New galaxy s (and XDA!) user - First impressions, and LOT of doubts - Galaxy S I9000 General

Hi guys,
my first post here, but i spent a lot of time on this forum in the last days stealing information here and there so i would to thank you all for your incredible effort on get this phone better. Now i think it's time to share my thoughts about this smartphone, and ask for some doubts i have.
- Display: the size is awesome, but honestly i found it too much saturated, is there any way to change color saturation? Plus the reading is not that good... the characters, expecially without zoom, look too fuzzy. I have to admit that, imho, readability was better on my old iphone 3g. Someone feels like that? For multimedia, however, this screen is awesome.
- Lags: I can unfortunately notice some random lags while opening application or switching from market to installed apps, even with the oneclick lag fix (512 MB) installed (quadrant reports 2200+ score, if i remember correctly). I was tempted to try the hackheclair cooked rom, any advice about this?
- Battery: another pain. It seems that the phone drains the battery too fast in standby mode. In 6 hours (last night) it drained more than 20% of battery life. This sounds strange to me since many users reported an 1-2% battery drain during night. Please note that i killed all the applications and widgets before leaving the phone in standby. The only one thing that i'm unable to kill is the touchwiz UI, since i use launcherpro as default launcher. Do you know any way to kill the touchwiz UI?
- Memory: here is my biggest doubt. Shouldn't this phone carry 512 MB of RAM? When i check the running services the application reports a total of 256 MB of RAM. Where is the problem?
here are my phone details:
Firmware version JM5
Baseband XXJM3
Oneclick Lagfix applied
Sorry for the huge amount of questions, i heavy used the search engine but i haven't found any solution yet.
thanks

The3D said:
Hi guys,
my first post here, but i spent a lot of time on this forum in the last days stealing information here and there so i would to thank you all for your incredible effort on get this phone better. Now i think it's time to share my thoughts about this smartphone, and ask for some doubts i have.
- Display: the size is awesome, but honestly i found it too much saturated, is there any way to change color saturation? Plus the reading is not that good... the characters, expecially without zoom, look too fuzzy. I have to admit that, imho, readability was better on my old iphone 3g. Someone feels like that? For multimedia, however, this screen is awesome.
- Lags: I can unfortunately notice some random lags while opening application or switching from market to installed apps, even with the oneclick lag fix (512 MB) installed (quadrant reports 2200+ score, if i remember correctly). I was tempted to try the hackheclair cooked rom, any advice about this?
- Battery: another pain. It seems that the phone drains the battery too fast in standby mode. In 6 hours (last night) it drained more than 20% of battery life. This sounds strange to me since many users reported an 1-2% battery drain during night. Please note that i killed all the applications and widgets before leaving the phone in standby. The only one thing that i'm unable to kill is the touchwiz UI, since i use launcherpro as default launcher. Do you know any way to kill the touchwiz UI?
- Memory: here is my biggest doubt. Shouldn't this phone carry 512 MB of RAM? When i check the running services the application reports a total of 256 MB of RAM. Where is the problem?
here are my phone details:
Firmware version JM5
Baseband XXJM3
Oneclick Lagfix applied
Sorry for the huge amount of questions, i heavy used the search engine but i haven't found any solution yet.
thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1. There is an app in the dev section to reduce text size, go check it out
2. That's odd, no lag in my end and i've applied One Click lagfix 1.5 .apk, i'm using SamSet's 1.9f ROM though.
3. At the moment there is no way to get rid of the TouchWiz UI but devs are working on a clean ROM, a Cyanogen mod ROM which is basically stock Android. Not too sure about the Battery issue, someone else can shed some light on that, but i do get 1-2% drop at night...
4. Eclair 2.1 does not utilize all of the RAM, and Samsung hasn't chosen to either, so we're all waiting for the final release of Froyo in a few weeks and then hopefully that will utilize all of the RAM, or there will be a workaround.

I was going to ask about the fuzzy text myself. It doesn't always seem to be so but a lot of the time the white titles of apps or text in widgets etc. It looks like it is a little out of focus but all images and coloured text appear pin sharp so far. Very odd.

your coming from an iphone 3g and your complaining about battery life and lag? you taking the piss?
and as for the screen, its better than any screen ive ever seen, i lol'ed when my mate put his iphone4 on full brightness and watched the battery go down in minutes, so dont go there with battery life.
try reading the forums and you'll find out that your problems have got a slightly better with more recent firmwares
sorry still ranting, 'fuzzy letters' roflmao!

MAMBO04 said:
1. There is an app in the dev section to reduce text size, go check it out
2. That's odd, no lag in my end and i've applied One Click lagfix 1.5 .apk, i'm using SamSet's 1.9f ROM though.
3. At the moment there is no way to get rid of the TouchWiz UI but devs are working on a clean ROM, a Cyanogen mod ROM which is basically stock Android. Not too sure about the Battery issue, someone else can shed some light on that, but i do get 1-2% drop at night...
4. Eclair 2.1 does not utilize all of the RAM, and Samsung hasn't chosen to either, so we're all waiting for the final release of Froyo in a few weeks and then hopefully that will utilize all of the RAM, or there will be a workaround.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually the reason for limited memory is not Eclair. The amount of memory available is governed by the kernel and the kernel on the Galaxy S supports the full 512MB. However Samsung creates a large ramdisk on /tempfs (160MB) which explains why reported RAM is around 320MB.
As for the fuzzy fonts, this is the result of using PenTile matrix in the display. Just search for PenTile, there are many threads on these and other forums discussing that.

As for the fuzzy fonts, this is the result of using PenTile matrix in the display. Just search for PenTile, there are many threads on these and other forums discussing that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is there a fix ?

Not without changing the entire screen.
After a while you get used to it, it's just jarring coming from a regular LCD screen.

Don't worry about the battery, it just needs to be broken in, be sure to charge it fully then use it till the phone shuts off then charge fully 3 or 4 times when you first get it. It took mine a week or 2 but now I get a couple days of fairly heavy use out of it compared to half a day when I first got it.

Another recommendation I will give is to try not to categorize this with another device. I came from a BlackBerry and as much as I hate to admit it, I had some BlackBerry withdrawal issues LOL
I'm now a happy camper and haven't experienced the lag too much. I did experience too much lag on JM5, downgraded to JM2 and lag is gone except for LauncherPro, so tried going back to TwLauncher, was happy, and now finding that ADw is a very good launcher in itself.
Bottom line for me is that I wish there were more apps with the same caliber as the App Store's, but it does what I need and more.

darkoroje said:
Actually the reason for limited memory is not Eclair. The amount of memory available is governed by the kernel and the kernel on the Galaxy S supports the full 512MB. However Samsung creates a large ramdisk on /tempfs (160MB) which explains why reported RAM is around 320MB.
As for the fuzzy fonts, this is the result of using PenTile matrix in the display. Just search for PenTile, there are many threads on these and other forums discussing that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can anyone in late Eclair version's confirm the tmpfs theory (one way to do it would be to change the settings I guess so that the tmpfs is bigger, 200mb, and see if the ram drops)

Tachikoma_kun said:
Not without changing the entire screen.
After a while you get used to it, it's just jarring coming from a regular LCD screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It would be better with a non serif font that was a little larger. Surely this is possible?

Look at the the thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=762116in the "Android Development" section for more details.

Nirvana388 said:
Don't worry about the battery, it just needs to be broken in, be sure to charge it fully then use it till the phone shuts off then charge fully 3 or 4 times when you first get it. It took mine a week or 2 but now I get a couple days of fairly heavy use out of it compared to half a day when I first got it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd bet money this is more than just a breaking in problem. The battery drain doesn't drop by 95% (20%->1%) after a few cycles. (more on this later).
The3D said:
Hi guys,
- Battery: another pain. It seems that the phone drains the battery too fast in standby mode. In 6 hours (last night) it drained more than 20% of battery life. This sounds strange to me since many users reported an 1-2% batt synery drain during night. Please note that i killed all the applications and widgets before leaving the phone in standby. The only one thing that i'm unable to kill is the touchwiz UI, since i use launcherpro as default launcher. Do you know any way to kill the touchwiz UI?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First, let me ask, do you use a task killer other than the touchwiz task manager? Do you let it run at night? If so, stop, this will cause the 20% drain nearly by itself.
Next, look at the apps that you have installed? How many do you have installed? Maybe some are doing some heavy lifting at night when you are sleeping, this is almost definitely a sync and/or app related issue. Download Spare Parts to get more detailed information on your battery drain.
Here's the issue with the battery. First, the easiest way to fix the problem should be juicedefender and ultimatejuice, but it will cost like 1.99 or 2.99. Then set up sync and maybe 3G to go off at these hours.
Cheaper fix: turn sync off at night (I assume this is running, but actually, it might not be, you might just have random data going out). Also, potentially turn 3G data off at night, this actually prevents me from getting any data and that's what I've seen improve my battery life more than anything. ultimatejuice would make this automatic (I think).

I own both the iPhone 4 and SGS, and i agree that black and white text in the iPhone generally looks sharper and more crisp. I had been using the iPhone for about a week before finally being able to acquire the Galaxy S Vibrant off contract, and i really wasn't used to the display for the first day or two. I was surprised because so many people raved about the Super AMOLED screen, yet my eyes were so used to retina display, i was able to notice the pixels on the Galaxy S screen. After the first two days though i got used to it and it looks great to me now. Actually, i had gotten so used to the customizability, as well as the Menu and Back button, and the bigger screen size, the crisper graphics on the iPhone 4 is easily negated.
Anyways, if there is a way to make text look sharper on the SGS that would make it a perfect device for me.

my battery life last very good compared to other phones
i get around a day and half screen brightness full uses for about 5 hours
wifi turned on the entire time and very heavy use
when you first got the phone did you let it drain completely then charge it completely and repeat a few times or do you just plug it in when ever ?
i had the htc legend before and the battery sucked and as for the screen
im very pleased

my bad about the RAM question, must have got mixed up

The3D said:
- Display: the size is awesome, but honestly i found it too much saturated, is there any way to change color saturation? Plus the reading is not that good... the characters, expecially without zoom, look too fuzzy. I have to admit that, imho, readability was better on my old iphone 3g. Someone feels like that? For multimedia, however, this screen is awesome.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've directly compared this screen with the HTC Desire (both AMOLED and SLCD), the HTC HD2 and the iPhone 3G & 4.
For me, its definitely up there, but I kind of agree with you on the text, when zoomed out it's not that great. That said I disagree that the iPhone 3G is better on readability - the SGS definitely is better. It's only not that great when compared with an LCD of an equivalent resolution. The HD2, Desire SLCD and especially iPhone 4 (which is stunningly sharp for text). However, its better than the Desire AMOLED.
For general UI use, I'd put both Desires and the HD2 behind the SGS and iPhone.... on the whole between the SGS and iP4 I'd say it was a draw, with both looking very sharp, clear, and colourful - the SGS is more colourful, and larger, but the iP4 is simply sharper.
For viewing pictures and movies, the SGS is clearly the best, with the best constrast, subjective detail levels and plain looks the most impressive. EVERYONE has commented on how good it looks for this. On the iP4, this is its weakness - its small screen, almost-square aspect ratio and slightly duller colours make it far less impressive looking than any of the others.
I'd rank them as thus:-
=1 - SGS
=1 - iPhone 4
3 - HD2
4 - Desire SLCD
5 - Desire AMOLED
The3D said:
- Lags: I can unfortunately notice some random lags while opening application or switching from market to installed apps, even with the oneclick lag fix (512 MB) installed (quadrant reports 2200+ score, if i remember correctly). I was tempted to try the hackheclair cooked rom, any advice about this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The lags are disappointing IMO. With JM2, and the internal SD fix (cant even remember the name as there are that many fixes now), it was clearly better than stock, however not all animations are smooth, and there is a definite lag at times, seemingly fairly randomly too.
However, I've largely fixed that... some people seem to doubt autokiller, however, I can say it works for me - I set to strict or aggressive for the best results. I don't know why it works, and I can't argue against those that say it makes things worse, on paper at least, but my experience is different, it DEFINITELY helps.
Also, oddly, turning the GUI animations off too has made a significant difference. I still have the Launcher Pro animations (app drawer and pinch home screen view), and the gallery is still animated, but other GUI animations are disabled, and its a lot snappier, and I dont really miss it.
Now the only lag I get is the browser lag as in the link below, but even then Nicolocopus suggests a later firmware may fix it.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=764070&highlight=browser+lag
The3D said:
- Battery: another pain. It seems that the phone drains the battery too fast in standby mode. In 6 hours (last night) it drained more than 20% of battery life. This sounds strange to me since many users reported an 1-2% battery drain during night. Please note that i killed all the applications and widgets before leaving the phone in standby. The only one thing that i'm unable to kill is the touchwiz UI, since i use launcherpro as default launcher. Do you know any way to kill the touchwiz UI?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Battery - the biggest drain IME is the 3G data connection. Make sure when you're in a place with wifi to leave wifi on over the 3G data connection. Make sure the phone isn't set to send the wifi to sleep (wifi sleep policy IIRC) as the data connection will kick in while the phone is asleep. Other than that, some drain through the course of a day is par for the course.
The other thing is the screen, turning down to minimum brightness is actually more than bright enough for indoor use, and seems to make a difference.
As for Launcherpro / Touchwiz, AFAIK once you set LauncherPro as default and then restart your phone, the home screen portion of Touchwiz (TWLauncher) is no longer running. You wont be able to get rid of TW completely unless a custom Vanilla ROM is made. Not all of it is THAT bad though, really.
The3D said:
- Memory: here is my biggest doubt. Shouldn't this phone carry 512 MB of RAM? When i check the running services the application reports a total of 256 MB of RAM. Where is the problem?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Cant comment other than to say, I dont know about this, so many different "opinions" fly around - all I can say is Samsung advertised it as 512mb RAM, so I think they'd be pretty stupid to give you a phone with LESS RAM than advertised - but you never know, I guess.

alovell83 said:
I'd bet money this is more than just a breaking in problem. The battery drain doesn't drop by 95% (20%->1%) after a few cycles. (more on this later).
First, let me ask, do you use a task killer other than the touchwiz task manager? Do you let it run at night? If so, stop, this will cause the 20% drain nearly by itself.
Next, look at the apps that you have installed? How many do you have installed? Maybe some are doing some heavy lifting at night when you are sleeping, this is almost definitely a sync and/or app related issue. Download Spare Parts to get more detailed information on your battery drain.
Here's the issue with the battery. First, the easiest way to fix the problem should be juicedefender and ultimatejuice, but it will cost like 1.99 or 2.99. Then set up sync and maybe 3G to go off at these hours.
Cheaper fix: turn sync off at night (I assume this is running, but actually, it might not be, you might just have random data going out). Also, potentially turn 3G data off at night, this actually prevents me from getting any data and that's what I've seen improve my battery life more than anything. ultimatejuice would make this automatic (I think).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Aside from all this... "killing all apps and widgets" does nothing to stop the biggest android battery killer, Google sync. Google sync is always running unless you disable it.
If you really want to see how long your phone lasts in stand by, install APNdroid and disable your data connection before you go to sleep. You will have miniscule battery use during the night if you do this.

The3D said:
Hi guys,
- Lags: I can unfortunately notice some random lags while opening application or switching from market to installed apps, even with the oneclick lag fix (512 MB) installed (quadrant reports 2200+ score, if i remember correctly). I was tempted to try the hackheclair cooked rom, any advice about this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just upgraded to the new official DJG4 firmware and the lag has been reduced alot. It is now no slower in opening apps than my 3GS.
- Battery: another pain. It seems that the phone drains the battery too fast in standby mode. In 6 hours (last night) it drained more than 20% of battery life. This sounds strange to me since many users reported an 1-2% battery drain during night. Please note that i killed all the applications and widgets before leaving the phone in standby. The only one thing that i'm unable to kill is the touchwiz UI, since i use launcherpro as default launcher. Do you know any way to kill the touchwiz UI?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
On the old DJF4 firmware, with 3G and sync on, battery drops by 2% per hour on stand-by. With the new JG4 firmware, it is now 2% drop in 2.5 hours. This is much better compared to my iphone 3GS which loses 10-13% over 7 hours on standby with sync on.
- Memory: here is my biggest doubt. Shouldn't this phone carry 512 MB of RAM? When i check the running services the application reports a total of 256 MB of RAM. Where is the problem?
here are my phone details:
Firmware version JM5
Baseband XXJM3
Oneclick Lagfix applied
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most software I had report 326Mb total instead of 256Mb. Which variant of sgs phone do you have? I have the galaxy s i9000.

yeah these batteries needs to be drained completely before charging again, else it doesn't hold proper charge
i always push it until the phone turns off (shutdowns completely) itself, then i change the battery pack
i cycle through 3 of them
Bobler420 said:
my battery life last very good compared to other phones
i get around a day and half screen brightness full uses for about 5 hours
wifi turned on the entire time and very heavy use
when you first got the phone did you let it drain completely then charge it completely and repeat a few times or do you just plug it in when ever ?
i had the htc legend before and the battery sucked and as for the screen
im very pleased
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Related

Battery massive improvement after update?

I posted this on another forum... and got some positive feedback.
The update just miraculously increased my battery life tenfold!
I am 7 hours 12 minutes in and I am at 80% (using the battery indicator provided in settings, not by battery widget). I unrooted to install the update (yet it feels like I still have Herver's ROM). Brightness at 50%.
I didn't use the phone that much today (I had class), but I used it inbetween breaks and whatnot. I guess pretty light usage.
I think the update messed with the radio/wifi performance.
What about you guys?
Edit: I know people have gotten 20+ hours with ROMS, but this is without one.
Hopefully ROMS increase the battery life even more.
patelkedar91 said:
I posted this on another forum... and got some positive feedback.
The update just miraculously increased my battery life tenfold!
I am 7 hours 12 minutes in and I am at 80% (using the battery indicator provided in settings, not by battery widget). I unrooted to install the update (yet it feels like I still have Herver's ROM). Brightness at 50%.
I didn't use the phone that much today (I had class), but I used it inbetween breaks and whatnot. I guess pretty light usage.
I think the update messed with the radio/wifi performance.
What about you guys?
Edit: I know people have gotten 20+ hours with ROMS, but this is without one.
Hopefully ROMS increase the battery life even more.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi patelkedar,
I can't speak for everyone, but according to myself and other users that have responded to my post battery life improvement has been absolutely astounding as of this update.
Blah. Sorry for double thread.
Search didn't go so well I guess.
Anyway, seems like everyone has seen major improvement.
Totally agree. My battery life has improved vastly. I came from fresh 0.3 and EvolutionX. I had excellent battery life with both of those roms too. But I unrooted to give htc a shot at stock again and I am happy. Phone has been off charger since 7:30am and it's now 3:05pm, with moderate usage and on wifi i'm at 78%. I don't know what I would do without my EVO. I love this damn device.
My battery life is phenomenal with the stock update. I was one of the ones who took the plunge and lost the ability to root for the time being but its performing so well I really don't care. They made everything run better and the battery was just a bonus.
unevoked not working after 1.4xxx update
I uninstalled the superpermissions and unrevoked before updating. now it will not root obviously. tried to install setcpu and various other programs but will not work. this sucks.. i see no difference in battery life or speed....a lot of people think an update is a good thing sometimes, but it is not. HTC should just release froyo 2.2
Pretty much if you have alot of Facebook friends the battery life savings will be huge with this update, also if you use a Flickr account battery savings will be huge, it seems they fixed the issue with Flickr causing 100% awake time as well but didn't mention it...crossing my fingers anyway, so far haven't run into the issue after resetting up my Flickr Account.
P.S. The update seems very much worth losing root for now as it seems to have fixed many things not metnioned and some functions are way faster now, going to manage applications loads in 2-3 seconds now versus 10-20 before etc... There seem to be alot of fixes not mentioned.
You guys mind posting your settings?
I'm at 9 hours and 40 minutes with exactly 50% battery remaining, but I haven't been using the phone like crazy. Some light web use and decent amount of texting all throughout the day. This is not an improvement from the pre-update era. Pretty much the same
jpimpballa said:
I uninstalled the superpermissions and unrevoked before updating. now it will not root obviously. tried to install setcpu and various other programs but will not work. this sucks.. i see no difference in battery life or speed....a lot of people think an update is a good thing sometimes, but it is not. HTC should just release froyo 2.2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
HTC has released it already. It's Sprint now that has to smooth it over and make sure that it is compatible with their stock applications before releasing it to the masses.
akarol said:
HTC has released it already. It's Sprint now that has to smooth it over and make sure that it is compatible with their stock applications before releasing it to the masses.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Correction: Google has released it already. HTC + Sprint need to smooth it over and make sure that it is compatible with their stock applications before releasing it to the masses.
Phone also all around seems smoother in the sense UI especially. I'm enjoying my EVO again and actually using it as a cell phone now instead of a super-rapid-fire-rom-flashing addiction-device. Sometimes I forget that my cell phone is a cell phone and not a netbook (yet) lol. Cheers to HTC for the update!
LearnIIBurn said:
Phone also all around seems smoother in the sense UI especially. I'm enjoying my EVO again and actually using it as a cell phone now instead of a super-rapid-fire-rom-flashing addiction-device. Sometimes I forget that my cell phone is a cell phone and not a netbook (yet) lol. Cheers to HTC for the update!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ditto. I don't miss the custom ROMs, honestly. I haven't had a single FC since this ROM launched and the device feels much smoother and faster.

[Q] EB13 Froyo Battery Life and Linpack

I updated to the current build, using the samsung tool to update when it came out. I've never rooted, so I have always been stock.
Wiped it, and then went through their whole process to install.
My system shows im running 2.2.1, so I know I did it right.
My question is, Froyo is supposed to have improved linpack scores by up to 5x. I used to get like 8 mflops, and now I get around 13. That is by no means 5x more. Is something not working right? Are other people getting this result?
Next, my battery life is horrible, well much worse then before. While running 2.1, I used Zeam launcher, and had Advanced Task killer set to auto kill everytime I turned my screen off (with the exception of a few apps I used). I would traditionally be able to get like 16 hours of battery life, and still have like 30% battery. This is with texting and web browsing during the day. Now, with minimal texting and less use, ive been getting like 12 hours, and im at like 5% battery life. As far as I know, I have it set up just like I did before. Anyone else running into this at all?
(most of my battery is being used by my Display 89% right now, or so my phone says...)
Maybe I am completely offbase on these, but I want to know if anyone else is running into these questions. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
I am fairly new to Andoroid so take it for what it is worth. I am also experiencing a drop off in battery life since Eclair (which was also no great shakes re. battery life, lasted about a day), and did the requisite things necessary to to extend battery life - screen at lowest setting, no automatic sync, wifi/BT/gps off when not in use. In my case, the hog is display (98% ) which I attribute to spending more time with the phone since Froyo update. In my previous phone, a blackberry, it took several days and a few battery pulls for the OS to completely "settle in" - I don't know if that's the case with Android OS.
Five times!
Where did you hear that? People with certain phones saw close to a 2x improvement because of JIT, but JIT isn't optimized for our phones so it doesn't do as much for us. Personally, I think a 50% improvement with only software changes is pretty impressive.
Also, don't use task killers with 2.2. FroYo has better task management than eclair did. And people who have tried using task killers to improve battery life have reported worse battery life than just sticking with the stock memory management.
And you know that since your display is using almost 90% of your battery, the problem isn't a runaway process. It is more likely that the problem is how much time the screen is on. Get spare parts and tell us what percentage of the time since last charge/boot the screen has actually been on to use so much juice.
Battery could be the TWS (time without signal) bug. Go to Settings > About phone > Battery use > Cell standby. See what your time without signal is at. If more than a couple percent then toggle Airplane mode on and off. Also make sure you update your PRL. You may have to do this every time you reboot. My understanding is that it's a common problem with 2.2 and CDMA devices (not just the Epic).
DiGi760 said:
Five times!
Where did you hear that? People with certain phones saw close to a 2x improvement because of JIT, but JIT isn't optimized for our phones so it doesn't do as much for us. Personally, I think a 50% improvement with only software changes is pretty impressive.
Also, don't use task killers with 2.2. FroYo has better task management than eclair did. And people who have tried using task killers to improve battery life have reported worse battery life than just sticking with the stock memory management.
And you know that since your display is using almost 90% of your battery, the problem isn't a runaway process. It is more likely that the problem is how much time the screen is on. Get spare parts and tell us what percentage of the time since last charge/boot the screen has actually been on to use so much juice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah,
<http: //developer.android.com/sdk/android-2.2-highlights. html>
Says 2x-5x. I seeing as i'm not even getting 2x, thats kinda a joke.
But something within the update had to have affected the screens battery use. Like I said before, I had fine battery life not 3 days ago, and now it all of a sudden drops. I HIGHLY doubt that that is a hardware issue. I can test, but I have worked with computer hardware for years, so that just doesn't make any sense to me.
Linpack does not execute any code..it does a floating point calculation..wit JIT you get up to 5x efficiency in code execution..does not mean it crunches numbers faster 5x faster..
The phones that are achieving 5x or more speed are doing so through a flaw in linpack...

The saga of the GS2 and the iPhone 4

I bought a SG2 some time ago and loved it except for the idle battery drain. For the life of me, I couldn't seem to get it to stop chewing battery when it wasn't being used. I even tested it by charging it to full and leaving it overnight. It lost about 20%.
Remembering that the iPhone 4 had excellent idle battery life, I decided to give it another go just for the hell of it. I hate iOS as a daily driver, but I figured at least I wouldn't have to worry about battery life.
These are my observations:
1) Idle time on iPhone 4 is indeed better. When it's not being used, it uses no battery. However, when being used heavily, the SG2 actually seems to get BETTER battery life than iPhone 4 when it is being used heavily. Not sure why.
2) I severely miss being able to send/upload high quality videos and pictures. I hate the restrictions that Apple places on file size. I don't always have wifi readily available and at least with Android, you can upload large videos to Youtube over the cell connection.
3) I miss the integration in the photo album with social services. It's annoying having to launch an app every time I want to upload a picture/video.
4) The camera on the SG2 is definitely better. You get more fine detail on objects that are further away, no doubt due to the higher megapixel count.
5) I think most apps on iOS look better and are more functional, but the problem is, you have to launch an app to do anything in iOS.
I really wish Samsung (and maybe Google in general) could solve the idle battery drain. Losing 20% over 8 hours without even using the phone seems rather high when you factor in that you'll be losing that battery life whether you use the phone or not. Theoretically, this should mean that the iPhone would get better battery life with the same use, but I'm not finding that to be the case so far. I will probably be going back to my SG2 very soon.
Sorry for the long-winded post. Just wanted to collect my thoughts and present my personal findings.
U r right about battery consumption .
But i m sure Android is going to be so much improved and vast in features that we cant compare to any os in the world in future.
Biggest plus of Android is community like this and the freedom to change things inside it.
agree on most of the things u said there
but
when it comes to battery life i have no idea why its soo random with some people
i lose about 1% an hour on KE2
(stock was on the phone when i bought it no root )
but since i installed KF3
i lose about 2% an hour
rooted flashed from odin
I must have responded to 10+ questions on this forum in the last 24 hours as regards battery drain, i get 25+ hours on my GS2, if you search on here you will find many tips that will substantially increase your battery life.
check the new kernel ninephetamine. Have used the modified 1.4v (with deep sleep enabled).....promising results with undervolting.
Currently OC 1400, and undervolted.
Simple Answer
Iphone does not loose batter on idle cause it puts all apps to sleep state if not used for a while
Android phones in general are always using data for like your emails, facebook, etc if you have set the apps to connect say every hour or so
IF you leave WIFI on it takes up battery as well
I am quiet happy with my SGS2 ( 12 -15 hours ) heavy usage and I am used to daily charging. and its just the day time hours unlike people who may be posting their night time hours as well which add anything form 8-16 more
jonny68 said:
I must have responded to 10+ questions on this forum in the last 24 hours as regards battery drain, i get 25+ hours on my GS2, if you search on here you will find many tips that will substantially increase your battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not interested in disabling everything that makes Android what it is. If I have to modify it to the point that it's an iPhone, I might as well use an iPhone. I'm well aware of battery saving tips for Android. They almost always involve shutting down all automated services and anything that retrieves data. This is not a solution. I have some e-mail accounts on periodic pull and the most important ones on push. On the iPhone, I have all e-mail accounts on Push.
I also don't particularly want to use a custom ROM. I prefer to stay stock.
I'm not getting horrible battery life on my SG2. In fact, I get around 15 hours with the same kind of use as that on the iPhone 4. I would just like to be able to set the phone down for several hours and not lose a quarter of the battery.
i have tried every single battery optimisation and calibration tricks on my Android phones. My first Android phone was a htc hero, second SE X10 and Now Galaxy S2.
All the optimisation and stuff works if you sacrifice something on your phone. i like my display to be sharp and easy to see. I want my email notification to be prompt and so many other things.
I used to be Windows mobile user my last handset was Toshiba TG01. i never ever had any battery issue.
It is to do with Android system, it needs to improve. it has all the pace now and so many chances.
if this roumor is true then IOS will shrink sooner than 2015:
http://www.mobilechoiceuk.com/News/iPhone+5+delayed+until+2012?/5990
Why my Lamborghini needs more fuel than my Fiat Panda? I can't understand. Crappy Lamborghini, back on Panda.
Well if riding the Panda can get me through the jungle instead of half of it, why not?
Also, the Panda can get me more food via the App Store.
Granted though the Lamborghini has alot more fancy features and doesnt have mindless sheep following it
Anyway, coming from an SGS1, then an iPhone4, I heartily agree with the OP. Android is awesome but it's still rough around the edges. Sometimes the ease and boring simplicity of IOS is something that I miss, along with the Apps and definitely the games which Android is sorely lacking.
But then again I'd be reminded of steve and his itunes bloatware. ugh
Yes, but when Lamborghini is parked it should use the same as the Panda! (I.e. zero.)
Google really should minimise the stuff going on when the phone is idle. Google also needs to do something about all these rouge apps that always start up services that always run in the background. They should provide some way of limiting/stopping the CPU usage of apps running in the background.
Even the official XDA forum app still servers up adverts in the background eating up your battery (and bandwidth) if you press home instead of backup to exit.
wifi sharing is a bit of a bug that drains battery like crazy. If your not rooted thats definitely the screen off battery drain for sure. If there was a reason to root, just root to freeze that one rogue app.
codeworkx said:
Why my Lamborghini needs more fuel than my Fiat Panda? I can't understand. Crappy Lamborghini, back on Panda.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL I like ur metaphor.. but at least give something better than Panda hahaha
Nope, the wifi sharing bug has now been fixed by Samsung in the stock KF3 release available via Kies.
greyhulk said:
I'm not interested in disabling everything that makes Android what it is. If I have to modify it to the point that it's an iPhone, I might as well use an iPhone. I'm well aware of battery saving tips for Android. They almost always involve shutting down all automated services and anything that retrieves data. This is not a solution. I have some e-mail accounts on periodic pull and the most important ones on push. On the iPhone, I have all e-mail accounts on Push.
I also don't particularly want to use a custom ROM. I prefer to stay stock.
I'm not getting horrible battery life on my SG2. In fact, I get around 15 hours with the same kind of use as that on the iPhone 4. I would just like to be able to set the phone down for several hours and not lose a quarter of the battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
But most of the stuff is pretty useless anyway all this Samsung bloatware is guaranteed to drain your battery, i don't see it as sacrifcying anything, ive got email on push and i still get over 25+ hours battery,i used an iPhone 4 for a few weeks and id be lucky to get 16 hours with medium to heavy usage.
My data is always enabled too, you can save a lot of battery if you use apps like Juice defender plus and system panel will also tell you which apps,etc are using up more than others.
At the end of the day smartphones are always going to use up much more battery than normal phones and this isn't going to change anytime soon until such time a revoultionary new battery is designed that lasts for days on end.
Until then people have to deal with it,follow the tips and you'll get good battery life, if you want absolutely everything "on at the same time" your simply not going to get it, not on the iPhone 4 or any phone.
blunted09 said:
wifi sharing is a bit of a bug that drains battery like crazy. If your not rooted thats definitely the screen off battery drain for sure. If there was a reason to root, just root to freeze that one rogue app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
indeed this is very true.
LouisJB said:
Yes, but when Lamborghini is parked it should use the same as the Panda! (I.e. zero.)
Google really should minimise the stuff going on when the phone is idle. Google also needs to do something about all these rouge apps that always start up services that always run in the background. They should provide some way of limiting/stopping the CPU usage of apps running in the background.
Even the official XDA forum app still servers up adverts in the background eating up your battery (and bandwidth) if you press home instead of backup to exit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's not parked.
Your Engine is still running on idling mixture.
That's a difference. ;-)
LouisJB said:
Nope, the wifi sharing bug has now been fixed by Samsung in the stock KF3 release available via Kies.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Has not been properly addressed. Thats why its not even included in 90% of the custom roms.

[BATTERY] My battery setup is doing miracles

I've been researching extensively how to improve my battery life on my Android phones and I believe I've found an amazing setup for the Atrix. My phone has been disconnected for 3:15 and I'm at 91% right now with moderate use. It used to burn about 5% an hour before with NO use. Yesterday, it lasted 14 hours and I still had 20% left when I went to bed.
Aura 1.1.3 Debloat #7 ROM
This ROM seems to be the lightest one I've tested. It's only 150 MB and very fast.
SetCPU
I set up a profile to underclock the processor all the way to 216 MHz when the screen is off. The processor is running at 1.1 GHz max. I haven't tested underclocking it to 1 GHz or 900 MHz. I'm sure that would improve the battery life even further and not have a huge impact on performance.
Battery mode (Android settings)
Obviously, it's on maximum battery saver.
General settings
I set the screen timeout to 30 seconds. Maybe 15 seconds is too short for you as it is for me, but that would save some more juice.
Every other battery-killing feature is on, like wifi, GPS and sync. I don't use task killers anymore and found out that my battery life actually improved a lot after I ditched Advanced Task Killer.
I just wanted to share this with the community. I hope it helps you. Any suggestions to improve it even further are very welcome.
Yeah task killers are pretty much useless, watchdog is a wonderful alternative.
Sent from my MB860 using xda premium
Interesting and thanks for sharing, but...
I can get almost the same results by using any other ROM without SetCPU and just using Max Battery Savings but I'm not interested on that setup because I need to have PUSH email all day.
Maximum Battery Savings makes push emails useless, and for a device that's supposed to be "connected" push mail is a must (at least for me).
Unfortunately, push mail is what kills batteries, specially on 3G/4G.
Cheers!
Rayan
Sent from my Atrix using Tapatalk
My phone was maximum battery savings one time for some reason. I didn't do it. But for some reason, it was seriously draininng my battery bad. I think i was on 2.2/froyo before i unlocked so i don't know if that had anything to do with it. I do know, i haven't had reason to try it intentionally since my battery is great overall. It does help since atnt turned up the juice on the 3g and called it 4g reception has been very satisfactory lately helping power consumption by not having to look for a signal as often.
I voided my warranty.
pukemon said:
My phone was maximum battery savings one time for some reason. I didn't do it. But for some reason, it was seriously draininng my battery bad. I think i was on 2.2/froyo before i unlocked so i don't know if that had anything to do with it. I do know, i haven't had reason to try it intentionally since my battery is great overall. It does help since atnt turned up the juice on the 3g and called it 4g reception has been very satisfactory lately helping power consumption by not having to look for a signal as often.
I voided my warranty.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly! When the phone switches back and forth 2G and 3G/4G it drains a lot of power. So it too depends on the zone we are in at the moment and that's one of the reason we see a lot of different results among users. Of course, phone and app/game/internet usage style also counts.
Cheers!
Rayan said:
Exactly! When the phone switches back and forth 2G and 3G/4G it drains a lot of power. So it too depends on the zone we are in at the moment and that's one of the reason we see a lot of different results among users. Of course, phone and app/game/internet usage style also counts.
Cheers!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think a lot of people don't realize that terrible reception can account for terrible battery. Often we don't get that feedback when people are whining about battery. Also, lots of the people whining about battery play lots of games, and some of those games that put the gpu through it paces suck up juice faster, but the user is not realistic about that either and expects battery life of a phone that is used lightly.
I voided my warranty.
Yay for undervolting
not "killing" aka "ending" or possibly more familiar "closing" your running apps.. that's like, like if you log into your windows box and you don't have the "X" buttons on the window caption bar.. you just leave everything that you run running until you shutdown..
before you even try to retort, obviously there are exceptions. in windows explorer.exe runs endlessly until you shutdown. on your android device that's the equivalent of your preferred launcher.
what else.. msn? the equivalent of your favorite sms app. facebook and notifications? similar to that browser you keep open with 5 or 6 tabs swiftly consuming your precious processor.
i'm not sure an argument even exists. "task killers" has "killers" in the name which naturally has negative connotations. call it a task manager. windows has a task manager.
other than that nice tips
I am stock everything.. even launcher
3hrs 14min screen on time
~12ish hours off the charger
still says 50% battery. which means 50%-59% on motoblur
pretty darn good eh?
Don't understand the point you were trying to make. Are you saying killers/manager is worthwhile or were you trying make a worthless point about the names?
Anyways task managers are worthless. A good comparison to make are mid/high end laptops and their ram. On a forum I frequent, users were comparing their battery runtime with similar setups. Some were getting extra ~hour or so than others who couldn't figure out why they were getting shafted on battery. Some people don't realize that 4 dimms of ram consume twice the power of 2 dimms of ram no matter the gb of x amount of ram. Thus its better to have 2 dimms of 4gb each than it is 4 dimms of 2gb. The ram consumes power whether you use it or not if it is connected. The 1gb of ram in the atrix consumes the same amount of juice whether its holding 300 mb of data or 800 mb of data. Whether the cpu is computing with something active or not in the ram is what's relevant. Task managers only help when you have a rogue app. Id rather uninstall it then deal with a poorly written app.
I voided my warranty.
aaron.a said:
not "killing" aka "ending" or possibly more familiar "closing" your running apps.. that's like, like if you log into your windows box and you don't have the "X" buttons on the window caption bar.. you just leave everything that you run running until you shutdown..
before you even try to retort, obviously there are exceptions. in windows explorer.exe runs endlessly until you shutdown. on your android device that's the equivalent of your preferred launcher.
what else.. msn? the equivalent of your favorite sms app. facebook and notifications? similar to that browser you keep open with 5 or 6 tabs swiftly consuming your precious processor.
i'm not sure an argument even exists. "task killers" has "killers" in the name which naturally has negative connotations. call it a task manager. windows has a task manager.
other than that nice tips
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Although that may be true for windows computers it its not with Linux which Android is based on. I know that there are virtual machines and all that jazz for the apps but the core system is all Linux and it's even optimized for battery life so when you press the home button yeah that is still running in the background but if you ever need to use that ram it either clears that app from the ram or (based on the app) kills its altogether. And like someone else said ram uses the same amount of power weather it's being used or not.
Also if you're using well written apps then they shouldn't be using any CPU in the background.
If there is some app that's hogging CPU in the background then you need to just uninstall it. Task killers especially auto task killers are actually using a lot of your CPU constantly checking for apps that are using too much ram but Android already does that automatically.
tl;dr
Linux can manage its own ram without you and for the love of God, stop using task killers they're making everything worse.
i was defending their usefulness in general not so much their effectiveness in battery preservation. probably the wrong thread. if any its minimal.
i'm talking about active task management tho. when i'm done browsing the web and want to fire up pewpew for some old school polygonal destruction i kill the browser entirely. i guess its really based on the type of user you are whether or not benefit is to be had. some people are active while others are standby
Rayan said:
Exactly! When the phone switches back and forth 2G and 3G/4G it drains a lot of power. So it too depends on the zone we are in at the moment and that's one of the reason we see a lot of different results among users. Of course, phone and app/game/internet usage style also counts.
Cheers!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sure, it depends on how you use the phone and the strength of the signal you're getting in your area. Would you guys just turn data off in bad signal areas to save battery? How would you handle that?
This is what happened. My battery is doing amazing. I changed the battery mode to Performance during the day and I still have 65% after 12 hours. Not bad. It's about 2.9% an hour. The display was used for a total of 2 hours and 10 minutes.
Battery life posts are useless unless we have some kind of standards during testing.
Like setup your system and then a 15min phone call, 1 hour of video/ ect.. same call.. same video same ect .. ran on each battery setup will give a truer idea on what saves battery the best.
This whole .. it was off charger for 5.33 hours and I used it alot and its at xx% doesn't hardly mean anything.. how much use is alot? How much is little?
Need some kind of same standard test that can be run..
nice to know
Why do custom roms get worse life on the ATRIX? Im new to this phone. (Used to be a HTC only guy)
Sent from my Atrix 4G
andrewxu said:
Why do custom roms get worse life on the ATRIX? Im new to this phone. (Used to be a HTC only guy)
Sent from my Atrix 4G
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mostly its not about the ROMs you use, but the Kernel or Baseband (Radio) firmware.
At least for me it's been much better than with the original ROM.
Also you must take into consideration other factors like type of use, voice/data signal quality on your area, and many other factors.
Cheers!
Rayan

What's your battery life like?

And can anybody compare it to the Galaxy Nexus, or an iPhone 4/4S (a 4S WITHOUT the battery issue that was going around)?
I'm really interested in switching from 4 to either a 4S or the a Note or Nexus... Battery life is an important thing to me though.
Also, just how much does having blacks on the screen help? How much does that help? If you just wanna answer my first question "How's your battery?" then that's fine. That's what's more important here.
Compared to the iPhone 4, I am getting almost twice the battery run time. I have not changed my habits during my normal day, and use the same apps that are available for both platforms by the same authors. The black home screen does help if you are starring at it all the time, but how often are we doing that?
I am also rooted and using FM kernel. Love the Open Source community.
Yumunum said:
And can anybody compare it to the Galaxy Nexus, or an iPhone 4/4S (a 4S WITHOUT the battery issue that was going around)?
I'm really interested in switching from 4 to either a 4S or the a Note or Nexus... Battery life is an important thing to me though.
Also, just how much does having blacks on the screen help? How much does that help? If you just wanna answer my first question "How's your battery?" then that's fine. That's what's more important here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some site did a comparison of 3g talk time with a Note and an I****.
The Note got a whopping 14 HOURS of 3g talktime.
The i**** 4s got 8 hours.
So phone vs phone, thr Note wins.
Sent from my GT-N7000 using xda premium
cadavar said:
Compared to the iPhone 4, I am getting almost twice the battery run time. I have not changed my habits during my normal day, and use the same apps that are available for both platforms by the same authors. The black home screen does help if you are starring at it all the time, but how often are we doing that?
I am also rooted and using FM kernel. Love the Open Source community.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Holy cow! What's your screen-on time? Are you underclocking or anything? I'm guessing your good battery life was because of the kernel?
even @ stock ROM and Kernel, the NOTE is impressive in terms of batt life except if you're browsing a lot (since we all know that AMOLED consumes more juice in showing white shades compared to other display technology) ... Some ROMs and Kernels have battery saving scripts embedded and you can also find a lot of tips on how to improve batt life on our Note...
In my case, my Note can last 22hours+ of moderate to heavy usage; im using Rocket v6 ROM and FM Kernel (undervolted and underclock to 1200mhz)... I set my Wallpapers to the darker ones, customize goSMS with pure black background and themes, disable fast dormancy, turn off GPS and wifi when not in use, use minimal widget as possible, set the brightness to lower level that suit you, set to GSM mode mostly, disable background data when not needed, delete some unimportant processes in the system, manage startup application, disable task manager, and etc...
Yumunum said:
Holy cow! What's your screen-on time? Are you underclocking or anything? I'm guessing your good battery life was because of the kernel?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, the FM kernel did help significantly. The reasoning being that the author disabled the heavy logging Android does for debugging purposes. Other than that, everything in the kernel is stock. No undervolting or underclocking. I also keep away from any app that overclocks the CPU, they usually mess with the phones ability to go into deep sleep.
Screen on time: 4:29m
regarding deepsleep and unwanted processes in background; you can install CpuSpy, Watchdog or Wakeclock monitor app if you're having an abnormal battery drain...
jaytana said:
regarding deepsleep and unwanted processes in background; you can install CpuSpy, Watchdog or Wakeclock monitor app if you're having an abnormal battery drain...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
CPUSpy is a wonderful lil app. That is how I determined that SetCPU broke the phones ability to go into deep sleep, even after uninstalling it. I had to flash the ROM all over again.
Compared to iphone 4 gnote battery is less... the reason is bigger battery.
However even with heavy usage my battery last till night every day.
battery life has got better with time.
cadavar said:
CPUSpy is a wonderful lil app. That is how I determined that SetCPU broke the phones ability to go into deep sleep, even after uninstalling it. I had to flash the ROM all over again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
true... the apps i posted are all essential IMO... wakeclock monitoring is also very helpful in finding faulty apps running...
I'm getting glorious battery compared to my GSII.
Granted it's relatively light usage for now because of work and such, but I'm impressed. Almost always have the brightness at 25%, never need any more.
The sudden drop was from a restart.
My battery life was fine until Google started selling apps for 10p, I downloaded Jelly Defence and I became addicted to playing it...

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