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Hey guys,
Just got my Epic yesterday.. coming from the G1 with lots of experience loading and tweaking ROMs and dealing with same/similar battery issues.
After unpacking the Epic I used it and let it drain down to zero before recharging it; after a full recharge, I loaded up the 7 screens with widgets and ran a live wallpaper (fish). I didn't really use the phone much at all and the phone went from 100% battery down to zero in the span of only four hours!!! Geeze, you've got to be kidding me - four hours battery life?? WTF????!!
Back to the drawing board: I rooted it and ran SetCPU with some power saving profiles. Removed the live wallpaper and went to stock wallpaper. Set display power off at 30 seconds. Note that 4G remains off since there's no 4G in my area..
Couple of questions:
1. Is there any way to toggle 2G/3G like there was on my old G1? I know that was a power saver.
2. I didn't stop to read all the documentation yet (typical male, I know) but is there any way to wake this thing up from sleep mode besides pressing the power button? I can see that power button breaking for as much use as it's getting from me constantly having to wake this thing up!
3. My brightness setting is set to auto - since the display is usually the biggest drain on these things, is there a recommended manual brightness setting (percentage) that seems to work well for you and saves on battery power?
I'm waiting for the Seideo Extended Battery (just like many of you) and am wondering if I should keep the Epic since I'm on the Sprint 30-day Easy Return program.
Appreciate hearing from everyone!
Chris R.
I don't have 4G where I am. But, I have a all black wallpaper(uses less power) and unrooted. I easily get about 12-18hr out of my phone wit normal use(text, talk, and surfing the net with skyfire). Only thing that really kills my battery are games(Robo Defense can take over 30min to play one game).
Thanks for the reply - situation NOT improving
Thanks for the reply.. unfortunately, the situation is not improving...
I tried setting a Sleep Profile using SetCPU that would under-clock the CPU (using the stock kernel) once the screen dimmed and the phone went into Sleep Mode. Unfortunately, as mentioned in another thread here, the result was that the phone froze and required a battery-pull to reset.
I'm really starting to lose my enthusiasm for this device; as beautiful a display and as responsive a CPU/GPU, all of that doesn't mean much if you don't have good power management built into the firmware. At 6PM this evening I pulled it off the charger at 67% charged, it's now 8:35 PM, only 2.5 hours later and I'm down to 22%. I'm in a decent coverage area and get 2-4 bars of 3G strength so I don't think it's an issue of the radio being the culprit; in-fact if you check the battery stats it reports that that lovely Display is accountable for 78% of the battery usage! So I guess we're paying a hefty price for these 4-inch AMOLED displays!
I read somewhere else that the most recent update (DI07) has caused the battery performance to decrease; since my unit is brand-new it immediately went and installed DI07 shortly after the first boot-up so I have nothing to compare it to.. can anyone comment on that?
Thanks!
Chris R.
I'm sure custom ROMs will put performance / battery life on the top of the list but until then, I use JuiceDefender beta and have seen pretty good results with it. It shuts off data whenever the screen is off and since my screen is off a good amount (only use my phone if I need to check email, call, and / or text, which is rare when I'm at work). Other than that, yes, use black wallpaper, lower brightness to the min. in the OS and browser, and don't leave apps that constantly use 3G open (things like ebuddy, pandora, etc.). 3G really destroys battery life so minimal use of 3G data would maximize battery life. Maybe the devs can figure out a way to get at least one full day of battery life on this phone. I'm hoping that is the case.
As to your post, yes, DI07 has resulted in poorer battery life, for whatever reason. I was definitely getting a few hours more with the older firmware. I would not lose hope yet. As disappointed as you are (and all of us are, I can assure you of that), the devs are really starting to push out nice ROMs already, and in a few weeks to a month, I bet we will see some solid battery life. Hell, even 2.2 should yield much better results. Patience
Thanks for the tip!
nimaim said:
I'm sure custom ROMs will put performance / battery life on the top of the list but until then, I use JuiceDefender beta and have seen pretty good results with it. It shuts off data whenever the screen is off and since my screen is off a good amount (only use my phone if I need to check email, call, and / or text, which is rare when I'm at work).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply! Also thanks for the tip regarding JuiceDefender! What a great app! will give it some more time and report results back here.
Thanks again!
Chris R.
nimaim said:
I'm sure custom ROMs will put performance / battery life on the top of the list but until then, I use JuiceDefender beta and have seen pretty good results with it. It shuts off data whenever the screen is off and since my screen is off a good amount (only use my phone if I need to check email, call, and / or text, which is rare when I'm at work). Other than that, yes, use black wallpaper, lower brightness to the min. in the OS and browser, and don't leave apps that constantly use 3G open (things like ebuddy, pandora, etc.). 3G really destroys battery life so minimal use of 3G data would maximize battery life. Maybe the devs can figure out a way to get at least one full day of battery life on this phone. I'm hoping that is the case.
As to your post, yes, DI07 has resulted in poorer battery life, for whatever reason. I was definitely getting a few hours more with the older firmware. I would not lose hope yet. As disappointed as you are (and all of us are, I can assure you of that), the devs are really starting to push out nice ROMs already, and in a few weeks to a month, I bet we will see some solid battery life. Hell, even 2.2 should yield much better results. Patience
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
DI07 has hurt my battery life substantially. In fact, my battery drains very close to twice as fast now with the update. I don't understand what they did. My phone certainly doesn't seem any faster, my display is dimmer, and battery life sucks. I'm going to have to go back to DG27 so I can use my phone all day. With DI07 it always dies on me by mid afternoon. With DG27 it was still running by 11pm at night without even a battery low warning.
juice defender ftw
also, use advanced task killer with low security settings to kill all the background processes. Set the autokill to when the screen turns off. This keeps everything pretty well managed and helps with battery as well
JUICE DEFENDER BATTERY!!! Saved my phone from flying out of my car window at 10 in the morning........
here is a link to a thread I started.
Sharing my juice defender settings. I also use ultimate juice.
http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/sprint-epic-4g/133933-sharing-my-juice-defender-settings.html
I can get a day and a half (or slightly longer) out of a single charge.
YMMV.
Hope this helps
Advanced task killer + Juice Defender. You could also get some custom roms and Kernals that would help boost it.
But that's your best hope. Keep off 4g, wifi, bluetooth, etc.
compujock said:
DI07 has hurt my battery life substantially. In fact, my battery drains very close to twice as fast now with the update. I don't understand what they did. My phone certainly doesn't seem any faster, my display is dimmer, and battery life sucks. I'm going to have to go back to DG27 so I can use my phone all day. With DI07 it always dies on me by mid afternoon. With DG27 it was still running by 11pm at night without even a battery low warning.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Look here- try stopping the DRM service and see if that helps your battery life with D107
jimmyz said:
Look here- try stopping the DRM service and see if that helps your battery life with D107
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, the evils of DRM can strike in unexpected ways...
I wasn't really having a battery problem but I just turned DRM off, so we'll see if battery life improves anyway.
I had a whole long post here that got wiped with the xda disk array failure, so I'll just sum that up here too:
1) Use wi-fi if possible - it REALLY helps
2) 4G does not seem to use the battery any more than 3G, although hunting for 4G does and 4G coverage is not as extensive as 3G even in 4G areas. So it's still best to leave it off if you're moving around.
3) Dim your screen and use a dark, static background. AMOLED screens don't work like LCD's; they use more power the more pixels are lit and the brighter they are.
4) GPS also kills your battery - leave that off unless you need it too.
I think that's it. I get about 18 hours on DI07 (even before trying the DRM thing; maybe I can get to a full day!).
One thing I'm noticing after checking DRM - I've got Google Maps' LocationService popping up about every 10 seconds, and I can't seem to shut it off permanently. (I went into Lattitude and turned that off, not sure what else to do.) That can't be helping... anyone know how to get rid of that?
I'm using juice defender and a constant email junkie, but lite use on other aspects of the phone. It goes off charger at 5:30 am and I'm about 67% at around 3p. It then goes in the car charger on the way home. This has much better battery life than the Pre or the Hero as with both I had to turn off email to get it to last throughout the day.
I don't expect these phones to last days, but I expect any phone that I get to last the business day. I've always been one to charge overnight.
Wifi drains battery more from what I've read.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
I've heard the opposite that wifi (as long as it's connected) uses up less battery than 3g/4g. Any of them will suck the battery dry if they're searching, so make sure you have a connection to one of them.
Hi everyone, new to the forum. Just started checking it out when the Epic was released and this is my first post. Anyways, here's my question. My phone's been off the charger for 7 hours and 17 minutes and it is now down to 15%.
Display 79%
Cell standby 7%
Android System 4%
Phone idle 2%
Swype 2%
I've gone into the display settings and I thought I had set everything up optimally. The brightness is always very low. The screen timeout is 15 seconds and the keyboard matches that. I don't know what else I can do to cripple the phone to get the battery to last longer.
I have had wifi on, 4g off, bluetooth off, gps off. Really all I have done this afternoon while watching NFL games is check my yahoo fantasy score, play 2 games of WordFeud, and check twitter and facebook. I purchased Juice Defender a week ago and it has been running all day.
Any suggestions for how I can reduce the drain from the display? My background is a black and white picture of a friend of mine, which I thought would help.
Don't get me wrong, I love this phone. But the battery life I've seen is just terrible. I'd love to buy the extended battery from Seidio whenever its available, at least that would make it last longer even if the settings aren't tweaked.
Do you have juice defender installed?
Yep. Its installed and running now.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
bagelicious said:
Hi everyone, new to the forum. Just started checking it out when the Epic was released and this is my first post. Anyways, here's my question. My phone's been off the charger for 7 hours and 17 minutes and it is now down to 15%.
Display 79%
Cell standby 7%
Android System 4%
Phone idle 2%
Swype 2%
I've gone into the display settings and I thought I had set everything up optimally. The brightness is always very low. The screen timeout is 15 seconds and the keyboard matches that. I don't know what else I can do to cripple the phone to get the battery to last longer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are only two reasons for your display to be using that much battery:
a) it's too bright, or
b) you're using it a lot.
If you're using the phone a lot, your battery's going to run out pretty quick and there's no way around that. If you're using it a "normal" amount, which to me means maybe an hour *total* per day of having the display on, then the other culprit is going to be your brightness. (Some would argue that's less than a normal amount, but think about it... you get a new phone, you're going to play with it for a week or two until you've seen all the cool stuff. But at some point you're going to start putting it away most of the time and just using it when someone calls you, you get a message/email or maybe to play a game or two while waiting for the train.)
Set your brightness *all* the way down, just as a test for a couple days. Make sure all the "power saving" features of the display are turned *off* (auto brightness, and whatever that "picture detection" feature's called, I can't remember). You just want the display as dim as possible all the time, just to see what happens. See what the battery usage says after a day or two of this.
My bet is that you'll see a drop, and then as you get into a more normal usage pattern it'll drop further still. You can raise the brightness a couple ticks then as you learn how to stretch your battery out.
Personally, my display is rarely over 15% or so of my usage. Today it's 29%, but it's a Sunday and I don't have anything better to do but play around on my phone.
btw, it's still the first day I've tried this but that DRM thing might be working. It's almost 9PM and I'm still on like 80% battery, and like I said I have been using the phone off and on throughout the day.
That has helped tremendously. I installed it pretty much when I got the phone and I'm able to last the whole work day with 67% left. (10 hour day)
What is the best rom for the Epic that will improve battery life? I have an Evo. My wife has an Epic. Mine will go all day and end up at 45-50%. Hers will end up at 15-20%. I know that 2.2 will make some great changes to the battery life (God I hope so), but what choices do we have now?
Epic Experience with Phoenix kernel gives me a good 14-18 hours with medium usage.
Rims don't change anything really battery related. Kernels are what effect battery life.
Also, you don't need a specific kernel to get amazing battery life. Get these apps
Spare parts
Autostarts
Juicedefender ultimate
Spare parts will tell you what is killing the battery
Autostarts will disable the drm crap on startup
Juicedefender will disable the data and wifi when not needed.
I can get 24 hours on my epic without even trying to conserve battery.
pdaddy said:
What is the best rom for the Epic that will improve battery life? I have an Evo. My wife has an Epic. Mine will go all day and end up at 45-50%. Hers will end up at 15-20%. I know that 2.2 will make some great changes to the battery life (God I hope so), but what choices do we have now?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Shameless plug but I am getting 16 hours with heavy use
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=829650
rjmjr69 said:
Shameless plug but I am getting 16 hours with heavy use
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=829650
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
define heavy use
how is the speed and performance of the epic experience and pheonix combo? im a speed freak when it comes to my phone but im as in desperate need of good battery life. any suggestions and feedback would be appreciated.
Sent through the Matrix
fromchaos0646 said:
how is the speed and performance of the epic experience and pheonix combo? im a speed freak when it comes to my phone but im as in desperate need of good battery life. any suggestions and feedback would be appreciated.
Sent through the Matrix
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Speed freak and in desperate need of good battery life are polar opposites of each other. Nothing the phone does at this point needs the processor to be clocked any higher than stock and doing so is detrimental to battery life. The phone is plenty speedy using that combo. You might get the occasional hiccup in a menu for a half a second, but it is worth it for the amazing battery life, and it isn't a big deal at all.
yeah i realize they are complete opposite. im just trying to find a good balance between battery life and power. i may just have to sacrifice a little power for battery life then. i will try this combo maybe tomorrow, seeing as though i have homecoming tonight lol.
i get 60 hours + with moderate usuage. andromeda rom which includes andromeda kernal. You do not need spare parts or any task killers. 24 hours is weak battery llife. phone calls is the most extensive battery drain. if i do not make a call i can browse all day and still have 40% left.
This is how you get amazing battery performance.
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.
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.
I have read many other threads about improving battery life and such but I am still at a loss. My battery in my Epic is only lasting about 5 hours(9AM~1:30PM). I have a moderate signal the whole time and I am using the phone but I only have the screen on about 10% of the time according to Battery Stats(forget where I found this info, maybe spare parts?)
I have turned off Wifi, bluetooth, 4g, GPS only turns on when I open an app that needs it. I really have no idea what I am doing wrong since this seems to be completely terrible battery life. I have also killed the drm service and have found that it did not help my battery life much.
I am rooted and running Syndicate Rom 1.0.2(not froyo since I use a Mac and have not gotten my hands on a pc). I am using Xtreme Kernel clocked at a max of 1ghz.
Any other tips? Should I take the phone to Sprint and ask for a new battery? The phone at this point is only about 3 months old. If this seems to be normal for battery life then I am pretty sure I will be jumping ship and getting a new phone.
Zach
mttallaczach said:
I have read many other threads about improving battery life and such but I am still at a loss. My battery in my Epic is only lasting about 5 hours(9AM~1:30PM). I have a moderate signal the whole time and I am using the phone but I only have the screen on about 10% of the time according to Battery Stats(forget where I found this info, maybe spare parts?)
I have turned off Wifi, bluetooth, 4g, GPS only turns on when I open an app that needs it. I really have no idea what I am doing wrong since this seems to be completely terrible battery life. I have also killed the drm service and have found that it did not help my battery life much.
I am rooted and running Syndicate Rom 1.0.2(not froyo since I use a Mac and have not gotten my hands on a pc). I am using Xtreme Kernel clocked at a max of 1ghz.
Any other tips? Should I take the phone to Sprint and ask for a new battery? The phone at this point is only about 3 months old. If this seems to be normal for battery life then I am pretty sure I will be jumping ship and getting a new phone.
Zach
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Only advise I have is to toggle airplane mode after every boot and switch from the extreme kernel to pheonix 1.43, it has the best battery life by far as will any of the phenix kernels but 1.43 is the best
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
I got 25 hours of a charge the other day. Had to grab a screen shot real quick before it **** down. Might frame it. On stock dk28 with moderate use, lots of pics...it was on christmas so it was prety well used, trying to escape conversations with in laws.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
I'm having the same exact problem. Same ROM and everything. I'm getting absolutely terrible battery life, maybe 5hrs on a full charge. Its ridiculous especially seeing how the nexus s is basically the same phone and gets nearly 20 hrs with no problem. WTF!!!??
Would bet a dollar that your phone is not entering sleep mode properly. Download Spare parts, charge your phone up, unplug it and turn the screen off and wait for like 10-20 minutes and then turn it on and open spare parts and look under Battery History. You will see that it will say Running 100% or something high like that.
This is probably because of something you set up. Either facebook updating every 30 seconds or maybe push email. I dont know.
I pretty much always get at least 24 hours and I work in a basement where I barely get a signal. I leave wifi on all day. I talk for about 20-45 a day on average. I listen to music for a couple hours a day. I play games for a good half hour of my lunch break and sometimes for an hour or two at night. Sometimes I forget to turn my gps off for half the day while I'm in the basement.
I have killed a battery in 6 hours when I spent the entire time downloading and playing games. And I had a battery last 42 hours a couple weeks ago when I was helping a buddy work on a car. We used it to drive some crappy pc speakers for music for about 8 hours in those two days and I spent a couple hours over those two days looking for info to help us diagnose his car.
I have been on Mammon's DK28 for a few weeks and have mostly been on the latest FroYo roms since the leaks starting hitting the public. I ran the same rom and kernel as you guys for a couple weeks, and I don't remember the battery being that bad. IIRC, I was overclocked and still saw 18+ hours of battery life with normal usage.
What are we doing differently? That is the question. Do you have a bunch of widgets and a live wallpaper? I don't. I try to keep my widgets pretty minimal. I have TWC on one screen, a flashlight widget on my main screen, and Pandora and PowerAmp on a third. I generally use a pretty dark wallpaper, too. Something simple and easy on the eyes as well as the amoled. I also keep my wifi on and set it to never sleep wifi. Why? So it doesn't search for a 3g data connection. I have wireless networks I can connect to in the places where I spend most of my time, so I might as well use them. Sure it has to power up the wifi radio, but the wifi radio seems to use very little power when you're sitting somewhere with a good signal. Also, read "How to Train Your Dragon" in the dev section. I have three batteries and generally reset the battery stats on one of them every two weeks. If you only have one battery, every 3-4 weeks is suggested. I always charge my batteries in the charger and almost never plug my phone in (because I don't have to) and about half the time I bump charge the battery after it is finished. Be careful with bump charging as it can reduce the number of charge cycles your battery can take, but can net you 10-15% more capacity in the short term. I rarely discharge my batteries below 15% except for when I'm recalibrating them. If you discharge your battery to too low of a voltage it can reduce capacity. And if voltage is reduced too low, it won't charge at all, but may be fixable with a cadex machine.
Be sure to go find that thread on how to train your dragon. There are some links in there that will teach you a good bit about how lithium ion batteries work and what you can do with them. After that, you need to see what is running on your phone to use that much battery. Is some process or group of process eating your processor?
edit: Look Mom, I wrote a book!
I will try changing kernels and updating to froyo(maybe hijack my dad's netbook).
If this doesn't work then I am going to go to sprint and see if they will swap out my battery. I tried the thing with spare parts and it says time running is 18% since last unplug which seems a bit high but not too ridiculous.
I have read and followed the instructions in how to train your dragon. I am really starting to think it is a faulty battery. I will report back, thank you everyone for the advice.
ok, thank you all for the advice. I am able to get through a whole day now on a charge since changing to Phoenix. Maxes out at about 10 hours as long as I am not constantly on it.
Updating to froyo later today.
Not really going to be helpful for you, but just my observation:
DK28 has MURDERED my battery life. Lots of people have issues with DK28, but the GPS, accelerometer, etc but all that stuff works fine for me - the only problem is the mega hit battery life took.
Let's hope the official release isn't as bad.
DK28 probably murdered your battery life because you forgot to do one of the battery saving techniques that you were using on your previous DI18 rom. Pretty much everyone else is seeing battery improvements with DK28.
I don't think so. I never use GPS, 4G or Wifi and I've always had the brightness auto adjust on.
Most threads about battery are quite outdated, so I decided to start a new one.
And so recently my battery is starting to get less muscular.. My Xperia Play is 4 and a half months old, and one hour of consistent 3G usage can drop the battery down from 65% to 24%. I'm not very sure whether that is the norm, but if it is, that's bad battery life, in my opinion.
The Android 'Battery Use' page shows that most of my battery is drained from Cell Standby and System Idle (30%).
My wireless and GPS is always off. Am on 2.3.4 rooted.
Also, Gameboid consumes battery like a beast (even more than 3G), but I guess that's due to the high processing power required for emulation..
Is there any way I can improve the battery life?
Personally I found battery life to be terrible on 2.3.4 so I downgraded to R800i_4.0.A.2.368_World. I'm running 122M-1.5Ghz with scary and BFQ, on top of that I undervolted every frequency as much as I could using incredicontrol (Id give you the values but they vary by device). I always leave wifi, bluetooth, gps and data off when not using them, turned off automatic clock updates (there was a battery draining bug with this a while ago) and I run at 10% brightness with autobrightness off. With this set up I lose maybe 3-5% per night, so for around 6-8hrs in standby while I sleep. Ive got similar results on both cyanogen and stock. That being said I don't have a data plan so I do save a lot by not having data on, but a 40% drop in an hour isn't normal - Ive played an N64 emu which runs the processor full speed for that long and only experienced a 15-20% drop.
imho, the best battery life i've experienced is on 2.3.4.. when i'm on 2.3.3 i always lost 30-40% overnight (wifi, bluetooth, 3g, etc are turned off) stock rom, locked BL..
According to some folks, if you're charging your phone and let it stay plugged in for a while after it hits 100% that screws with the battery life.
On 2.3.4 rooted with all the facebook, timescape and other bloat removed my battery is pretty good. Wifi is on 247 and it reverts to hspda when out. Data syncs hourly, and i have contacts, hotmail and gmail syncing.
The other day i was sitting at 57% after 1 day 3 hours, and that included a half hour go on fpse, might have been more.
Battery life seems good to me. I get 1 day usage then charge over night. I do use my phone quite a lot for this (Tapatalk), Phandroid app, Engadget app, Joystiq app and browser. Wifi and GPS is always on.
At a guess I'm using the phone for about 1 hour a time, about 7 times a day... So like 7 hours web use, phone calls and texts, syncing is set to every hour with FiX on.
When I was on 2.3.3 I'd be lucky to get 10 hours out of the battery but 2.3.4 is awesome.
Edit. Obviously I play games too. Forgot to mention that.
Sent from my R800i using Tapatalk
BuckM said:
With this set up I lose maybe 3-5% per night, so for around 6-8hrs in standby while I sleep. Ive got similar results on both cyanogen and stock. That being said I don't have a data plan so I do save a lot by not having data on, but a 40% drop in an hour isn't normal - Ive played an N64 emu which runs the processor full speed for that long and only experienced a 15-20% drop.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually I get similar idle battery drain rates as you, but personally I'm not very concerned with battery drain as long as it's not so much. I'm more troubled with battery life on consistent usage, which I feel the Xperia Play (or at least mine) sucks at.
When I play Gameboid, I get the same fast battery drop too - 40-50% in one hour.
brochador said:
imho, the best battery life i've experienced is on 2.3.4.. when i'm on 2.3.3 i always lost 30-40% overnight (wifi, bluetooth, 3g, etc are turned off) stock rom, locked BL..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Woah, 30-40% is insane! Glad that it's fixed for you.
Erikwithafro said:
According to some folks, if you're charging your phone and let it stay plugged in for a while after it hits 100% that screws with the battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep, I read that from a lot of places too. I admit I used to do that (and have since stopped doing that), but sometimes I can't help it if I forgot to charge at night before I sleep (and have to charge overnight to ensure I have battery the next day).
gbesta said:
On 2.3.4 rooted with all the facebook, timescape and other bloat removed my battery is pretty good. Wifi is on 247 and it reverts to hspda when out. Data syncs hourly, and i have contacts, hotmail and gmail syncing.
The other day i was sitting at 57% after 1 day 3 hours, and that included a half hour go on fpse, might have been more.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I envy your battery life One thing, if you remove Facebook, will your Facebook contacts picture sync go away too?
And did you remove the bloat stuff by deleting them from /system/app?
kupo5131 said:
Battery life seems good to me. I get 1 day usage then charge over night. I do use my phone quite a lot for this (Tapatalk), Phandroid app, Engadget app, Joystiq app and browser. Wifi and GPS is always on.
At a guess I'm using the phone for about 1 hour a time, about 7 times a day... So like 7 hours web use, phone calls and texts, syncing is set to every hour with FiX on.
When I was on 2.3.3 I'd be lucky to get 10 hours out of the battery but 2.3.4 is awesome.
Edit. Obviously I play games too. Forgot to mention that.
Sent from my R800i using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sigh, I could never get such good battery life..
All the more reason to undervolt, in standby undervolting doesn't have much of an effect on the phone since the processor is either in deep sleep or running at its lowest speed. Also using a governer like scary or smartass helps keep your device running at a lower frequency when possible. Like I said 2.3.4 was terrible for me, 10% drain overnight or more, but apparently YMMV with this. That being said 40-50% drain in an hour is crazy no matter what you're doing on the phone, like I said running N64oid for an hour drops me 15-20% keeping in mind this is at 1.5GHz with sound and the backlight constantly on. If all else fails you can always wipe everything and start fresh, carrying over the same settings while jumping around firmware can lead to some undesirable results. Anyway good luck and keep us posted
The facebook sync option doesn't appear on my anymore, although it used to. To clean it up all i did was :
Purchase Titanium Bakup
Freeze the things I wanted to remove and test rebooting, only freezing a few more each time
Backed up every app
Slowly uninstalled each one with a reboot every couple of apps
Enjoyed my faster phone with better battery life
I use the gmail sync and life.contacts for contact pics
I get amazing battery life on 2.3.4.
In stand-by I lose 1% every 3'rd hours. It's very good in use too. Yesterday I had my day with heaviest use so far and texted like crazy the whole day and a lot of phone calls. Some surfing, gaming and updating of apps between that. Basically the phone was frequently used the whole day with short periods of stand-by in between. At night when I went to bed the battery was at 40%.
Earlier this week I used it minimally for 2 days. The battery dropped 10% for each of those days. But that was very minimal use.
So in short. I have not experiences better battery life on any other Android phone. What takes the most power is emulating. It can suck up like 20% in an hour depending on which emulator I use.
I got my Play at the beginning of the week and with quite intensive use, without WiFi or 3g, I scraped an 8am to 6pmish day on the battery. Admittedly with a fair bit of gaming.
However, that was only waiting for my 2600mAh battery to arrive and now I'm using it, I would recommend it for the bulk. You don't notice it after half an hour or so and I have no issues with gaming on the go whereas I always thought it may die on the stock.
mine drops 4 - 5% /hour..... much faster than b4.... dn no w is goin on w/ ma PLAY.....
I found that since updating to 2.3.4 my battery drains quicker. Usually charge overnight and battery would be around 15% bedtime. (7am - 11pm approximately)
Now I'm finding that by 6pm I'm having to charge it and that's without gaming
brought to you by the XDA app on my badass Android toy
Three times in my first week and a half of ownership I awoke to find it completely dead despite fully charging it or nearly fully charging it before bed. I usually sleep with my phone next to my head so that I can ensure that the alarm will wake me up. That and the lack of a timer function really irk me about this phone. I really hate having to create and save an alarm when I know I only have 45 minutes or 2 hours to sleep (I work a grave shift and have inconsistent sleep schedules during the day). It adds insult to injury when something changes that lets me get another 5, 10, 20 minutes or so and I can't easily add it. On top of that, I have to go back and delete all the alarms I made throughout the day!
Erikwithafro said:
According to some folks, if you're charging your phone and let it stay plugged in for a while after it hits 100% that screws with the battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thats crap. Infact you should leave your phone plugged in a good 30/45 mins after it says fully charged if you want a full charge
AndroHero said:
Thats crap. Infact you should leave your phone plugged in a good 30/45 mins after it says fully charged if you want a full charge
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Click to collapse
Isn't it also beneficial to Li-ion's health to keep them at max charge whenever possible?...
markcyst said:
Isn't it also beneficial to Li-ion's health to keep them at max charge whenever possible?...
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Click to collapse
Not at true max but at what the battery controller considers max. True maximum will drastically decrease the total cycles just like true minimum only to gain longer cycles in the short-term. When you store a battery it's best to stop at 75-80% because it will lose stored energy slower and not spend nearly as much time near 100%, which is still a trade-off between long cycles and more cycles.
What do you guys think to this?
ebay.co.uk/itm/GOLD-2430MAH-BATTERY-SONY-ERICSSON-XPERIA-PLAY-/190598210396?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item2c6089e35c
(Please add the WWW)
Its the same size as the standard stock battery so there's no extra bulk... But gives an extra 930mah?
To be honest, I am somewhat tempted... However the question is, will it explode in my pocket and result in me losing half my leg? It's quite a big risk to take! There also might be a voltage difference, however I cannot see anything on that.
Im currently on 1.6Ghz, undervolted. And I just played Order and Chaos for 35 minutes and went from 86% to 63% - I've had bad luck in the past regarding phone batteries, I remember replacing my G1 battery around 7 times, but at these rates my Play would be dead after around 3 hours or less of gaming.
how do you update to 2.3.4 it wont show me =[ please someone answer me :/
Spizzy01 said:
What do you guys think to this?
ebay.co.uk/itm/GOLD-2430MAH-BATTERY-SONY-ERICSSON-XPERIA-PLAY-/190598210396?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item2c6089e35c
(Please add the WWW)
Its the same size as the standard stock battery so there's no extra bulk... But gives an extra 930mah?
To be honest, I am somewhat tempted... However the question is, will it explode in my pocket and result in me losing half my leg? It's quite a big risk to take! There also might be a voltage difference, however I cannot see anything on that.
Im currently on 1.6Ghz, undervolted. And I just played Order and Chaos for 35 minutes and went from 86% to 63% - I've had bad luck in the past regarding phone batteries, I remember replacing my G1 battery around 7 times, but at these rates my Play would be dead after around 3 hours or less of gaming.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have to expect that with any phone playing an online game. Wifi/screen/GPU/CPU are going at full wack at the same time. What dya expect?