to kill apps)
Exchange/Active Sync
Gmail/Calendar/Contacts
Weather (set to 3 hrs)
Roughly 40 minutes of calling
For my settings:
WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS are all off.
Location Off
Privacy (My Location Off)
Brightness ~30% (Automatic off)\
Orientation disabled (likely has nothing to do with battery)
Haptic feedback off
All vibration settings off (drives me nuts anyway)
Audible selection/tones off
Screen timeout 1min
I have been an android user since almost day one and over the years those settings seem to yield the best results.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have been a Windows Mobile user for many years. I have been Android user for about 3 days. I have pretty good reception where I am at.
I think part of the reason I drained my batter so fast was that I have everything like GPS, bluetooth, and wifi turned on all the time. I turned off wifi today and it was a little better. I also have no idea how you close a program. There was always an obvious way to do that with WinMo but can't figure it out with Android. Do I have to have a task killer app?
What are eBuddy and SipDroid? You have a whole bunch of setting turned off. I can deal with WiFi off but bluetooth and GPS are two of the things I really like with this phone. I guess I don't really need the haptic feedback. Do you think that is significant?
I will try some of those out and look up those two apps.

i charged this god damn phone 2 times in a day.....what the F is wrong with it. i got GPS, wifi, and bt all turn off already. i even used task kill.

I also have no idea how you close a program. There was always an obvious way to do that with WinMo but can't figure it out with Android. Do I have to have a task killer app?
What are eBuddy and SipDroid? You have a whole bunch of setting turned off. I can deal with WiFi off but bluetooth and GPS are two of the things I really like with this phone. I guess I don't really need the haptic feedback. Do you think that is significant?
I will try some of those out and look up those two apps.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the back arrow will exit most things, you can turn off all haptic feedback in the settings.
Sent from my Eris using the XDA mobile application powered by Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Yeah, my settings were similiar to others posted here- 10 hours consuming 85 percent of the battery..But then again, today was my first full day, and everyone at work wanted to see the hyped phone. Maybe it will get better on monday? After playing with my friends droid, i definitely noticed how much lighter the incredible was. I've always hated those stupid extended batteries because of the bulkiness they add to the phone. The extended battery isnt out yet, is it? I'd love to see some reviews on that.

buy more chargers one for the office one for the car and of course one for home problem solved. until they make batteries that are more powerful.... battery life on any phone is going to be the same.

With Heavy usage I got about a 10 hour work day out of it (30% when I got home). My usage is below-
Atleast two hours of Last.fm,
Atleast two hours of web browsing with multiple tabs,
Ebuddy on in background,
Skype on in background,
1 Hour Voice,
Alot of texting.

Im in good service area like 3 bars usually. This morning i took off the charger, played a 3 or 4 minute youtube video and it took it down to 90 percent, seems a bit much to me.

Android Central's forums have a possible solution: Menu-Settings-Wireless and Networks-Mobile Networks (the second one)-Enable always-on mobile...
Uncheck that. Can't post a link, but it's at
forum(dot)androidcentral(dot)com/droid-incredible/10987-battery-life-not-lasting-your-fix-here.html

JCKnights3707 said:
Android Central's forums have a possible solution: Menu-Settings-Wireless and Networks-Mobile Networks (the second one)-Enable always-on mobile...
Uncheck that. Can't post a link, but it's at
forum(dot)androidcentral(dot)com/droid-incredible/10987-battery-life-not-lasting-your-fix-here.html
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It was also discussed there that doing the *228 Option 1 to reprogram helped a few people with battery life as well.

Attention!!!!!! Everyone with battery life issues please read this!

I think I finally found the solution to lousy battery performance on Android phones in general!
If you are using Spare Parts -or any other battery monitor app- and noticed a near 100% of awake time then,
it's as simple as that:
Go to menu, choose Settings->Applications->Development
and make sure that Stay Awake (second option) is NOT checked.
If it is checked the phone never sleeps while charging, but unfortunately, due to an android bug I guess, won't return to his regular sleep schedule after disconnecting from the charger.
Please try this and let me know! It worked for me!

My_Immortal said:
I think I finally found the solution to lousy battery performance on Android phones in general!
It's as simple as that:
Go to menu, choose Settings->Applications->Development
and make sure that Stay Awake (second option) is NOT checked.
If it is checked the phone never sleeps while charging, but unfortunately, due to an android bug I guess, won't return to his regular sleep schedule after disconnecting from the charger.
Please try this and let me know! It worked for me!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
mine wasn't checked, still get pretty crappy battery life. Thanks though

Chuteboxe39 said:
mine wasn't checked, still get pretty crappy battery life. Thanks though
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Do you have Spare Parts installed?
If yes, then you can see what exactly is using your battery.
My solution applies to those who constantly have near 100% awake time.
I hope you find your culprit soon!

Timescape is the culprit.
Force close it and remove it from your home screen and watch your battery life double.

Well i'm having the 100%, so i will defenitely give it a shot. Thank you.

augie7107 said:
Timescape is the culprit.
Force close it and remove it from your home screen and watch your battery life double.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You speak my words absolutely right Timescape is the Main Battery sucker and nothing else. I removed it Days ago including of closing the Process in Taskmanager. my battery Life got up from 7 Hours to 16 Hours. Nothing else had effect for me even changing the Launcher to Helix or whatever.
Timescape / Mediascape is what sucks the X10 down.

No timescape on my homescreen and stay awake is not checked...still batterylife is lousy
Its fine when its not being used but as soon as i start using apps or use the phone in general, the battery drains fast.....

I reset the phone after unplugging it in the morning after a full charge, and my battery lasts a good 18 hours. Thats with Wifi on 75% of the time and 3g always on.

forzanerazzurri said:
I reset the phone after unplugging it in the morning after a full charge, and my battery lasts a good 18 hours. Thats with Wifi on 75% of the time and 3g always on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow....thats great...how did you manage that?
could you guide me through what settings you use please
cause with wifi on ....i get like half a day!

3 to 4 days with wi-fi off,3g off and gps on......................
don't twit or face though.

After being fed up with barely making it throughout the day, I decided to perform the following experiment:
1) wiped the phone clean (factory reset);
2) did NOT configure my google account with the phone to avoid needless sync with google as well as all those processes running in background no matter data connection available or not;
3) disabled data (as that line I am testing the X10 on has no data plan on it);
4) switched off location services; removed every single widget from the home screens;
5) installed HelixLauncherDONUT and left default widgets + added SE's digital clock;
6) installed startup auditor to prevent stuff like timescape from starting
7) contacts/settings/show status updates changed from all to none
Now after 24 hours and 45 minutes since unplugged phone has 88% battery left!!! There was no usage beside me checking stats every few hours. Phone is set to 3G, so switching to 2G may yield even better results.
Before this test I have done exactly the same test with the only difference of Google account being enabled on the phone (with sync disabled). No matter there was no data connection at all, phone went thru 20% of battery in just 6 hours with same usage pattern - 'no usage, just standby and checking every now and then the status of battery'. Not bad as with normal use of the phone I was been able to make it thru the day without shutting down due to battery empty.
Bottomline, I blame Google services for the excessive battery drainage in this phone. It is 1.6 'Donut' with its outdated google services 'at fault' IMO.
Hopefully with the planned Eclair update (lets hope Froyo too!) this situation will be addressed, at least to a certain degree.
Cheers!

leobg said:
After being fed up with barely making it throughout the day, I decided to perform the following experiment:
1) wiped the phone clean (factory reset);
2) did NOT configure my google account with the phone to avoid needless sync with google as well as all those processes running in background no matter data connection available or not;
3) disabled data (as that line I am testing the X10 on has no data plan on it);
4) switched off location services; removed every single widget from the home screens;
5) installed HelixLauncherDONUT and left default widgets + added SE's digital clock;
6) installed startup auditor to prevent stuff like timescape from starting
7) contacts/settings/show status updates changed from all to none
Now after 24 hours and 45 minutes since unplugged phone has 88% battery left!!! There was no usage beside me checking stats every few hours. Phone is set to 3G, so switching to 2G may yield even better results.
Before this test I have done exactly the same test with the only difference of Google account being enabled on the phone (with sync disabled). No matter there was no data connection at all, phone went thru 20% of battery in just 6 hours with same usage pattern - 'no usage, just standby and checking every now and then the status of battery'. Not bad as with normal use of the phone I was been able to make it thru the day without shutting down due to battery empty.
Bottomline, I blame Google services for the excessive battery drainage in this phone. It is 1.6 'Donut' with its outdated google services 'at fault' IMO.
Hopefully with the planned Eclair update (lets hope Froyo too!) this situation will be addressed, at least to a certain degree.
Cheers!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for your info,
if i disable that many things, then i'd use my old Motorola v3.

henh said:
thanks for your info,
if i disable that many things, then i'd use my old Motorola v3.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't get me wrong. The experiment I've done is a "proof of concept" sort of - I am trying to figure out what is wrong with the battery usage in this phone.
If we look from your point of view, just to have the phone on standby and not using it, not Motorola V3, but a toy phone from the dollar store would suffice.

leobg said:
Don't get me wrong. The experiment I've done is a "proof of concept" sort of - I am trying to figure out what is wrong with the battery usage in this phone.
If we look from your point of view, just to have the phone on standby and not using it, not Motorola V3, but a toy phone from the dollar store would suffice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
oh, i know. i just upset with SE, we're here to find some solutions
it's so sad that we buy the phone for the look & the features, too bad that SE did a very bad job. now we have to wait for months to get an update from them, & still don't know it'll fix all the issues???

What I've found out is that most battery drain comes from apps. Install an app that monitors cpu time per app and cpu speed and load. Shortly after I got the phone I was about ready to throw it from a bridge or something because of the horrible battery performance. However, one day I noticed that the cpu was running at ~1GHz most of the time even though it's supposed to throttle down and match speed to need. I found out that one app had ALOT more cpu time that all other apps/services (a widget from DMI, the Danish weather service, in case you care). Once uninstalled, my phone could go through half a day with both 3G and Wifi enable and not even drop below 90% battery capacity - although only mild usage because I was working. Before, the battery went from 100% to like 60% during a night with 6-7hrs of sleep.
Finding out how to improve battery usage has definitely made me like the phone alot more, but I still wish HTC had made the software for it.
Regards - Martin

I get a good full day with my x10. I use Timescape but set the update option to NEVER so it only updates by tapping on timescape tile; i also turn of wi-fi when not in range of my home wi-fi, bt off, gps off (unless needed for maps).
I also trained the battery. Let power off by itself and charging full 4 or 5 times.

as for the google thing id suggest going into settings then data synchronization.. click google and uncheck background data.. it even tells you it will save battery and lower data usage.. whenever you use market though it will ask you to enable it in order to use it.
hope it helps!!

leobg said:
After being fed up with barely making it throughout the day, I decided to perform the following experiment:
1) wiped the phone clean (factory reset);
2) did NOT configure my google account with the phone to avoid needless sync with google as well as all those processes running in background no matter data connection available or not;
3) disabled data (as that line I am testing the X10 on has no data plan on it);
4) switched off location services; removed every single widget from the home screens;
5) installed HelixLauncherDONUT and left default widgets + added SE's digital clock;
6) installed startup auditor to prevent stuff like timescape from starting
7) contacts/settings/show status updates changed from all to none
Now after 24 hours and 45 minutes since unplugged phone has 88% battery left!!! There was no usage beside me checking stats every few hours. Phone is set to 3G, so switching to 2G may yield even better results.
Before this test I have done exactly the same test with the only difference of Google account being enabled on the phone (with sync disabled). No matter there was no data connection at all, phone went thru 20% of battery in just 6 hours with same usage pattern - 'no usage, just standby and checking every now and then the status of battery'. Not bad as with normal use of the phone I was been able to make it thru the day without shutting down due to battery empty.
Bottomline, I blame Google services for the excessive battery drainage in this phone. It is 1.6 'Donut' with its outdated google services 'at fault' IMO.
Hopefully with the planned Eclair update (lets hope Froyo too!) this situation will be addressed, at least to a certain degree.
Cheers!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
To follow up on my test - 7 days, 18 hours with 3% battery left. Here is a quick video I made: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt2YjrREgxg

for me i use Launcher Donut
and disable data and mms
settings > wireless controls > Mobile network settings > MMS & DATA
try it and tell me how much u will reach in the same daily using average

Removing Timescape & Mediascape totally from the home screens.
and disabling Data Sync>Gmail
battery life is showing huge improvement.

Answers on battery life.

I've been seeing a lot of posts on crap battery life around here, and I was chasing my tail about some of them as well, following a lot of misinformation even by senior members. I think I have a good handle on it now, and picked up most of these tips from these forums, so I'm not taking credit for these ideas, just collecting them in one place. Some of my suggestions assume you have root and Rom Manager (see the Tips and Tricks sticky thread on how to get them).
1. If your battery drains in less than a day on standby, you probably have a bad flash of the JI6 modem (either from the OTA update or from a ROM). Flash the JI2 modem from here "www dot teamwhiskey dot com/home/downloads". If the flash fixes it, you may try going back to JI6 if you want, and it may stay fixed. I went back to JI2 and didn't bother going back to JI6, but it has worked for others. With JI2 and 3G on I get just over 24 hours in normal usage.
2. The #2 battery drain on standby is 3G. I turned it off (Settings/Wireless/Mobile networks/Network mode/GSM only) and my phone lasted for 40 hours on Edge with light usage (few phone calls, messaging, quite a lot of web surfing, 2 hours of podcasts). Didn't even feel too slow (I get 140kbps on edge). Can anybody suggest a really good widget for turning 3G on/off? I use the 2G-3G OnOff widget by Curvefish. It's not one-click, it's just a shortcut to Mobile Network Settings, but it works. Note that sometimes it takes a while for the data connection to re-establish after you see the 3G or E icon.
2.5. WiFi always on is a huge battery saver! It keeps 3g off. I can easily get 3+ days with light usage on my home wifi. Settings/Wireless and Network/Wifi Settings/Menu/Advanced/Wifi Sleep Policy/Never.
3. Don't need a task killer. I wasted all my time killing tasks trying to chase down my crappy battery usage, but since I fixed my modem and turned off 3G I know that the 3-5% CPU usage at idle does not hurt my battery. Taskiller for me was actually hitting the CPU constantly, lightly but for no reason, so I got pissed and uninstalled it.
4. Install a CPU usage monitor like Usage Timelines. It sits in the notification bar, very easy on the battery, but tells you if you have a rogue app pegging your CPU and draining your battery. These are the only apps you should be worried about killing. Astro File Manager has a task manager that shows CPU usage for each app, so you can kill the rogue one. I shoot for about 5% cpu usage at idle (at 200mhz - at 100mhz it would be a bit higher).
5. The app Autostarts lets you disable any app from starting on boot or other events like connectivity changes. This is not strictly necessary unless you have a lot of crap apps installed on your phone and they like to start themselves and waste CPU time behind your back.
6. If your battery reads less than 100% as soon as you unplug it from the charger fully charged, or your battery meter sits at 100% for a long time after you unplug it, you can recalibrate your battery meter. To recalibrate: 1) charge your battery to full, 2) unplug, 3) reboot into Clockwork Recovery and 4) Wipe battery stats.
7. There is No Such Thing as "battery reconditioning" (for all intents and purposes). The above procedure only RECALIBRATES you battery METER to read on a more linear scale between full and empty. It DOES NOT make your battery last longer, period. Whoever tells you that is a moron. If your battery is dying in 6 hours, doing any amount of calibration will not make it last longer (I've tried).
8. I wouldn't be too worried about undervolting, overclocking, kernel tricks and superawesomefast ROMS. The CPU drain at idle is so minuscule (as long as you don't have rogue apps) that those things make precious little difference. Like I said, the biggest drain is 3G and other radios. Having said that, I run Bionix 1.9 with the JAC kernel. It drained my battery in half a day at idle until I flashed the JI2 modem. With JI2 it suddenly started lasting over 24 hours, and once I turned off 3G, over 40 hours. I like this ROM and see no need to switch, it's very smooth. But you should be able to get similar battery life on a stock Vibrant.
9. I have GPS on, WiFi never sleep, auto-brightness, and a few widgets on like Weather and friend updates. I have no fancy settings, literally just turning off 3G (or wifi on, which is the same) got me 2-3 days. So I wouldn't waste time fooling around with magic settings (other than wifi never sleep), battery saver apps, etc.
10. If your screen is on all the time and you're playing games nonstop, you're draining your battery quicker than any of the things I mentioned above, so you probably don't care. In that case an optimized ROM/kernel is probably your best bet, especially JIT in Froyo. You can probably save on screen brightness as well.
If you guys have any other tips I'd be glad to add them to the list, but I hope this gives you an understanding of where your battery life is going. Basically: bad modem, 3G, or rogue apps.
Also, I hope this will put an end to trolls calling people whiners for complaining about battery life and saying unproductive **** like "you're a whiner" or "the Galaxy S is just a battery hog, live with it". It's not, you don't have to live with it, nobody should have to, here are your solutions.
Good luck.

A few things I do to help with battery life is:
Disable Audible touch tones
Disable Audible selection
Disable Haptic feedback
Disable SD card notifications
Set animations to NO animations
Uninstall media hub if you dont use it
Disable auto brightness adjustment
Disable power saving mode
I disable the last 2 and just swipe the notification bar to adjust brightness. Granted these items really only work when using the phone but I can go about 2 days of normal use without a charge believe it or not.

yeah disabling 3g has always been the best option for people really, really concerned with battery life.
But it's kinda hard to tell people not to use 3g on their brand new 3g capable devices.

You may want to add how to test if you battery is bad. If you use you phone repeatedly while it its plugged in you risk overheating and damaging your battery. Signs that unitas is the case are very quick drain and long (7 hours) charge times. You can easily test and see if your battery its damaged. Remove it from your phone and place on flat surface (e.g. Counter top) try spinning the battery. If it rotates easily and quickly you battery is bulging, this is a sign of damage. Time for a new battery.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

Answer to #2-
Use APNDroid. Comes with a widget.

Thanks to the OP and other contributors in this thread.
I flashed a ROM with the ji6 modem and battery life has been noticeably ****ty since. Example - this morning I unplugged my phone at 7:30 am. 100% charged. It's 10:21 am and my phone is at 75%
In the last 3 hours I browsed the web for 10 minutes while having my coffee and a smoke before heading out to work. Blue tooth was on for my drive, and I've sent 2 text messages. Aside from that my phone has been on stand-by since I unplugged it 3 hours ago.
I'm going to try to flash back to ji2 tonight as the battery usage was definitely better. Will also look into the 3G thing.
Thanks again.

You forgot to mention the two DRM and one downloader services that run resident on JI6.
These were the cause of my reduced battery life after I upgraded. Killing & removing these processes restored my battery life back to normal

blink55184 said:
Answer to #2-
Use APNDroid. Comes with a widget.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just tried this - switching 3G off works fine, but switching 3G back on didn't work for me. I had to re-boot to get 3G back so this is a no-go in my case.

I know how to kill the processes for the DRM and downloader but how do I remove them?

OP thank you for putting together the list. But I've never seen the point of doing all this. Its like getting a lamborghini and only driving 40mph because it you don't want to waste gas, whats the point? Either get a second wall charger to charge at work or a car charger. Heck even get a second battery if you are out for a long period of time.

speoples20 said:
Its like getting a lamborghini and only driving 40mph because it you don't want to waste gas, whats the point?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You don't need to disable 3g.
The point of my post is to avoid people wasting their time with tweaks that have little to no effect on battery life. I'm telling people that they're wasting time killing apps and optimizing cpu usage and twiddling their settings when the radio drains most of their battery on standby anyway.
Meaning no matter what changes you make, you can only hope to improve your battery life by a tiny amount, because any other effect is overshadowed by 3G.
Put another way, you will NEVER get battery life much longer than a day if you're on 3g, so you're wasting your energy trying all kinds of tricks.

blink55184 said:
Answer to #2-
Use APNDroid. Comes with a widget.
smutek said:
I just tried this - switching 3G off works fine, but switching 3G back on didn't work for me. I had to re-boot to get 3G back so this is a no-go in my case.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For me the widget did nothing. But it seems like it's not even supposed to turn the 3G radio off, but ALL APN network traffic. Did I miss something? It won't save battery power as long as the 3G radio is on.
I went back to the 2G-3G OnOff widget by Curvefish. It's not one-click, it's just a shortcut to Mobile Network Settings, but it works. Note that sometimes it takes a while for the data connection to re-establish after you see the 3G or E icon.

Back to my Moto Startac
While i understand the idea behind this thread, your conclusion is simple.
If you use the phone as a smartphone, it will eat up your battery no matter what.
I personally go through two batteries and some a day. (they cost about 12 bucks in ebay, and they work just fine)
The price for saving battery is not using the phone, and having a 400 bucks phone just for show off is just silly at least.
If you have a phone like this is to use it. At least you can change the battery not like some other devices......

I understand that task killer is useless, but do any of you use Autokiller (memory manager) ?

That's kind of a redundant question because even if you do not use the app, your phone is still performing the functions. The app just adjusts the settings. But to answer your question, using a memory optimization tool such as AutoKiller is 1000% more efficient than using a Task Killer. I don't think it effects battery much, but works wonders on performance.

There's no 3g-off widget because apparently in Android there's no way to do that through a direct command. I also use the Curvefish widget, and you are absolutely right about turning off 3g to save battery. I normally do so when I'm asleep or if I'm sitting at my desk next to a computer (why do I need fast data on my phone when I have my computer right here?).
The other thing I would recommend is AutoStarts. There are way too many apps that open themselves up at bizarre and inappropriate times. Autostarts is an easy and painless way to see which apps do this and keep them from opening.

gagb1967 said:
While i understand the idea behind this thread, your conclusion is simple.
If you use the phone as a smartphone, it will eat up your battery no matter what.
I personally go through two batteries and some a day. (they cost about 12 bucks in ebay, and they work just fine)
The price for saving battery is not using the phone, and having a 400 bucks phone just for show off is just silly at least.
If you have a phone like this is to use it. At least you can change the battery not like some other devices......
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1000
Great battery life comes to people who hardly use their phones. Guess I need to get a netbook. Will prolly get a netbook or 3g laptop + skype and ETF my phone soon. These battery woes are show-stopping.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

Losing 4% an hour on standby when you're not using the phone is unacceptable. Samsung screwed something up with the JI6 update. Most people think it's because of the stupid Media Hub. I think they are right.
People are not complaining about the poor battery life from using the phone. They are complaining about the slow battery drain even when they are not using it. ~4% an hour adds up fast. Vibrant is supposed to have 450 hour (18 days) stand-by time. That's what is rated. But people are getting 24 hour (1 day) stand-by time after JI6.

Yellow C6 said:
Losing 4% an hour on standby when you're not using the phone is unacceptable. Samsung screwed something up with the JI6 update. Most people think it's because of the stupid Media Hub. I think they are right.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not ready to sign off on this idea. For me simply flashing JI2 over JI6 fixed it. For some people flashing JI6 back over still left the problem fixed. I still have those processes running on JI2 and my battery life is fine.
The other reason I'm not ready to recommend wiping out those DRM processes is that apparently it stops the bundled Avatar movie from playing, and might affect other things that users may get pissed about. I've read that killing the downloader process people are talking about kills the market. So I really wish those people advocating that solution would figure their **** out and provide exact steps for the fix (right now their posts are really vague like "kill the processes that are named something like this" and not well tested; in all my research I didn't find the exact name of the "downloader" process).

Is it possible to flash the ji2 modem without root? Wishful thinking, I suppose..