Related
Hi folks, today I was lamenting the fact that my Hermes (and many other HTC phones for that matter) has no automatic brightness control. This results in me using it on max brightness all the time, which of course eats through the battery and is mostly unnecessary (except in bright sunlight). Then the thought occurred to me that an app could be written that used the 3g camera in order to detect brightness.
While I have an IT background (including a large amount of programming), I have no experience with Windows mobile, and think this is probably not the place to start doing WM apps. However, I thought that perhaps someone else would think this is a good idea, so thought I would make the suggestion. Reading the camera would of course use some battery, but not nearly so much as running the screen at high brightness to avoid having to adjust it manually all the time...I also read the other day that MS is planning to use the camera for orientation control (instead of an accelerometer) in WM7, so I guess this would indicate that they don't suck batteries that badly...at any rate, you wouldn't need to read it constantly...once every second or two would no doubt be sufficient...
To extend the idea further, you could also use differences in brightness between the main and 3g camera to do things like proximity sensing to switch off the screen when the phone is next to your head or in a pocket automatically.
Any thoughts?
Nice idea, but I think that the amount of battery saved will be much less than the amount consumed be having the camera on all the time plus CPU processing power required for the camera.
Now a dedicated light sensor would of course be a different story.....last time I enjoyed one on a WM device was on the good old Ipaq 3970.....brilliant device at the time (hardware wise, at least)
I did have a think about this, is there a way we can test battery consumption with camera on? Remember that nothing would be drawn to the screen by the app, and you wouldn't actually have to run the camera constantly necessarily, just long enough to get an image (you wouldn't even have to do all the auto adjustment it does when you're trying to take a picture like gaining up the sensor in the dark etc...you'd wanna open it up with constant settings each time). I'm pretty sure that the camera can write directly to memory without accessing the CPU (DMA)...and you wouldn't need to actually process the image at all...
Very off-topic...but are you "est in horto"????
haha took me a minute but LOL been years since I took the course...sadly my idea isn't getting the kinda interest i'd hoped though...maybe one of these days i'll have to learn wm6 development after all :-(
I suspect with anything using the camera will be the power-drain. For it to be responsive enought it will have to have the camera on either constantly or very frequently. The kaiser battery is bad enough as it is.
Yeah, good old caecillius. Shame that vesuvius got him. shed a tear I did. ;D
It needn't constantly test the camera...
I have such an application on my palm OS treo 600.
It's called BrightCam and you can assign a hotkey to run it.
It only runs on command,
checks the ambient light using the camera (regular not 3G in this instance),
adjusts the screen brightness accordingly - et voila...
could be nice to have this functionality in WM too.
would u be kind enough to share it
http://mytreo.net/downloads/brightcam,236.html
RunEveryDay
Maybe it can be done by RunEveryDay.
Not as elegant as the camera solution....but maybe easier to realize.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=2558219#post2558219
So I am at work, looking at my N1, and I'll let you all tell me if you think there is a problem...Since a full charge last night, my phone has been off the dock for 2h9m ...
In that time, my battery has dropped 14% already. The biggest culprit...the display...with 59%...despite only being on for 15m. I always use it on the middle brightness setting from the power bar. Ive lost basically 1% for every minute the screen has been on. At that rate, my phone wouldn't even last 2 hours turned on.
Am I being paranoid? Do I have some rogue program sucking battery life? Your thoughts?
Everybody says controversial stuff about phones like N1 or iPhone regarding battery life. But I can tell you from experience and some conferences I have been the following tips to improve your N1 battery:
-Leave brightness to minimum. Only at street you will need to have it at medium or maximum so you can see well.
-Use 3G or wifi when available. It will save more battery than if you use edge.
-Use push, also it's better.
-User apps like TaskManager to auto kill some application that remain open.
And last thing, if you have a new N1 the battery life will improve with the use within the next 2 weeks. Also, I'm sure you are playing around more than usual if you just got it.
I hope this help you.
*#*#4636#*#*
Battery History
See what the figure for 'running' is, if it's high, something is stopping the phone sleeping. Should that be the case, chage the top drop down box to 'partial wake usage' and see what is to blame.
blastik said:
Everybody says controversial stuff about phones like N1 or iPhone regarding battery life. But I can tell you from experience and some conferences I have been the following tips to improve your N1 battery:
-Leave brightness to minimum. Only at street you will need to have it at medium or maximum so you can see well.
-Use 3G or wifi when available. It will save more battery than if you use edge.
-Use push, also it's better.
-User apps like TaskManager to auto kill some application that remain open.
And last thing, if you have a new N1 the battery life will improve with the use within the next 2 weeks. Also, I'm sure you are playing around more than usual if you just got it.
I hope this help you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is the complete opposite of what everyone else will tell you.
Most people say to force 2G (Edge) because it'll save battery over 3G. There are reports that WiFi will use less battery than 3G though, but not as good as 2G. Google even says this on the screen where you force 2G.
Push Email will require a constant polling on the internet. Since Android is a web OS, its probably connected to the internet anyway, but you can disable Auto Sync and Background Sync to save battery (once again, Google says this on that screen).
I agree with #1 and #4 though. If you don't want to do the lowest brightness setting, try the Auto Dim, it seems to dim it a lot more than my old Windows Mobile phones did.
mindfrost82 said:
This is the complete opposite of what everyone else will tell you.
Most people say to force 2G (Edge) because it'll save battery over 3G. There are reports that WiFi will use less battery than 3G though, but not as good as 2G. Google even says this on the screen where you force 2G.
Push Email will require a constant polling on the internet. Since Android is a web OS, its probably connected to the internet anyway, but you can disable Auto Sync and Background Sync to save battery (once again, Google says this on that screen).
I agree with #1 and #4 though. If you don't want to do the lowest brightness setting, try the Auto Dim, it seems to dim it a lot more than my old Windows Mobile phones did.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
At first I had the same opinion as you have but after I watched this video it changed radically
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUemfrKe65c&feature=player_embedded
mindfrost82 said:
Push Email will require a constant polling on the internet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No it doesn't, that's the beauty of push email. It opens a connection to the server and just sits idle.
Rusty! said:
No it doesn't, that's the beauty of push email. It opens a connection to the server and just sits idle.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You are right so ... it saves battery at the end.
@mindfrost82. Check out the video, it will tech you few things because most of people is wrong as I was in the past.
Battery Drain
My phone would drain 15% battery in 1 hour just being idle witht he screen off. I dialed *#*#4636#*#* and changed the option from WCDMA preffered to WCDMA only. When I don't get a 3g signal (not often) I jsut go back to that and set it to GSM only. For one reason or another the WCDMA preffered SUCKS THE BATTERY!
4 hours of the phone being idle and only 5% battery drain! DO IT! IT WORKS!
blastik said:
At first I had the same opinion as you have but after I watched this video it changed radically
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUemfrKe65c&feature=player_embedded
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
WTF? 3g uses LESS POWER than edge/wifi?!
My whole world just got turned upside down
Thanks for posting the video
ap3604 said:
WTF? 3g uses LESS POWER than edge/wifi?!
My whole world just got turned upside down
Thanks for posting the video
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You need to be careful of this. The point the video made is that if you download something OF SIMILAR SIZE, you will realize battery gains by virtue of the fact that what you are downloading/uploading takes exponentially less time to retrieve. The real question is, if 2 phones are both casually browsing for the same amount of time...without worrying how much information was actually transferred...one on Edge, the other on 3G...is there a difference in battery performance?
What the video said is just common sense. If I am going to send you 20 MB file and one way takes 2 minutes to download it and the other takes 10 minutes to download, then OF COURSE the 2 minute method is going to be more efficient. So you can download on Wifi where it might take x amount of time, compared to 3G where it takes 5x or edge where it takes 10x. Thus, if the file size the person is going to download is known, then of course it makes sense to tell them to wait until they are on wifi. However, many of us casually browse, on the spot, without regard to the type of connection we are on.
RayKinStL said:
You need to be careful of this. The point the video made is that if you download something OF SIMILAR SIZE, you will realize battery gains by virtue of the fact that what you are downloading/uploading takes exponentially less time to retrieve. The real question is, if 2 phones are both casually browsing for the same amount of time...without worrying how much information was actually transferred...one on Edge, the other on 3G...is there a difference in battery performance?
What the video said is just common sense. If I am going to send you 20 MB file and one way takes 2 minutes to download it and the other takes 10 minutes to download, then OF COURSE the 2 minute method is going to be more efficient. So you can download on Wifi where it might take x amount of time, compared to 3G where it takes 5x or edge where it takes 10x. Thus, if the file size the person is going to download is known, then of course it makes sense to tell them to wait until they are on wifi. However, many of us casually browse, on the spot, without regard to the type of connection we are on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, what you just said is right. But still you are saving battery up! Plus I wouldn't use edge at all in my N1. What's the point of having almost everything disabled so I can receive calls?
I remind you that while edge is sending/receiving data you cannot get any calls
blastik said:
At first I had the same opinion as you have but after I watched this video it changed radically
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUemfrKe65c&feature=player_embedded
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is an excellent video, I highly recommend watching it if you are even remotely interested in the inner workings of our phones.
blastik said:
I remind you that while edge is sending/receiving data you cannot get any calls
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks, I didn't know this, for the info this thread is full of great stuff...
1) middle brightness is very bright. I'm sure you can live with 25%. Display brightness will always drain battery like mad.
2) 3G power use is usually decent. The N1 has terrible RF so it might be fighting 2G/3G. That will cost you a lot of power. If you're getting full 4 bars 3G everywhere you go even underground, you might be ok, but in low reception areas, it's gonna drain your battery struggling to boost power. Bigger issue during a call too.I notice this on my Milestone. The N1 completely fails at 3G while my Milestone fights for it. As a result the Milestone gets quite hot.
3) There are sometimes apps that run in the background. Some people insist task killers aren't necessary, but lemme give you an example. Stupid Speedtest program failed to acquire my location. After a test, you can't really exit, so you just hit home. Droidforums fanatics will always repost that link to that one thread where they talk about memory and its ok to not have to kill an app. Think again. The GPS turns on because of Speedtest and it keeps trying to acquire your location. Gotta kill it with a task manager or that thing will kill you. Or a webpage. I've heard of people going to some site that keeps refreshing. Oh good luck to your battery. Make sure you close these things. Use a task manager. Sometimes Facebook or Twitter might be the culprit even if your refresh rates are awfully long. I do not understand this phone sometimes. At times I feel that multitasking/memory management on Android gets you into more trouble than if you just flat out restricted it like in the iPhone. I'm not saying the iPhone's restrictions are the way to go, but Apple knew what it was doing. There's a reason Android phones gobble power and pull data like mad even when you aren't aware. Random apps sometimes start. Facebook widget refreshes even though the app itself is set not to auto notify and to update on its own. So with so many things running loose, its quite easy to see why your battery can go down so fast.
RayKinStL said:
You need to be careful of this. The point the video made is that if you download something OF SIMILAR SIZE, you will realize battery gains by virtue of the fact that what you are downloading/uploading takes exponentially less time to retrieve. The real question is, if 2 phones are both casually browsing for the same amount of time...without worrying how much information was actually transferred...one on Edge, the other on 3G...is there a difference in battery performance?
What the video said is just common sense. If I am going to send you 20 MB file and one way takes 2 minutes to download it and the other takes 10 minutes to download, then OF COURSE the 2 minute method is going to be more efficient. So you can download on Wifi where it might take x amount of time, compared to 3G where it takes 5x or edge where it takes 10x. Thus, if the file size the person is going to download is known, then of course it makes sense to tell them to wait until they are on wifi. However, many of us casually browse, on the spot, without regard to the type of connection we are on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's exactly the idea I got from that video too, which makes sense.
dmo580 said:
1) middle brightness is very bright. I'm sure you can live with 25%. Display brightness will always drain battery like mad.
2) 3G power use is usually decent. The N1 has terrible RF so it might be fighting 2G/3G. That will cost you a lot of power. If you're getting full 4 bars 3G everywhere you go even underground, you might be ok, but in low reception areas, it's gonna drain your battery struggling to boost power. Bigger issue during a call too.I notice this on my Milestone. The N1 completely fails at 3G while my Milestone fights for it. As a result the Milestone gets quite hot.
3) There are sometimes apps that run in the background. Some people insist task killers aren't necessary, but lemme give you an example. Stupid Speedtest program failed to acquire my location. After a test, you can't really exit, so you just hit home. Droidforums fanatics will always repost that link to that one thread where they talk about memory and its ok to not have to kill an app. Think again. The GPS turns on because of Speedtest and it keeps trying to acquire your location. Gotta kill it with a task manager or that thing will kill you. Or a webpage. I've heard of people going to some site that keeps refreshing. Oh good luck to your battery. Make sure you close these things. Use a task manager. Sometimes Facebook or Twitter might be the culprit even if your refresh rates are awfully long. I do not understand this phone sometimes. At times I feel that multitasking/memory management on Android gets you into more trouble than if you just flat out restricted it like in the iPhone. I'm not saying the iPhone's restrictions are the way to go, but Apple knew what it was doing. There's a reason Android phones gobble power and pull data like mad even when you aren't aware. Random apps sometimes start. Facebook widget refreshes even though the app itself is set not to auto notify and to update on its own. So with so many things running loose, its quite easy to see why your battery can go down so fast.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll second this, I never used to use a task killer as I figured it was just extra drain on the battery but after running across some rogue programs that kept running after being closed and draining the heck out of my battery I decided to install taskkiller and set it up to autokill apps when the screen goes off.
It's really easy to setup just install it from the market then use it to kill everything then flip through your homescreens make sure everything is up and running and go back into task killer and add everything there to the ignore list and turn on "autokill when screen off" now you don't ever have to worry about rogue apps killing your battery again and everything else will function normally.
blastik said:
Yeah, what you just said is right. But still you are saving battery up! Plus I wouldn't use edge at all in my N1. What's the point of having almost everything disabled so I can receive calls?
I remind you that while edge is sending/receiving data you cannot get any calls
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yes you can, the phone will stop whatever data it's processing and take the call.
seanhassars said:
yes you can, the phone will stop whatever data it's processing and take the call.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sure 100% that while phone is receiving data over edge you wont get calls. I know because I had push enabled and afterwards I was getting SMS from my carrier that I have missed calls. It might say "ey sb is trying to call you" and then stop data transfer but for sure your will miss first call if someone is trying to reach you several times.
Check it out yourself.
blastik said:
Everybody says controversial stuff about phones like N1 or iPhone regarding battery life. But I can tell you from experience and some conferences I have been the following tips to improve your N1 battery:
-Leave brightness to minimum. Only at street you will need to have it at medium or maximum so you can see well.
-Use 3G or wifi when available. It will save more battery than if you use edge.
-Use push, also it's better.
-User apps like TaskManager to auto kill some application that remain open.
And last thing, if you have a new N1 the battery life will improve with the use within the next 2 weeks. Also, I'm sure you are playing around more than usual if you just got it.
I hope this help you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
there are a lot of people who say do not use a task killer, including google devs etc.
i used advanced task killer for the longest time, being used to needing one as a WM user before getting my n1. after reading various posts on the issue, i tested without and my battery life increased.
i use juice defender now as well to turn off the apn and wifi, based on speeds/location/etc
have it set to prefer 2g (dont get 3g at home)
screebl also setup to turn screen off when not in certain position in hand
last one is setcpu (need root for this though) underclocking the cpu (including advanced setting and profiles i have set)
lowest setting for brightness
also keep gps off unless needed
i hit about 24hr from unplug til 10% w/ heavy useage, wifi on all the time (although juicedefender handles when its on/off)
just now went to kmobs UV kernel and testing that to increase my times
i've done a 24hr test from 100%>10% based on each app i've mentioned
I think while we are on topic of battery life.. for those of you who are rooted. Here is another link that I would recommend. I used these on my HTC Dream and works great on the Nexus One. Increase your battery life 10 fold.
Your Tube: "Get Better Battery Life" by droiddog
sorry not allowed to link yet
Uhh, I cannot post this in development as I am still a newby :-(
However:
Hello,
I came from Symbian (Nokia C7-00) and liked the phone very much. Everything worked the way it should. (I was especially interested in office functionality.)
Now I bought a Galaxy Note and I really love the hardware.
But I discovered that it uses much energy and it doesn't like to sleep as often as it could. (I already returned to Android GB, which gives a better experience, but there still is room for improvement.)
1. Sometimes even though the phone simply lies around and does nothing, the last app that I forgot to close is hindering the CPU from sleeping. Why? The is no need.
2. At night I am used to turn the phone into flight mode. However I found out that this isn't the best thing for Android. In the morning, when the email app goes to push phase, the phone leaves sleep mode and seems to excitedly wait for the flight mode to get switched off. This uses *quite* a bit of battery!
These things seem strange to me. My impression is that Android is not really optimised for cell phones. If the screen is off, there is no need for CPU time, doesn't it? There is nothing urgent to do; everything could be done slowly; no hurry.
I guess the battery could last *much* longer if this would be improved.
Greetings,
corcov
corcovo said:
Uhh, I cannot post this in development as I am still a newby :-(
However:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which is handy, because this thread has nothing to do with development and thus saved you from some abuse!
Regards,
Dave
Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2
But I already know how to click the "thanks" button
corcovo said:
But I already know how to click the "thanks" button
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Doesn't matter.
Development, if you did not create IT, then it does not belong in development. Remember that. Otherwise you will get flamed.
Android is a mobile OS, so of course it is optimised for smart phones - not ordinary cell phones. Android acts like a computer and, if you keep a computer running Crysis 2 for example, it would burn more power than a computer just playing some music off of iTunes.
In terms of improving your battery, check your brightness. You can download widgets to adjust the brightness right from the home screens. I use these to set my brightness to its lowest whilst at home (perfectly adequate for night and indoor use away from sunlight) and turn it onto automatic when I go outside. This has saved my a bunch of battery.
If you are running a stock Samsung ROM, turn on power saving mode. I always leave it on and, frankly, I have no idea as to what it actually does. I haven't noticed a performance drop in the slightest, but if it saves a bit of battery it is worth it. Also, you could try Juice Defender or some other battery saving apps which work for some people - others not.
Finally, ensure you haven't left GPS, Bluetooth or WiFi on when not needed. Try downloading CPU Spy to check your phone deep sleeps, yet mine even without it ever deep sleeping gets around 16 hours of battery life which is still the best I have ever gotten on a smart phone. Bettery Battery Stats can show you wake-locks (apps that are keeping your phone active) also.
Brad387 said:
Android is a mobile OS, so of course it is optimised for smart phones - not ordinary cell phones.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I see. Well it might be a nice feature if one could add an "now be a cell phone"-option for energy enhancement, which means: if screen if off, sleep.
c.
corcovo said:
1. Sometimes even though the phone simply lies around and does nothing, the last app that I forgot to close is hindering the CPU from sleeping. Why? The is no need.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are some legitimate needs for keeping the CPU from sleeping for a short period of time - such as finishing a sync operation (otherwise, the radio power spent beginning the sync is wasted). Unfortunately, some poorly written applications (Facebook for example) abuse the wakelock mechanisms and hold wakelocks when it is not justified.
2. At night I am used to turn the phone into flight mode. However I found out that this isn't the best thing for Android. In the morning, when the email app goes to push phase, the phone leaves sleep mode and seems to excitedly wait for the flight mode to get switched off. This uses *quite* a bit of battery!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is not something I have ever encountered myself. "push" relies on the server to trigger something - in airplane mode, this trigger can't happen.
These things seem strange to me. My impression is that Android is not really optimised for cell phones. If the screen is off, there is no need for CPU time, doesn't it? There is nothing urgent to do; everything could be done slowly; no hurry.
I guess the battery could last *much* longer if this would be improved.
Greetings,
corcov
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Android is well optimized for cell phones - However, it assumes that third-party applications follow Google's recommendations for power management. Unfortunately, many of them do not. The number of IM applications which choose to use their own proprietary and poorly optimized network protocols (such as Skype, it's atrocious) as opposed to Google C2DM (optimized and efficient) is astonishing.
An interesting note was that I believe much of the focus at Google I/O was on reminding app developers that they need to play nice with the system and other apps.
There are some cases where there are device-specific nonoptimalities. Compared to most Nexus devices, Exynos devices have an absurdly long time to resume from wake (1000 milliseconds), and during that resume cycle CPU frequency is locked to 800 MHz and cpuidle is disabled. This is one of the #1 causes of power drain on our device. This is also exclusively a Samsung kernel/hardware architecture problem that does not affect the Nexus S (similar CPU, but completely different modem interface) or the Galaxy Nexus (different CPU/modem interface).
In the case of our device, the modem is hung off of the CPU on a USB bus - this makes for very long resume times.
Here are obvious reasons the CPU should occasionally turn on when the screen is off:
1) MP3 playback in the background
2) Handling of background syncs - e.g. when an email or Google Talk IM comes in, wake the CPU, handle it, and pop a notification sound, then go back to sleep. Normally, this means the CPU sleeps while waiting for an interrupt from the WLAN chipset or the cellular radio. Unfortunately, some apps drive incoming data to the device far too frequently. (See my above rant about Skype's network protocols being crap compared to Google's C2DM protocol.)
3) Handling of scheduled wakeups (alarms, calendar events, etc) - these are rare and almost never consume power
Most power drain is from item 2, with third-party apps frequently behaving extremely poorly compared to Google's own application suite and sync protocols.
Now this an extensive answer which is very informative and helpful for me since insights are always soothing. Love it. Thanks!
not much to add after Entropy, but if you feel the need to get some control over battery usage you could try betterbatterystats app (and the thread) to identify battery eaters, besides that, there are few apps to check what is going on with your system when it sleeps:
- CPU Spy to show cpu states time
- Autorun Manager or Autostarts to disable triggers causing apps like FB to run without reason (those which you will find with betterbatterystats)
- Battery Monitor Widget, to check battery current consumption (mA) - this app is generally not recommended, because Note's hardware does not report the actual current, so the readings are highly estimated and because when poorly configured it can drain your battery faster, BUT otoh with refresh rate set at 5 minutes or more, it can give you some approximate orientation on how much battery you lose (better than counting %/hour by yourself) at negligible battery usage
- also, if you feel the need to disable net and sync during night, you could automate it using "lama", which is free, and in my experience does not eat much battery by itself
- and last but not least, avoid taskillers, those apps may have adverse effect, i.e. self restarting apps (by the triggers mentioned above), will get killed then restarted and so on and so on, leading to much higher battery drain
Let's be clear. G4 is an awesome device. But it's still kindof in the pre-production phage, don't you think? It's not even available 10 countries in the world. Anyway many of who have already bought LG G4, are actually migrated from another smartphone branding either HTC, Samsung, Nexus, Apple etc. And the youtubers contributed a lot in this publicity for LG. I hardly found anyone said any bad thing about G4, neither about it's battery life nor performance in those videos or reviews. But these two have become the most concerning area as well as disappointment for many of the users right now. I, myself also have been suffering with a few issues. I have already changed one device. Coming from XDA forum, here I will try my best to summarize all the problems people are facing with their G4 & also my observation on that matter from my personal experience as well as gathered knowledge from almost all the forums in XDA:
1. MISSED TAP:
Almost all users reporting that G4 missing many taps to recognize.
My observation:
Well, I have also experienced a few missed taps. But what I think it's not a LCD issue, rather less optimization/smoothness issue of the G4 ROM. How do I know? Well I switched on the touch sound. And every tap I did, including the missed ones, there was tapping sound. Even I tested in the manual testing, nothing reported like that. And even after formatting, symptoms reduced for some. But surely it's very annoying.
Oh one thing about knock codes, I found LG LCD doesn't response to gentlest touches sometimes. You need to press slightly a bit more. Fact to be considered : I am still using the provided plastic protector.
2. LAGGING ISSUE:
There is stuttering here and there in G4, not only in the stock launcher but also in the whole system.
My observations:
No doubt G4 lags. You will notice less smoothness / sluggishness while sliding any page up & down in chrome, youtube, Google plus or anything. It is not "butter smooth" like some other OEMs for most of the users. But switching to Nova, turning off smart bulletin & dual window helped to some extent, but not completely.
3. BATTERY LIFE:
Many of the moderate to heavy users complaining about quick battery drainage with low to medium brightness.
My observations:
LG said many things about their battery life of G4 in their announcement party and many well-known youtubers also said very much positive things about G4's battery life i.e. it can easily last a day which raised up the expectation bar of many users. But the real scenario is quite not like that. Most of the medium to heavy users are getting average 3 - 4.5 hours SOT with keeping screen brightness low to medium which is not at all the way LG mentioned. It seems like LG is providing that extra battery knowing the fact that you will need to put on that extra one at the middle of the day for sure. Anyway, what I found is: G4's stand-by time is OUTSTANDING. Don't turn on that screen much, only receive a few calls, you can pass a decade (not literally) with a single charge. But turn on that screen, do browse, chat, Facebooking or Youtubing or anything keeping that overkill screen on, you will hardly pass 5 hours maximum. Raise the brightness a bit more, like 75-100%, brother, you are doomed. Your G4 will die within hours. For some, turning off auto brightness & keeping the brightness below 50% all the time, turning off fast-dormency, turning off GPS, using Greenify helped a bit. Anyway, my point is that awesome-bright-vivid-overkill screen is actually the curse for the G4 at present if LG doesn't bring up some solutions for it. What's the point if you can not enjoy the juice of a fruit which is known to be the tastiest of them all???
4. HEATING & SLOW CHARGING ISSUE:
Very limited people including mine are complaining of frequent, not consistent, heating up issue of the phone as well as slow charging.
My observations:
Many factors can be responsible for this. Some people find this scenario happening once a day, for some once in two days and these two issues are interconnected in my opinion. What can heat up the phone? May be some hidden apps, maybe weather, maybe some other things, but surely it does for some. Yah we have seen in all the reviews that G4 warms up a bit, but not very much. But the people who are complaining about it, found it uncomfortable to speak touching the phone to the face. I will attach a screenshot here, in which my phone was completely idle, was on charge, no phone call came & my phone got heat up to 42 degrees & it took almost 5 hours to charge from 20 - 100%. Again I am saying this is not a consistent scenario, but it's frustrating for some including mine.
5. OTHER ISSUES:
These are some random issues found by some people:
a) White sparking light in the screen.
b) Yellow tint on screen.
c) Bad bluetooth audio.
d) Wifi speed problem.
e) Helium app doesn't work properly.
f) Nova launcher cannot install properly.
g) Vibration too soft.
h) Auto brightness inconsistancy.
So guys, if you have read it and if you are one of those renowned youtubers or columnists or bloggers whom LG guys follow on regular basis, please make an article or video about it, spread these information and let the LG guys know about these so that they can do something about it. I personally believe, software update can solve 95% of the issues. So be it.
Thanks for your patience to read my post.
I guess I've been pretty lucky thusfar.
Only missed taps I've had is on the double-tap to wake, but I think it might be due to my hardly tapping it (was used to HTC's touch profile last time I had this feature).
No lags here. I did notice that once, when I hit Home button, I returned to a blank home screen and it took about 5 seconds for the icons/widgets to show up...hasn't happened since the one time, though.
Charging, I use the stock charger from my old Note 4, so I get decent times with that (generally 10%-100% in about 50 mins...I'll take that).
As far as battery, I get about 3 hours screen on and 16-18 hours total per charge. Not bad considering I'm a heavy user when the screen is on and stream Spotify via BT speaker 12 hours/day while at work. I've only been through 3 charge cycles so far. It's still not what I was used to with the M8 or Note 4, so I will admit I'd like it to be better.
I think I would go just about nuts if I had any of 5a, b, c, or d. LOL
5d is a huge concern for me. My WiFi speed is complete bollocks. I'm getting a reading of 60mb down from my 5gh router when running speedtest on the phone. But when I actually load a website it's like I'm using dial up again. The load times are atrocious! I'm going to look into changing chanels on my router as someone has mentioned as a fix. Fingers crossed
I haven't had any of those issues. Honestly been flawless so far. Surprised by how smooth it is. I do only get 3 hours sot if I run power intensive apps. But I think that's normal.
The only real issue I've had is **** slowness on Wi-Fi but blazing speed on data
Sent from my G4 using your mom
Wifi speeds are complete crap for me i swear it's like im on dial up waiting for a page to load and forget about getting youtube to load
Th3Bill said:
I guess I've been pretty lucky thusfar.
Only missed taps I've had is on the double-tap to wake, but I think it might be due to my hardly tapping it (was used to HTC's touch profile last time I had this feature).
No lags here. I did notice that once, when I hit Home button, I returned to a blank home screen and it took about 5 seconds for the icons/widgets to show up...hasn't happened since the one time, though.
Charging, I use the stock charger from my old Note 4, so I get decent times with that (generally 10%-100% in about 50 mins...I'll take that).
As far as battery, I get about 3 hours screen on and 16-18 hours total per charge. Not bad considering I'm a heavy user when the screen is on and stream Spotify via BT speaker 12 hours/day while at work. I've only been through 3 charge cycles so far. It's still not what I was used to with the M8 or Note 4, so I will admit I'd like it to be better.
I think I would go just about nuts if I had any of 5a, b, c, or d. LOL
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same here. Not sure why there is so much inconsistency between devices. I bought the US trial version, and mine has been relatively good. If I had half of the problems reported I would have sold this thing ASAP and waited for a better crop of devices to come out this fall. I'm one of the few people who really like a stripped down TouchWiz, but with Knox/sealed but not waterproof body/no SD/weak battery the S6 wasn't cutting it. If only Samsung sold the Exynos to these other vendors... For now, I'm fine with the G4, but really hope we get root and unlocked BL so development explodes and the kernel can get tweaked.
Only problem I've had is holding back my enthusiasm about how flawless this phone is ( my wife would try to hijack it if she knew how impressed I am). I do miss 4 buttons on the bottom though
knoshann said:
Only problem I've had is holding back my enthusiasm about how flawless this phone is ( my wife would try to hijack it if she knew how impressed I am). I do miss 4 buttons on the bottom though
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can add the 4th button. You can add up to 5. Settings - Display - Home touch buttons - Button combination
Perfect summary.
I've also seen a lot of people saying that they aren't having these problems which can lead to people thinking the phone is perfect, which it's not. I love the screen size and the display but the software is really letting this phone down.
I've experienced many problems too, such as: stuttering, poor battery life at high brightness, brightness dimming down by itself, slow charging, lag and stutter in games, e.g. dead trigger 2 and subway surfers (yes I've turned off game optimiser) and the notification pull down freezing frequently when I get a notification. However, as I saw a lot of people saying that their phones were perfect I chose to exchange my phone instead of return it. My new phone has the exact same problems (uk device on v10a).
Maybe these problems can be fixed with a software update but the question is will it? My G3 lagged and stuttered from the beginning and no software update changed that. The only fix was to switch to a cm12 rom which made the phone finally perform smoothly, at the cost of battery life and camera quality.
It's been at least 3 phones in a row now that have had poor software (g3, g flex 2 and now g4). They're supposed to test their phones before putting them out to consumers but it doesn't seem like they really care so I don't have much hope.
Worst thing is I really want to love this phone and think LG's hardware design is perfect but the software is most likely going to make me sell it.
It might be worth mentioning which version you're on, especially if it's one where the provider (such as VZW) has bogged it down with bloatware. That could conceivably be a contributing factor to battery life issues, if nothing else.
Just a suggestion. Might be a good idea for people to put which model they're on and which Software version they're running.
Like I'm on the H811 running version 81110D. That way, we can see if any issues might be carrier type or software version based...
Just a thought.
Not sure if anyone has mentioned it yet, but on the Sprint model the WiFi randomly turns itself on. I rarely use WiFi, so it's definitely not me turning it on and forgetting that i did or anything.
I was having a issue where my screen Brightness would change on it's own. Tmobile H811 running version 81110D ? I believe that was the version before the update I got and installed on its own last night of H. When I mean change on it's own I had the Screen Brightness on 100% like every other phone and after the few secs when the screen dims and you touch it again the screen brightness would now be set to 70% now 100%. AUTO is off I don't use that.
I will see if this happens on the H update or not.
Ogre6473 said:
Not sure if anyone has mentioned it yet, but on the Sprint model the WiFi randomly turns itself on. I rarely use WiFi, so it's definitely not me turning it on and forgetting that i did or anything.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've actually seen this on the TMO version (8110d). Very sporadic (or it happens more than I realize but I don't spend enough time looking at the phone to notice, not sure which).
I've also seen it randomly turn OFF wifi (just happened 30 seconds ago) for no reason. Interestingly enough THAT one might be oddly due to some weird power saving feature or something as I was just able to reproduce it 3 times in a row turning the screen off and on.
Screen on=wifi on
Screen off=wifi off
Weird stuff.
smw6180 said:
I've actually seen this on the TMO version (8110d). Very sporadic (or it happens more than I realize but I don't spend enough time looking at the phone to notice, not sure which).
I've also seen it randomly turn OFF wifi (just happened 30 seconds ago) for no reason. Interestingly enough THAT one might be oddly due to some weird power saving feature or something as I was just able to reproduce it 3 times in a row turning the screen off and on.
Screen on=wifi on
Screen off=wifi off
Weird stuff.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Go into Wi-Fi Settings.
Under Advanced Wifi Settings
In Useful Settings, there is a setting for "Keep Wi-Fi on when screen is off".
It's set to NO by default.
I would imagine it's some sort of power saving feature.
smw6180 said:
I've also seen it randomly turn OFF wifi (just happened 30 seconds ago) for no reason. Interestingly enough THAT one might be oddly due to some weird power saving feature or something as I was just able to reproduce it 3 times in a row turning the screen off and on.
Screen on=wifi on
Screen off=wifi off
Weird stuff.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In setting, wifi, advanced there is an option for turning off wifi when the screen is off. Check that and wifi will stay on. Still haven't digured out why it's turning itself on though.
Ogre6473 said:
In setting, wifi, advanced there is an option for turning off wifi when the screen is off. Check that and wifi will stay on. Still haven't digured out why it's turning itself on though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I haven't touched anything in Wi-Fi settings other than setting my passkey and turning "Always allow scanning" off. That setting for Wi-Fi off when screen is off was on when I got the phone. Looks like default position.
It probably doesn't help that they keep losing software engineers at their California office (i work at LG). Senior engineers to make things worse.
The yellow tint on the screen is the part that upsets me the most. The lead-up to the G4's release was all about how superior the screen is to the G3's. Yet the G4's I've received have had yellow tint issue (two of them so far). The screen also appears dimmer than my old G3 at max brightness as well (this is before auto dimming kicks in too.)
There seems to be a rather big shipment of G4's with yellow screens in my area. I've been to 4 different AT&T stores in the past 4 days and have seen at least 5 brand new phones with the yellow tint. It seems to be restricted to the grey metallic retail ones as well. None of the display models or the leather backed ones I've seen thus far as the yellow tint issue. This is in Houston, TX btw. I'm heading to a 5th after work in the hopes of finding a G4 with a non-defective screen.
[HOW-TO][NEWBIE GUIDE] Optimize & proper set up your Galaxy S6 Edge (stock firmware)
As I've read across this forum and on several specific threads related to usage, battery life and so on, as well as discussing with some of my friends having a S6 or S6 Edge, I realized that most of the people don't really know how to properly set up their phones or how to use them efficiently.
OK, I get it, this is a fancy phone, not every owner is a developer or tech guy so it might be that many choose it based on the looks and don't really know how to optimize it...then they start complaining about different things like lag or battery drain not knowing that most of the problems are caused by miss-usage or improper setup. Of course there are bugs too, nothing is perfect. Of course there are many firmwares available and some are market or carrier dependent so some features or settings might be missing from some of them or even work differently.
What I will try here is to provide some guidelines and tips for setting up various things on the phone in order to maximize it's battery life and for a better usage. I will also make some recommendations based on my experience, tests and usage that might not apply to everyone. Use common sense and logic to apply similar settings in your particular case. Don't come screaming that you made that or that and now something is not working.
And YES, I know there are similar guides like this posted over the Internet and I'll probably make similar recommendations here too but I couldn't find such a guide here on XDA that is particular to this phone (if there is a better one than you might as well ignore mine).
All these things I'll describe below are applicable to any STOCK, NON-ROOTED 5.1.1 firmware and won't break warranty or your phone.
Now that was a long (and maybe unneeded introduction) but I thought to write this for everyone...let's start.
Model No.: SM-G925F
Android: 5.1.1 r2 (LMY47X)
Baseband: G925FXXU2QOI7
Kernel: 3.10.61-5672012
Build date: Fri Sept 4 2015
Carrier: Orange RO
DISPLAY
First I would like to say some words about the display. We have a great display, high resolution and it is most likely the biggest battery drain factor. There are two major things about it that you should keep in mind and will help you to get a better battery:
1. It's AMOLED...that means that the black pixels on it will consume no power because are not lit. Studies showed that even if not completely black, AMOLED displays use less energy if the displayed picture is darker compared to a lighter one.
2. The brightness level. Most people use it on "auto" or high level settings and this will be a major drain factor.
You can drastically lower the battery drain caused by your screen by selecting as much as possible dark (black) backgrounds and/or themes. There are some nice ones available in the Theme Store (my favorite is the Dalkomm Coffee Theme), that make most screens and menus dark/black. Also choosing a dark wallpaper for lockscreen/homescreens will help.
Don't use screen brightness at maximum...never. You don't need that in 99% of the cases. Also you won't probably need the automatic setting either since most of the people are spending most of the time indoors (either at work or home). A low manual setting will be fine most of the time, I have it set up at about 20% and only need a brighter one when going out. At that time I just tap on "auto" and it'll increase based on ambient light level. So you don't even need to tweak it alot every time. Find a low manual setting that's fine for your eyes and just tap on "auto" when you go out in sunlight.
CONNECTIVITY
Another battery drain factor is your multiple connection/radios features. In most cases you use just several: Mobile Data, WiFi, GPS/location and BT (when applicable). That means you should turn off all the others you don't use...NFC or BT (when not connected to a headset or car-kit or not listening to music). I don't listen to music and don't have a BT headset so I mostly not using BT (just when I'm in my car) and almost never use NFC so I have both disabled and I enable them only when needed via the Quick Settings.
WiFi
WiFi should also be properly setup otherwise it'll have impact on battery. It was incorrectly assumed or considered that keeping WiFi on all the time will drain battery faster. That was proven in different tests that's not true and in fact keeping WiFi on all the time won't make a big difference and in some cases was even better than to turn it off/on. I think is something similar with the car engines that suck more fuel when started that when running at idle. The major power drain is not when WiFi is running while is not connected to any network, but when the WiFi radio is powered up. When is on and not connected, it's going into a lower power state so the battery consumption is negligible.
I had a case with one of my friends that had WiFi setup to turn off when display was off...wrong choice, he got about 30% battery drain overnight because instead of having it connected to his home WiFi, the phone was using his 4G/LTE connection to make all the background sync/updates. That was eating his battery and also his data plan. After setting WiFi to "always" his overnight drain lowered to as little as 2-3%.
In some regions/carriers there are 2 other settings that were proven to help battery life: WiFi calling and VoLTE. I don't have either of them but based on different articles and what people say, they surely help with that so don't forget to turn them off if you don't use these features.
You might also want to try turning off "Always allows scanning" and "Smart network switch". I have the second turned off but I keep on the first one. Basically the first option tell the Location service to use WiFi for locating the device even if WiFi is switched off (by the on/off switch) so that means the radio is active. Second option should make you switch faster from WiFi to mobile data in case the WiFi signal is not strong enough or fluctuating. In my country there are plenty of WiFi hot-spots and they have mostly good connections so I don't use this feature.
GPS
Well here the opinions are split but I am currently having it ON all the time and Location Service is set to "high accuracy". I personally haven't noticed such a major difference with or without it so I preferred to let it on as it is used by many apps or services. You can try to set Location to "wifi and cell only" but don't think that will bring you a major benefit.
RUNNING APPS/PROCESSES
Well this is an important one. I've initially started to turn off/disable/uninstall everything I don't need or use. This can be done mostly from the Settings - Applications - Application Manager or if you want to go further, you can install Package Disabler Pro from PlayStore, about which I'll detail later.
Now why we should do that? There are lots of apps, processes and background services running on our devices that take care about all the things we do on the device. The problem is that ALL are using resources: processor time, memory, space and so on. In the end these are translated for a user in LAG or battery drain. Of course we cannot kill everything and I learned long time ago that installing Task or memory managers on Android it's the worst thing you can do. Android it's smart enough to take care better about it's resources and processes (at least to a certain point) and keep killing a certain process won't give you more battery life but will eat more of it in the end,
What I wanted to say is you shouldn't start disabling, killing or blocking everything cause you might end up with an unstable or not properly working phone (case in which only a factory reset might help). First of all look at the ALL tab in Application Manager and try to identify what you don't need or use. For example I'm certainly not using some things like: music, books, news feeds, Samsung's keyboard (I use SwiftKey), the TouchWiz launcher (I use Nova), health services or whatever, S-Voice, S-Health, S-Finder, I don't have any smartwatches so I don't use any Gear processes, fancy device wake-up functions (like wave gestures) or animated wallpapers either.
So after all considerations above, you decided that you can safely disable some apps/processes. All good but you'll quickly learn that some of them cannot be disabled via Application Manager (the "disable" button is grayed out). Now what? Well here comes handy that Package Disabler Pro that I've told you about in the beginning. That app is able to disable ANY apps/processes on your phone, including those that are protected and cannot be disabled via the normal way (and yes it can do that without being rooted). The downside of it is that you must be careful what you choose to disable not to have something that is needed for the normal functionality or the apps you're currently using. The app has also a backup/restore function (via an xml file) for saving the list with apps you have disabled and easily import them back after a factory reset for ex. I've added to this thread my list of disabled apps as it is exported by the application (just unzip and copy the file on the root of your internal memory and it can then be imported in the Package Disabler app)
Another important thing is WHAT apps you're using. I know that socializing and social networking are some of today's most trendy things but keep in mind that some of the apps used for that are not so well made. An example could be the Facebook app/messenger which are reported to drain alot of battery. RSS feeds, news feeds, multiple weather apps or widgets, all contribute to battery drain and lag. Don't install several apps/widgets for the same purpose (like several calendar apps or weather apps). Each will take resources and won't have an added value. Want to use another weather app/widget than the one coming with the phone? Fine, install it...but don't forget to uninstall/disable the built in one or others that do the same thing. Same goes for keyboard for ex; I use SwiftKey for years and got used with it. For me it's better than any keyboard that Samsung might put on the device, therefore I've disabled the standard Samsung keyboard. I also don't like TouchWiz launcher and use Nova that offers me much more flexibility so...I've disabled both the "easy" and "regular" TouchWiz launchers. I went to the point that I've even disabled the different embedded font types, you have 5 of them and I doubt someone uses more than one at a time.
So as you all can see it's not only a matter of setup but also a matter of usage. When you have a device you have to use it properly otherwise it'll not perform as you expect. Imagine a car that has a manufacturer fuel consumption value of 5.5 liters/100 Km....that's under certain conditions not on ANY type of driving. Fly with 200+ km/hr on a highway and I'll guarantee you won't have 5.5 liters/100 km consumption. That doesn't mean the manufacturer has lied or mislead you. Same goes with a phone, if you don't know how to use it and optimize it, you'll have a bad experience.
I work in the IT industry for years and I mostly laugh when I hear someone advising somebody to reinstall the operating system to solve a problem. Same goes for "factory reset" for a phone. Yes, this method works some times but that won't solve the root cause of an issues if you're using it the same way. After several days it'll perform as bad as before and you'll just say that "factory reset" did nothing. Of course it didn't...YOU have to do something different, not the phone.
Now I apologize for the long post and I do hope that at least some will learn to better manage their devices and to understand what they're doing not just running certain commands or procedures blind. Both S6 and S6e are great devices but we should learn how to properly use them in order to benefit the most from them...otherwise we just come here asking for help or mumbling about what crap devices they are.
Thank you, I will check to see if I get an improvement on the standby battery drain.
Your part about not setting the screen to Auto is flawed. You mention that we are mostly indoors, and you don't need a brighter screen for that. Auto mode also knows that and sets the brightness lower. It already does automatically what you do manually.
Tnx. And yes....keeping screen at 20% brightness and just switching to auto when in outdoors works great for the battery life.
ArmedandDangerous said:
Your part about not setting the screen to Auto is flawed. You mention that we are mostly indoors, and you don't need a brighter screen for that. Auto mode also knows that and sets the brightness lower. It already does automatically what you do manually.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not quite, I've tested it. If you're on "auto" and use a lower setting on the slidebar, in a dark room the screen is too dark, you'll have to turn off "auto" and the manual brighteness set on the same level will be much higher than on auto.
Now if you have such good eyes and you're able to use "auto" in all cases with the slider at 20% that's good for you...unfortunately I am not so that's why I use it as I've described. The point is that "auto" mode consumes MORE battery regardless of how it's set, than a lower 'manual' mode. So I preffer to have it like this than to use auto all the time.
Thanks for the awesome guide. I'll start disabling some useless processes and see how my battery life is working. Anyway without much editing the battery of S6Edge is pretty good. I can use it a whole day and still 19% remaining. As a comparison I wasn't able to do it with my S3 having to recharge it 2 or even 3 times at day.
Again, thanks for the guide!
Enviado desde mi SGS6e mediante Tapatalk