Whacky battery life theory... - Nexus One General

OKAY. As many of you know, I used to be pissed about my battery life until I hit the gold mine with one of raven's 800 kernels. Even after trying 10 of them, only recently did one of them hit the spot for my phone. As most know, the higher the battery temperature, traditionally - the higher the battery drain. I noticed that most of the YouTube videos where people are showing off their N1s didn't have cases on their phones. Now, I regularly use two different cases: A seidio snap and one of the gel-like hard/flexible cases. Recently, I have been using the gel one. I also have a friend that I work with whose phone on the same setup and same kernel gets half the battery life that I do and she is using the snap right now. This morning, I flashed Raven's new 800 kernel AND switched my case to the Snap. If you saw my posts, I got roughly 35 hours of light-moderate use and still had 19% left a few days ago on his 800 from 5/04. After upgrading the kernel, my battery was better than stock, but not great (losing about 3%/hour). I just took off the Snap case and am flying naked right now and think I've already seen an increase in battery life. Obviously, it is too soon to tell. That being said, I'm a computer guy, not a physics guy and I don't know the thermodynamics of the material. I can say that the Seidio Snap has a felt lining and is plastic which I think traps more heat. You guys may tell me I'm nuts but I'm posting a poll to see. Now, I know everything is going to be a little subjective, especially the word "moderate"; however, I think most people contributing in the kernel threads have a solid understanding of the general consensus of the word. Sorry if the poll didn't include every option but I'm just curious.

<10 hour battery life is not crap. With moderate use that's what u get.
Can't vote in this poll.

DarkDvr said:
<10 hour battery life is not crap. With moderate use that's what u get.
Can't vote in this poll.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I considerate moderate use around 30 minutes total web browsing, 10-30 texts, <1 hr of phone usage and a few e-mails. Even the iPhone can go longer than that (and I hate the iPhone). Also, coming from someone now on 800AVS kernels that can finally get over a day, 10 hours is not very good.

I found the difference between nekkid and a rubber/felt case to be neglegable if any.
Conversely I found some apps to be bad about it when it comes to waking the phone for refreshing data or keeping the system awake (or more awake) even after the display is off. My biggest battery gains were in curtailing a few apps. ymmv, best of luck.

10 Hour moderate use is ok.
But i get double that...
Recently testing the GSM Auto (PRL) mod and it seems to boost my phone considerably.
Unhooked it yesterday at 8.00 PM went for my night shift.
At work i have used it for 20 min. Music and 20-25 min of surfing and nothing else. The rest of the time it has been on standby.
Is now almost 8.00 am. 12 hour has passed and is at 73% left discharging.
Here is my hacks and settings:
ROM: CyanogenMod 5.0.6-N1
Baseband: 2.6.24.00.22U-4.03.00.21_2 (unchanged)
Kernel: 2.6.33.2 CyanogenMod [email protected] #1
Build: EPE54B
Radio is unchaged.. using what came with it.
HACKS:
The GSM Auto (PRL) mod. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=670999
Beautiful Widget apk
Custom theme Cyanogen 5.0.6 theme with HelixLauncher2
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=656868
Bluetooth, Wifi, GPS & Dataroaming are OFF at all times unless i need them
SYNC is constantly OFF always!!!
Brightness is at 1-13 %, and i just boost it if i need it.
Keep in mind im a light phone user. I mostly use my N1 for data service.

Sindroid said:
SYNC is constantly OFF always!!!
Brightness is at 1-13 %, and i just boost it if i need it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Honestly, I don't think kernel has anything to do with your battery life. At least not much.
I constantly PUSH 2 email accounts (never turn it off), I always have WiFi, BT, 3G and GPS on. I never turn them off. My brightness is at least at 75%, sometimes at 100%.
I constantly check up on Pocket Empires (game) for about 2-3 minutes every 1-2 hours.. do about 10 min calls.. check engadget, browse xda through an app a little..
And I get 10 hours. If I set brightness/sync like you, I'd probably get that battery life too. I got Cyan 5.x (latest), Amon recovery, stock kernel, stock radio.
I'm happy with my batt life, I can always swap to another battery that's always charged on the dock.. but I use the phone to its fullest and never have to wait for gps/mail/wifi.

hah2110 said:
Even the iPhone can go longer than that (and I hate the iPhone).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Didn't think that I'd have to point out that iPhone has a 600MHz processor, 480x320 weak-ass screen and it only has 1 app running at a time?

DarkDvr said:
<10 hour battery life is not crap. With moderate use that's what u get.
Can't vote in this poll.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree 100%. (Except I drive an Evo, not an STI)...
I get ~10 hours and that's just fine and as I would expect for this phone.
I am delighted that some people get more, but their experience is the exception, not the rule.

Related

Reasonable battery life expectations after Rooting

So sorry for adding to the battery life threads, but I'm pretty frustrated.
I've seen people posting screen shots with 18 hours uptime, 7 hours wake time and 50% battery on custom roms. I've seen people getting about 24 hours on a single charge.
I've had my evo 2 weeks now, and I've tried about 3 different ROMS and 4 or 5 different Kernels all of which promised LONG battery life. I'm currently running BakedSnack 1.7 with Kernel #5. My phone has been on 10 hours, 2 hours of wake time and it has only 35% left. Couple of short phone calls, 10 mins Pandora and a bit of browsing and texting here and there. I was expecting more after rooting, yet it seems almost the same as it was before I rooted.
Am I expecting too much ?
I've gone through the full discharge/recharge cycle about 4 times so far. Bad battery perhaps ?
will the phone charge get you through a day say 10 hour work day ( includes travel time )
imho your expecting to much with 10 hours in to your charge and still have 35% left is pretty damn good imho
Baked Snacks is a great rom ! its no the battery check your TWS
Depends what you are doing, some things (3d games, flash) will drain the battery faster than others.
If you are at 10 hours and 2 hours awake with 35% left, thats not too bad. You should end up around 16-17 hours with 4 hours of awake time.
If you are talking on the phone, that will drain your battery the fastest.
Make sure you completely condition your battery as well (as many posts show)
Sporkman said:
will the phone charge get you through a day say 10 hour work day ( includes travel time )
imho your expecting to much with 10 hours in to your charge and still have 35% left is pretty damn good imho
Baked Snacks is a great rom ! its no the battery check your TWS
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It will make it through but usually by 5pm its around 30%. I almost have to make an effort to use it sparingly though. I really like the Baked Snack Rom, its very slick probably the best I've had so far. TWS was 3% today.
Bielinsk said:
Depends what you are doing, some things (3d games, flash) will drain the battery faster than others.
If you are at 10 hours and 2 hours awake with 35% left, thats not too bad. You should end up around 16-17 hours with 4 hours of awake time.
If you are talking on the phone, that will drain your battery the fastest.
Make sure you completely condition your battery as well (as many posts show)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't even gotten into playing games or watching video on it yet to be honest and my phone calls are usually short.
30% by 5 stop please be happy with that lol
goon3r said:
So sorry for adding to the battery life threads, but I'm pretty frustrated.
I've seen people posting screen shots with 18 hours uptime, 7 hours wake time and 50% battery on custom roms. I've seen people getting about 24 hours on a single charge.
I've had my evo 2 weeks now, and I've tried about 3 different ROMS and 4 or 5 different Kernels all of which promised LONG battery life. I'm currently running BakedSnack 1.7 with Kernel #5. My phone has been on 10 hours, 2 hours of wake time and it has only 35% left. Couple of short phone calls, 10 mins Pandora and a bit of browsing and texting here and there. I was expecting more after rooting, yet it seems almost the same as it was before I rooted.
Am I expecting too much ?
I've gone through the full discharge/recharge cycle about 4 times so far. Bad battery perhaps ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried SetCPU? I have stock rooted with SetCPU (Perflock Disabler ftw) and without a signal 13-25% of the time (meaning the phone is searching for a signal), I end a 10-12 hour work day with about 45-50% left. Underclocking to 250 while the screen off has helped a lot.
This seems to be a common concern. first please remember to take everything with a grain of salt when it comes to people reporting there battery times. There are just to many factors to say ok if you use this rom and this kernel you will get 20 hours of battery life. Also many of the people reporting battery life exaggerate. sure they may ahve gotten 50 hours between charges on stock battery... but they surely didn't have moderate use ... or any real use during that no matter what they claim.
from another post it seems the majority of people in that post (with everything tweaked calibrated and set up) were getting roughly 13-18 hours of battery life out of there phone with normal use. normal being defined by actually using your phone as a phone as well as using its other capabilities. So my feeling if you are a moderate user you should expect to fall into this area as a goal. Things to help would include setCPU, making sure you turn off data when you shut off screen (or getting a program to do so for you - juicedefender) and making sure you calibrate your battery and battery stats of your phone.
it seems like you are getting close to this range however you are having to watch your use to do so. as others have said the first thing i would do is get setCPU and set up a battery saving profile. read through some of the battery threads if you havent and look for setting changes that wont impact you tremendously but will help save battery (for example if you dont use landscape mode a lot you can turn off autorotation and save some battery). If you are using froyo and are running a task killer uninstall it since it doesnt work any way. While most settings will make a small impact together they should help get you to where you can use your phone moderately through out the day with out worries.
Sporkman said:
30% by 5 stop please be happy with that lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't get me wrong here, the thread wasn't about me complaining, more about setting my expectations.
2 Years ago I had the first Touch Pro which would be dead by 3pm regardless of usage. At one point I had 4 batteries. I got the Touch Pro 2 a year later and it could go 2-3 days on single charge with normal usage. It was like night and day.
Granted this is a much more powerful device than either of those, but I feel like I've taken a step backwards with the battery situation.
ritzbrie said:
Have you tried SetCPU? I have stock rooted with SetCPU (Perflock Disabler ftw) and without a signal 13-25% of the time (meaning the phone is searching for a signal), I end a 10-12 hour work day with about 45-50% left. Underclocking to 250 while the screen off has helped a lot.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried out SetCPU but the phone was slugglish for me at times and once or twice I had to reboot.
I'm probably just gonna grab an extra battery and a desktop charger so I can charge one battery while the other is in use.
omegasun18 said:
Things to help would include setCPU, making sure you turn off data when you shut off screen (or getting a program to do so for you - juicedefender) and making sure you calibrate your battery and battery stats of your phone.
it seems like you are getting close to this range however you are having to watch your use to do so. as others have said the first thing i would do is get setCPU and set up a battery saving profile. read through some of the battery threads if you havent and look for setting changes that wont impact you tremendously but will help save battery (for example if you dont use landscape mode a lot you can turn off autorotation and save some battery). If you are using froyo and are running a task killer uninstall it since it doesnt work any way. While most settings will make a small impact together they should help get you to where you can use your phone moderately through out the day with out worries.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks alot for those tips, I'll give SetCPU another go.
I haven't tried out Juice Defender but I'll look into that as well. Turning off Data when the screen is off might be just the thing I need!

Battery life on CM6 RC2 vs FR007 vs R12

Give me your opinions?
I've never used any of the liberateds, but overclocked at 825 on RC1 and RC2 I get a day out of my battery give or take depending on use
Got any battery saving settings besides the normal obvious ones?
Honestly the only thing I do to conserve battery is not leave the gps and wifi on when I am not using them. The only thing I purposly do to save battery is underclock when I am running low on battery while I am at work, for instance.
I am running CM RC2, and I am overclocked to 806. I have been paying attention to the battery the last couple of days, and it seems once it hits below 50% it starts going down even quicker. I have it set to On Demand that when it hits 50% it drops to 400. I was sending some texts, just texts, and it dropped from 45 to 39 in less than 5 mins. I'm going to test again tomorrow and take some of my widgets off of the screen.
Granted, I do have my screen on at 100% all times, and I listen to music half of the day during work. Things that I am not going to do during testing.
I cant use CM for some wi-fi reasons (thread @ aria android development forum). Anyways, I use Liberated and I get estimated full battery life 27½ hours (with wifi, sense sync, facebook and twitter always on.)
barisahmet said:
I cant use CM for some wi-fi reasons (thread @ aria android development forum). Anyways, I use Liberated and I get estimated full battery life 27½ hours (with wifi, sense sync, facebook and twitter always on.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And how many texts and phone calls is that with? I guarentee if you sent more than 50-100 texts and made about 15 calls each about 5-15/min ea you're battery wouldn't last near that long LOL!
Let's face it, this thing SUCKS the battery life!
kaschenberg said:
And how many texts and phone calls is that with? I guarentee if you sent more than 50-100 texts and made about 15 calls each about 5-15/min ea you're battery wouldn't last near that long LOL!
Let's face it, this thing SUCKS the battery life!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know what qualifies as "sucks", but I have no issue charging the phone every night. As long as I get a full day out of it, I'm happy. It's not like I'm doing anything better with the phone while I'm in bed.

Epic battery performance after months of use

Hoping to get some good feedback from those who have used the epic for a couple months or more. Now that you're probably using the device normally, as in not attached to it all the time, how is battery life? I've heard initial reports that it's not so good... Also, for those of you who have updated unofficially to Froyo, does the upgrade help with battery life? Can anyone comment how Epic's battery compares to EVO's?
Thanks.
I usually get about 9 hours in my stock battery and 6-7 on my cheap eBay ones. Overall idea say meh, its about on par with most other android devices. I'm running the stock dk28 leak as well with no battery tweaks or mangers of any sort.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
On most of the DK28 roms I'm pulling a solid 10 hours with moderate use. For reference, If I leave the phone on standby all day in my house it's lasted 23 hours, if I recall correctly. Honestly that's pretty damn good for a smartphone.
EDIT: I don't use any battery-manager or powersaver either. Brightness = Auto, bluetooth/wifi/4g/gps = 1 is on at any given point in time usually. Google auto-sync = on as well as touiteur (twitter) and facebook notifications every 15 min.
I have been impressed by my battery life actually. I can't speak for the EVO(although maybe soon since my friend might give me his as a backup). I can usually get between 4-5 hours of play time(surfing, texting, apps, music, wireless tethering, movies, etc) The rest of the time it is usually idol. I usually charge it over night, unplug it around 7am, then plug it back in around 11pm. At 11pm, I usually have between 10- 30% battery left.
I just switched to a froyo ROM(bonsai, which is excellent) and so far the battery seems to be about the same. By lunchtime 12:30 it is usually between 70-80% and right now I am at 72% but I also had some extensive time testing the tethering feature.
To be honest, I had a blackberry, and the battery life was a little better, but the features were not nearly as good. It amazes me the battery these things get with that amazing samoled screen.
disclaimer: I do not play games outside of sudoku and spades, so my CPU does not really get challenged, which probably accounts for some battery savings. Oh and I use regular wallpapers, cause I don't really like the live wallpapers.
Im on 2.2.1,and I have to say I see a 40% increase in battery life compared to 2.1,and thats about 11-12 hours,no battery saving apps either,well except setcpu,which does help,but its set at 100mhz - 1ghz conservative.And I use it more now then when I got it,I havnt got tired of it at all.I have noticed the first 10% goes the fastest,and I have calibrated twice since moving to the ROM im on,and its the same in all,so if you get an Epic dont let that scare you.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
I've had an Epic since a couple weeks after it was released and I think the battery is probably working the way they meant it to, which means a solid day. I charge it overnight, unplug it when I go to work, plug it in when I go to bed, and I'm usually at around 40% by that time with moderate use. I don't generally have problems with battery drain.
The exception to this is when using GPS with the screen on. It's really difficult to use this phone as a direct PND replacement even though it's basically made for it (especially with Froyo, which fixes the GPS lock issues), because the screen and GPS together will drain the battery from 100% to 0% in about 40 minutes. My dedicated PND, by contrast, will give me 8 *hours* of continuous use on battery power.
Also, I have a 1000mah car charger and even with that connected, the battery still drains when using GPS and the screen (it just drains slower). I have to just turn the screen off when I know I won't be needing to make a turn for a while.
The one thing I wish about the Epic is that it had a regular old LCD screen. The AMOLED screen is the one battery killer - you really need to watch how long you have it on. In normal use it isn't much of an issue, but you just can't do much of all the cool things they advertise that you can do with this phone (like GPS or watching movies).
I do also keep my screen turned way down, which makes a difference, but it's still a killer.
Well, I reported over in another thread that with Froyo, and basically having my phone sit around and do nothing with no WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, no "fixes" such as switching to airplane mode or killing the DRM service, and no "battery saver" programs, I was able to get 108 hours on a single charge with the stock battery (1500mAH). That was with the screen on time of about 50 minutes and talk time of about 40 minutes... (pictures here)
It all boils down to how you use your phone, but in a stock configuration, the power management seems to be better on 2.2 than 2.1 as shown by the large amount of "idle" time I was able to get on a single charge.
Koadic said:
Well, I reported over in another thread that with Froyo, and basically having my phone sit around and do nothing with no WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, no "fixes" such as switching to airplane mode or killing the DRM service, and no "battery saver" programs, I was able to get 108 hours on a single charge with the stock battery (1500mAH). That was with the screen on time of about 50 minutes and talk time of about 40 minutes... (pictures here)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't disbelieve that - in my post above, when I'm talking about draining the battery with GPS and the screen on in 40 minutes, or when I'm talking about having 40% battery left at the end of a regular day, it's almost always with a screen on time of 30-40 minutes. So 50 minutes sounds about right to drain the battery completely, with nothing else on.
I'll bet if you had 0 minutes screen on time - just let the phone sit idle - you could have probably gotten 200 hours or more.
badasscat said:
I'll bet if you had 0 minutes screen on time - just let the phone sit idle - you could have probably gotten 200 hours or more.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL, what's the point of having a phone then? 8-9 days without using it? I dont think I could hold out that long.
And I didn't even see your post until after I posted.
Koadic said:
LOL, what's the point of having a phone then? 8-9 days without using it? I dont think I could hold out that long.
And I didn't even see your post until after I posted.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No I know, I was more just clarifying so it didn't seem like we contradicted each other. I think the important stat is really screen time and then any extra radios you have turned on. Just with the regular radio and nothing else, you could get ridiculous battery life on the Epic. It's the extra radios and screen that kill it.
My phone gets me through the day. About 20% down in 7 hours on standby, so thats decent. Heavy usage with full brightness on and live wallpaper starting in the morning, stopping at like 6 A.M...it'd probably die there, for me at least.
The battery is good; I'm running the dk28 rom but it really hasn't affected my battery life at all.
On phoenix kernel i was getting 20-36 hours moderate to light usage. With acs xtreme kernel I'm getting 12-20 hrs w/ moderate use.
That's about 3-4 hrs of screen on time, 45-60 min of talk time. Emails, text ing, twitter, xda, and some various forum reading. Angry birds if waiting in line somewhere..
Note: I leave background data turned off and manually sync/refresh mail/contacts/data. I have no need/desire to be alerted evrytime someone updates twit/fb. I also use juice defender.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
I can barely look at my phone on full brightness - it hurts my eyes with beams of awesome.
I get between 13 and 16 hours depending on how much Angry Bird time I put in that day. If I'm doing normal browsing, facebooking, etc then I'll be closer to 16, but gaming drops my battery like a rock.
Thanks for the replies! I think I'm convinced a lot of it has to do with how you use the device. Pretty much how it went with the EVO when it first came out... lots of people complaining about battery and then it kind of faded once everyone settled down. All I need is to get from early morning to right before bed.
GPS with google nav is a killer on any Android with decent screen size and resolution I think. Anyway, I thought SAMOLED is supposed to save a little battery? Or is that only if the background is black? In any case, I usually dim my screen to 30%, keep GPS off, keep auto-updates down to a manageable size, and use some other tricks to save battery, so I should be good to go.
I tried to thank all of you with the new thanks button, but didn't realize there's a limit per day haha. I'll finish it up tomorrow.
As far as I am concerned the battery life on DK28 is amazing. I use overclock widget set at 1000/200 screen on and 400/200 screen off. I can pull more than 30 hours with multiple phone calls, texting, email, web and games for over an hour. Here's the screen shot I took today before putting the phone on the charger.
I've noticed a substantial improvement in battery life since upgrading to 2.2. However, I also began using the Epic Experience ROM shortly afterwards, which boosted it even further. That, plus Juice Defender nets me a perfectly acceptable battery life.
I used my phone heavily today and still got about 18 hours out of it before plugging it in before bed at a 35% charge. On top of that, my phone's never felt snappier.
whoa, is it normal for the epic to take 3.5 hours to charge? If so, any explanation? Past devices i've had tend to take an hour less... Running 2.1, does Froyo help?
Currently on Epic Experience with SuperPower installed. I unplugged the phone about 16 hours ago and it's sitting at 36% with light voice and moderate SMS/data use.
Battery life definitely improved after upgrading from 2.1, even with light use it would be dead in under 12 hours on stock 2.1/DI17.
How to get unbelievable battery life
I have some very VERY helpful hints of great battery life for the Epic 4g. (as i am on hour 26 to 28 and have 20% left with about 1 to 1.5 hours of screen on use.)
First off, use black, or almost black background. Our screens are superAMOLED. This means that if the screen is showing black... those particular black pixels... are simply not on. If you have the home screen black, and have no icons on it, then the status bar is all that is using power... maybe 6 or 8 percent.
Next, Lose the brightness. A few helpful hints on this. 1) uncheck the autobrightness in the display settings 2) turn the brightness down in the display settings 3) If you slide your finger from right to left across the status bar at the top, the screen will dim, if you slide your finger from left to right, it will brighten(this causes accidental brightness 4) cover this light sensor on the right side at the top (I believe) because the phone seems to have a problem always autobrighting even with the uncheck in the settings. This is done best with electrical tape, or perhaps finger nail polish. These things should ensure to always be at minimum brightness
Next, Install Frankenstein Froyo Rom(lightest rom=less cpu usage/blackest rom=less screen battery usage), And Genocide Kernel(undervolted)
Next, install task killer(keeps the rom at optimum efficiency meaning less cpu usage assuming you are killing the apps 3 or 4 times a day) install set cpu(This allows you to limit the cpu clock speed(400mhz is optimal usable and battery settings)
Things to remember, ALWAYS TURN THE SCREEN OFF.
If you pick it up every thirty seconds to see if you have a text, then just sit it down... whats happening now.. The screen is staying on for another 15 seconds probably. DUH!!! bye bye battery!!
TURN OFF THE SCREEN BEFORE YOU SIT THE PHONE DOWN!!!
Turn off gps when not in use.
Turn off wifi when not in use.
Turn off 4g when not in use
Dont use it as an mp3 player.
Dont talk on speaker phone.
Those last few were pretty obvious.. but some people need to be told.
I Hope this helps anyone looking to conserve battery. Follow these steps and i promise 24 hours plus ever time and often as much as 48 hours.
Enjoy
EDIT****
By the way, When you set yourself up with this rom, you are making your phone TWICE as fast... LITERALLY. Hard to believe that a ROM could be twice as fast.
With stock android2.1 this phone gets 800 to 900 in quadrant(benchmark tool/tell how fast your phone REALLY is) Stock android 2.2 quadrant score is a little better scoring as high as 1000.
With this setup, i have gotten as high as 1950 in quadrant. No joke. This is reflected as you cant even tell the phone is clocked down to 400mhz without heavy apps and REALLY paying attention.
I used to get about 8 hrs of use before having to charge. Battery would drain even when I wasn't using the phone. Since flashing to DI18 a few months ago battery life has been great. A good 15-17 hours of moderate/high use and minimal drain with the phone on standby.
I lower the brightness all the way, end the DRM process and do the TWS trick after a reboot. No fancy battery management app that disables all your phone for the sake of battery.
I expect 2 hrs of the screen being on before my battery gets down to 20-30%. Which I think is very reasonable for moderate to high usage.

Almost 30+ hours == EC01 + SuperClean 2.9.2

I again wanted to say thank you to all involved in making the Fascinate the best phone it can be.
I have instantly noticed a considerable battery life improvement using this radio.
Just thanks.
And juice defender doesn't hurt either..
You must not be using your phone at all, mine only gives my around 7 hours.
Really? Only 30 hours? My white fascinate could go for 3 days with light usage and 2 with moderate. I bet you it could last for 4 days if I didn't do anything but text or call people. Oh and don't use battery apps, they don't do crap honestly. The only thing that kills your phone is games and the screen being on. But if you use your stock Froyo task manager then you're good.
I am confused a little but mostly dissapointed in how people report usage and battery life around here. I think for the most part it is simply a result of how subjective the term "use" is defined in all it's various "states". For instance what I consider "heavy usage" might be beyond what a lot of people would consider to even be reasonably expected. On the other hand you can have another person who thinks using their phone once for a few minutes every hour is heavy usage. Some seem to be reporting standby time like it is normal usage, which depending on your definition could be true. Some people seem to be obviously "lengthening" their "epeen" for some unknown sad reason which is the part that is dissapointing.
I can say, once, I left mine on after using it all day Friday, set it on a table at home and I can't remember why but I didn't touch it again till Sunday afternoon. It literally only used a few percent battery life. This is abnormal usage to me. This might be "normal" for some people.
Some people like myself are device addicts. I don't go anywhere without my phone. I rarely make calls on it. I rarely use my powerful desktop for any casual pc use like web surfing, IRC, listening to music, personal gmail and work email via exchange. I do all of that on my phone. My day consists of picking up the phone fully charged at 7:30am, at work by 7:45, and then once in my cube the headphones get plugged in and between voodoo sound and power amp I get pretty lost in the tunes. All the while I am getting constant email delivery notices. I probably look something up on my phone a few times a day. It is on wifi all day at work and home.
Once home I stay on it after dinner....once the kids are away, the wife and I sit in the living room and she on her laptop and me on my phone we kinda watch shows together while surfing or whatever. So hours of constant use in the evening. My screen is on a lot because I don't go long without doing something on it.
I have recently been getting around 14-18 hours if I run it to dead on the 2.9.2 + latest Voodoo sound enabled kernel floating around but was on eb01 radio. I flashed ec01 radio tonight hopefully to see better battery life but there's no way in hell I would be expecting anything close to 30 hours or days!? Not unless I laid my phone down and walked away for a few days, then sure. I consider myself to be a fairly heavy user.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA Premium App
In my case Syn Ack is right about the screen. This past weekend I gave my phone a real test. I put EC01 on, got rid of most of the bloat and left the phone in that state. Didn't install any extra apps that would run in the background. Only had 1 home screen with nothing on it but a black wallpaper. The phone looks boring as ****. lol
From what I saw, the only things eating battery was having the screen on, a small bit of time with no signal, followed by android system and any other apps I may have used which didn't make up much compared to the screen.
I love the screen, but it's like a high maintenance girlfriend. Its sucking the life outta this phone.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
DeezNotes said:
I love the screen, but it's like a high maintenance girlfriend. Its sucking the life outta this phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's pretty much par for the course. The screen is always the biggest battery drain in any phone out there, out of any piece of hardware in any phone. Trying to keep the screen's brightness as low as possible, and it off whenever you don't need it on, are probably the best things you can do to improve your battery life (followed by deleting crappy widgets like the Facebook one that keep your network up constantly).
Then again, I set my screen to have a 2 minute timeout, because the 15 or so second default way too often caused the screen to turn off on me while I was reading something and I generally use the power button to turn it off when I'm done. I figure, as long as I can make it till night, that's good enough for this phone 95% of the time (the other 5%, I can generally plan ahead).
I honestly don't see poor battery life as in issue for this phone.
Mine will last for 3 days of extremely light usage, 2 days with light-ish usage, and if I hammer on it and play some games, 14 hours or so, it'll beep at me.
IMO, this is not an issue. I have seen the battery life increase with the latest updates (OC Kernel from imnutz, SFC2.9.2, EC01 radio) - and I was happy before.
I also don;t think that you can really count on what other people see as anything but a hopeful ballpark figure. We all know that each of the phones HW is a little different. We all know that our setups vary greatly. We all know that we use the phone differently.
So, hoping that something will be a be all, end all guide as to how long your phone will stay powered depends on so many variables that you have to tweak it for your use.
FWIW, I run live wallpaper, 7 screens and use OC steps up to 1400 and I am very pleased, dare I say impressed with the life I get out of the phone. I also keep a spare battery fully charged - I guess this helps me care less and just ooh and ahh when it lasts more than a day.
Mine gets 150 hours...... Turned off.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
With the phone sleeping (screen off), my battery drops at MOST 2% per hour. I don't use but a couple of widgets, Facebook and weather. My sync time for Facebook is 1 hour and weather is 2 hours.
For me, when I was referring to my 2-3 days of battery life:
Light usage (3 days): a few phone calls a day, < 25 texts, no internet, no market, no games, no battery control apps except using Task Manager wisely.
Moderate usage (2 days): regular phone calls, < 50 texts, some internet, maybe a game or 2 but not for long, Task manager.
Heavy usage (1.5 days): regular phone calls, texting all the time, heavy internet, games, rom flashing, playing music a bunch.
Super ridiculously heavy (1 day): phone/text/internet/games/music, all nonstop heavy usage.
Super light (3+): Data (3G) off, a couple calls, light texting, using Task manager wisely. It can happen...
One thing I have come to find out is that not only your screen is the number 1 factor but if you live in an area that phases your phone in and out of 3G very often, your phone could easily drain 10% per hour. The IT building here on my campus has god awful reception and it drains at 10% per hour but when I go home I only see 1-2% not doing anything at all. Wifi is a battery drainer too.
There were a few nights where I remember hitting task manager and clearing out every single task and everything possible running, turning off data, and turning the screen off and the phone did not even lose 1% of battery over 9 hours. Perfect reception.
So if you see terrible battery, try using your screen a little less, or turn down the brightness. Try a *228 for your radio towers update. Cell standby can you get hard if you're in bad reception.
The best thing you could do to save your battery is kill all of your tasks, turn off data, turn your screen off, and change your sync intervals to 1hour+.
i'm on ec01 for about 12 hours now, sFc, in nemesis OTB kernal underclocked using volt settings gives me about a 8 hours with the amount of usage I put it through. Serious wifi, network usage, processor spiking and multi-tasking. Overall what one would expect from android.
jpaulwaite said:
i'm on ec01 for about 12 hours now, sFc, in nemesis OTB kernal underclocked using volt settings gives me about a 8 hours with the amount of usage I put it through. Serious wifi, network usage, processor spiking and multi-tasking. Overall what one would expect from android.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Heavy user, this seems about right. Your battery goes from 100% to what % before you recharge?

How to get 36 hours on 1 charge

Alright, so I'm not a very heavy user on the phone but I've started getting 36 hours of use on my phone. I was blown the hell away! I usually would get a Max of up to 25 or 26 hours or so before this. Even then a full 10 hours extra is magnificent!
Here's what I've got going on:
Running MIUI 2.3.23 ROM with Bulletproof Add On pack
Using Tiamat 1.1.5 kernel
Juice Defender Plus on Advanced mode
Recaibrated my batter with Battery Callibrator app
Overclocking at 1039 MHz and underclocking at 184 mhz using SetCPU
After calibrating my battery I let the battery run out completely a couple of times and voila!
I took a screenshot of my usage statistics but I can't find the damn thing now. I guess you're just got to trust me on this. This was definitely worth sharing.
All the best!
Sent from my HTC Desire Z using XDA
How many hours of screen on time did you have at the end of that charge? The longest battery life i've ever had for my phone was actually 3 days and 3 hours with 5 hours of screen on time. I'm a light to moderate user and i achieved that result with CM7.2 RC1 without any tweaks.
I really like the look of MIUI but i don't find it to be as fast as it really should be. I get frustrated by the scrolling lag that is present in the settings menu and the fact that video playback is much slower in comparison to other ROMs. Web pages were also always SO much more laggy in MIUI for me than on Sense or AOSP based ROMs. That's my personal experience, i think i've just about given up on MIUI and Sense based ROMs. I haven't touched either of those for a while now.
I get 36 hours normally with the stock Sense 2.1 ROM and Unity V10 kernel. Overclocked to 1Ghz with the standard governor.
I use it quite lightly though, 10 to 20 SMS, bit of internet / Facebook and 30 mins FM radio in the morning. Also accounts sync automatically, mail picked up every hour, data always on. That was with the stock battery, with the Anker 1600 mah I get to 36 hours with about 30% to spare!
On a side note, underclocking below 245Mhz has been know to cause problems. Standby of Death (or Sleep of Death), and possibly dropped SMS etc.
Craig
craiglay said:
I get 36 hours normally with the stock Sense 2.1 ROM and Unity V10 kernel. Overclocked to 1Ghz with the standard governor.
I use it quite lightly though, 10 to 20 SMS, bit of internet / Facebook and 30 mins FM radio in the morning. Also accounts sync automatically, mail picked up every hour, data always on. That was with the stock battery, with the Anker 1600 mah I get to 36 hours with about 30% to spare!
On a side note, underclocking below 245Mhz has been know to cause problems. Standby of Death, and possibly dropped SMS etc.
Craig
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
*sleep of death or SOD... i think S is for sleep not standby...
———————————————
i didn't mean to flame you, nor to mock you in any kind of way
thats quite insane @[email protected];;
i get about 13~15 hours of charge each time @[email protected];;
i use my phone mainly for texting and emails
no games on the phone...
i should give that a try, thats quiet insane ;o
lil-devil said:
thats quiet insane @[email protected];;
i get about 13~15 hours of charge each time @[email protected];;
i use my phone mainly for texting and emails
no games on the phone...
i should give that a try, thats quiet insane ;o
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hehe the word you're looking for is "quite" and not "quiet(as in low sound)".
Ace42 said:
Hehe the word you're looking for is "quite" and not "quiet(as in low sound)".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
woops typo
magic_android said:
How many hours of screen on time did you have at the end of that charge? The longest battery life i've ever had for my phone was actually 3 days and 3 hours with 5 hours of screen on time. I'm a light to moderate user and i achieved that result with CM7.2 RC1 without any tweaks.
I really like the look of MIUI but i don't find it to be as fast as it really should be. I get frustrated by the scrolling lag that is present in the settings menu and the fact that video playback is much slower in comparison to other ROMs. Web pages were also always SO much more laggy in MIUI for me than on Sense or AOSP based ROMs. That's my personal experience, i think i've just about given up on MIUI and Sense based ROMs. I haven't touched either of those for a while now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not sure how much screen on time I had. I'll give it a check next time I'm monitoring my performance.
Sense UI has been a pain for me from the moment I started. I tried CM 7 but it had a bug where it wouldn't vibrate when I got a message unless it was in silent mode. Since I SMS quite a bit, it was quite annoying. I tried a couple of Virtuous ROMs too but they were glacial in their speed. Couldn't stand the lag.
I find MIUI to be the perfect balance between features, UI and speed. It might be a tad laggy in some places, but on the whole, it looks great, works great and doesn't give me problems in the parts I use the most. It doesn't seem quite as laggy with me as you seem to describe it. But anyhoo, for the first time since I bought my DZ, I feel like I have a good phone that I can rely on.
Thanks for your comments, man.
craiglay said:
I get 36 hours normally with the stock Sense 2.1 ROM and Unity V10 kernel. Overclocked to 1Ghz with the standard governor.
I use it quite lightly though, 10 to 20 SMS, bit of internet / Facebook and 30 mins FM radio in the morning. Also accounts sync automatically, mail picked up every hour, data always on. That was with the stock battery, with the Anker 1600 mah I get to 36 hours with about 30% to spare!
On a side note, underclocking below 245Mhz has been know to cause problems. Standby of Death, and possibly dropped SMS etc.
Craig
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
WOw! Really? Stock giving 36 hours! That's pretty sweet man. Never happened to me.
And thanks for the advice on the underclocking. Maybe I should up it a notch, just in case.
lil-devil said:
thats quite insane @[email protected];;
i get about 13~15 hours of charge each time @[email protected];;
i use my phone mainly for texting and emails
no games on the phone...
i should give that a try, thats quiet insane ;o
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go for it bro! And let me know if it works for you.
Right now, I've already hit 33.5 hours and have just hit 15% battery. And this is including a few games of Angry Birds. woohoo!
lunarplexus said:
After calibrating my battery I let the battery run out completely a couple of times and voila!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Letting the battery drain to shutdown is not a good idea. Not good for long term life of Li ion batteries. Also, its unlikely, but possible that draining to shutdown will render the battery unable to take a charge. Fail safes on the device and battery are supposed to prevent this in theory, but in reality they don't always work. Several reports on this device of people that drained to shutdown, and then couldn't charge their battery.
The battery meter is not accurate enough to necessitate draining to zero. Just drain to 10 or even 20%, charge to full, repeat a couple times. No value added whatsoever to draining to shutdown.
I have easily gotten 48 hours+ with light usage on various ROMs, including ILWT and Virtuous Unity (which is Sense 3, and claimed by some to be a "battery hog"). This is with Bluetooth and WiFi always on, and no special battery calibration or battery saving apps.. So many things affect battery life. But my personal hunch is that the ROM, clocking, radio, and data reception in your area (and of course usage) have more to do with battery life than other factors. And with radio and reception being the really big drivers.
That's definitely very helpful. I've always heard that rechargeable batteries are supposed to be drained completely and charged at least periodically to extend its life. Your proposition is contrary to this belief but then, I don't know that much about the battery and those aspects of the device itself to be able to refute what you're saying. Best to be on the safe side though.
Current record for my battery is 42 hours as of today. I'm pretty thrilled. My device was giving at least 10-15 hours less before I made these customisations. So I feel it probably has helped. However, there are a lot of factors at play, as you said.
Thanks for the response!
lunarplexus said:
That's definitely very helpful. I've always heard that rechargeable batteries are supposed to be drained completely and charged at least periodically to extend its life. Your proposition is contrary to this belief but then, I don't know that much about the battery and those aspects of the device itself to be able to refute what you're saying. Best to be on the safe side though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are various types of rechargeable batteries with very different behaviors. What you mention is known as battery conditioning, where you periodically drain to (nearly) empty and charge to full, and is recommended for older type NiCd (nickel cadmium) batteries. This is to avoid "memory effect" where the battery will remember how much was discharged in past cycles, and not deliver any more than demanded before. Kind of a "use it or lose it" principle.
Lithium (Li) ion cells (the type on most smartphones) do not suffer from memory effect. And full discharge cycles actually hurt the long term life of the battery. Charging frequently is actually the best for this type of bettery. But a couple nearly full cycles are needed to properly calibrate the battery meter on the phone.
If you want to educate yourself on the Dos and Don'ts of batteries, this website is a good one:
http://batteryuniversity.com/

Categories

Resources