[Q] Tips to extend battery life? Anyone? - Epic 4G General

Hey guys,
Just got my Epic yesterday.. coming from the G1 with lots of experience loading and tweaking ROMs and dealing with same/similar battery issues.
After unpacking the Epic I used it and let it drain down to zero before recharging it; after a full recharge, I loaded up the 7 screens with widgets and ran a live wallpaper (fish). I didn't really use the phone much at all and the phone went from 100% battery down to zero in the span of only four hours!!! Geeze, you've got to be kidding me - four hours battery life?? WTF????!!
Back to the drawing board: I rooted it and ran SetCPU with some power saving profiles. Removed the live wallpaper and went to stock wallpaper. Set display power off at 30 seconds. Note that 4G remains off since there's no 4G in my area..
Couple of questions:
1. Is there any way to toggle 2G/3G like there was on my old G1? I know that was a power saver.
2. I didn't stop to read all the documentation yet (typical male, I know) but is there any way to wake this thing up from sleep mode besides pressing the power button? I can see that power button breaking for as much use as it's getting from me constantly having to wake this thing up!
3. My brightness setting is set to auto - since the display is usually the biggest drain on these things, is there a recommended manual brightness setting (percentage) that seems to work well for you and saves on battery power?
I'm waiting for the Seideo Extended Battery (just like many of you) and am wondering if I should keep the Epic since I'm on the Sprint 30-day Easy Return program.
Appreciate hearing from everyone!
Chris R.

I don't have 4G where I am. But, I have a all black wallpaper(uses less power) and unrooted. I easily get about 12-18hr out of my phone wit normal use(text, talk, and surfing the net with skyfire). Only thing that really kills my battery are games(Robo Defense can take over 30min to play one game).

Thanks for the reply - situation NOT improving
Thanks for the reply.. unfortunately, the situation is not improving...
I tried setting a Sleep Profile using SetCPU that would under-clock the CPU (using the stock kernel) once the screen dimmed and the phone went into Sleep Mode. Unfortunately, as mentioned in another thread here, the result was that the phone froze and required a battery-pull to reset.
I'm really starting to lose my enthusiasm for this device; as beautiful a display and as responsive a CPU/GPU, all of that doesn't mean much if you don't have good power management built into the firmware. At 6PM this evening I pulled it off the charger at 67% charged, it's now 8:35 PM, only 2.5 hours later and I'm down to 22%. I'm in a decent coverage area and get 2-4 bars of 3G strength so I don't think it's an issue of the radio being the culprit; in-fact if you check the battery stats it reports that that lovely Display is accountable for 78% of the battery usage! So I guess we're paying a hefty price for these 4-inch AMOLED displays!
I read somewhere else that the most recent update (DI07) has caused the battery performance to decrease; since my unit is brand-new it immediately went and installed DI07 shortly after the first boot-up so I have nothing to compare it to.. can anyone comment on that?
Thanks!
Chris R.

I'm sure custom ROMs will put performance / battery life on the top of the list but until then, I use JuiceDefender beta and have seen pretty good results with it. It shuts off data whenever the screen is off and since my screen is off a good amount (only use my phone if I need to check email, call, and / or text, which is rare when I'm at work). Other than that, yes, use black wallpaper, lower brightness to the min. in the OS and browser, and don't leave apps that constantly use 3G open (things like ebuddy, pandora, etc.). 3G really destroys battery life so minimal use of 3G data would maximize battery life. Maybe the devs can figure out a way to get at least one full day of battery life on this phone. I'm hoping that is the case.
As to your post, yes, DI07 has resulted in poorer battery life, for whatever reason. I was definitely getting a few hours more with the older firmware. I would not lose hope yet. As disappointed as you are (and all of us are, I can assure you of that), the devs are really starting to push out nice ROMs already, and in a few weeks to a month, I bet we will see some solid battery life. Hell, even 2.2 should yield much better results. Patience

Thanks for the tip!
nimaim said:
I'm sure custom ROMs will put performance / battery life on the top of the list but until then, I use JuiceDefender beta and have seen pretty good results with it. It shuts off data whenever the screen is off and since my screen is off a good amount (only use my phone if I need to check email, call, and / or text, which is rare when I'm at work).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply! Also thanks for the tip regarding JuiceDefender! What a great app! will give it some more time and report results back here.
Thanks again!
Chris R.

nimaim said:
I'm sure custom ROMs will put performance / battery life on the top of the list but until then, I use JuiceDefender beta and have seen pretty good results with it. It shuts off data whenever the screen is off and since my screen is off a good amount (only use my phone if I need to check email, call, and / or text, which is rare when I'm at work). Other than that, yes, use black wallpaper, lower brightness to the min. in the OS and browser, and don't leave apps that constantly use 3G open (things like ebuddy, pandora, etc.). 3G really destroys battery life so minimal use of 3G data would maximize battery life. Maybe the devs can figure out a way to get at least one full day of battery life on this phone. I'm hoping that is the case.
As to your post, yes, DI07 has resulted in poorer battery life, for whatever reason. I was definitely getting a few hours more with the older firmware. I would not lose hope yet. As disappointed as you are (and all of us are, I can assure you of that), the devs are really starting to push out nice ROMs already, and in a few weeks to a month, I bet we will see some solid battery life. Hell, even 2.2 should yield much better results. Patience
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
DI07 has hurt my battery life substantially. In fact, my battery drains very close to twice as fast now with the update. I don't understand what they did. My phone certainly doesn't seem any faster, my display is dimmer, and battery life sucks. I'm going to have to go back to DG27 so I can use my phone all day. With DI07 it always dies on me by mid afternoon. With DG27 it was still running by 11pm at night without even a battery low warning.

juice defender ftw
also, use advanced task killer with low security settings to kill all the background processes. Set the autokill to when the screen turns off. This keeps everything pretty well managed and helps with battery as well

JUICE DEFENDER BATTERY!!! Saved my phone from flying out of my car window at 10 in the morning........

here is a link to a thread I started.
Sharing my juice defender settings. I also use ultimate juice.
http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/sprint-epic-4g/133933-sharing-my-juice-defender-settings.html
I can get a day and a half (or slightly longer) out of a single charge.
YMMV.
Hope this helps

Advanced task killer + Juice Defender. You could also get some custom roms and Kernals that would help boost it.
But that's your best hope. Keep off 4g, wifi, bluetooth, etc.

compujock said:
DI07 has hurt my battery life substantially. In fact, my battery drains very close to twice as fast now with the update. I don't understand what they did. My phone certainly doesn't seem any faster, my display is dimmer, and battery life sucks. I'm going to have to go back to DG27 so I can use my phone all day. With DI07 it always dies on me by mid afternoon. With DG27 it was still running by 11pm at night without even a battery low warning.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Look here- try stopping the DRM service and see if that helps your battery life with D107

jimmyz said:
Look here- try stopping the DRM service and see if that helps your battery life with D107
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ah, the evils of DRM can strike in unexpected ways...
I wasn't really having a battery problem but I just turned DRM off, so we'll see if battery life improves anyway.
I had a whole long post here that got wiped with the xda disk array failure, so I'll just sum that up here too:
1) Use wi-fi if possible - it REALLY helps
2) 4G does not seem to use the battery any more than 3G, although hunting for 4G does and 4G coverage is not as extensive as 3G even in 4G areas. So it's still best to leave it off if you're moving around.
3) Dim your screen and use a dark, static background. AMOLED screens don't work like LCD's; they use more power the more pixels are lit and the brighter they are.
4) GPS also kills your battery - leave that off unless you need it too.
I think that's it. I get about 18 hours on DI07 (even before trying the DRM thing; maybe I can get to a full day!).
One thing I'm noticing after checking DRM - I've got Google Maps' LocationService popping up about every 10 seconds, and I can't seem to shut it off permanently. (I went into Lattitude and turned that off, not sure what else to do.) That can't be helping... anyone know how to get rid of that?

I'm using juice defender and a constant email junkie, but lite use on other aspects of the phone. It goes off charger at 5:30 am and I'm about 67% at around 3p. It then goes in the car charger on the way home. This has much better battery life than the Pre or the Hero as with both I had to turn off email to get it to last throughout the day.
I don't expect these phones to last days, but I expect any phone that I get to last the business day. I've always been one to charge overnight.

Wifi drains battery more from what I've read.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

I've heard the opposite that wifi (as long as it's connected) uses up less battery than 3g/4g. Any of them will suck the battery dry if they're searching, so make sure you have a connection to one of them.

Hi everyone, new to the forum. Just started checking it out when the Epic was released and this is my first post. Anyways, here's my question. My phone's been off the charger for 7 hours and 17 minutes and it is now down to 15%.
Display 79%
Cell standby 7%
Android System 4%
Phone idle 2%
Swype 2%
I've gone into the display settings and I thought I had set everything up optimally. The brightness is always very low. The screen timeout is 15 seconds and the keyboard matches that. I don't know what else I can do to cripple the phone to get the battery to last longer.
I have had wifi on, 4g off, bluetooth off, gps off. Really all I have done this afternoon while watching NFL games is check my yahoo fantasy score, play 2 games of WordFeud, and check twitter and facebook. I purchased Juice Defender a week ago and it has been running all day.
Any suggestions for how I can reduce the drain from the display? My background is a black and white picture of a friend of mine, which I thought would help.
Don't get me wrong, I love this phone. But the battery life I've seen is just terrible. I'd love to buy the extended battery from Seidio whenever its available, at least that would make it last longer even if the settings aren't tweaked.

Do you have juice defender installed?

Yep. Its installed and running now.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App

bagelicious said:
Hi everyone, new to the forum. Just started checking it out when the Epic was released and this is my first post. Anyways, here's my question. My phone's been off the charger for 7 hours and 17 minutes and it is now down to 15%.
Display 79%
Cell standby 7%
Android System 4%
Phone idle 2%
Swype 2%
I've gone into the display settings and I thought I had set everything up optimally. The brightness is always very low. The screen timeout is 15 seconds and the keyboard matches that. I don't know what else I can do to cripple the phone to get the battery to last longer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are only two reasons for your display to be using that much battery:
a) it's too bright, or
b) you're using it a lot.
If you're using the phone a lot, your battery's going to run out pretty quick and there's no way around that. If you're using it a "normal" amount, which to me means maybe an hour *total* per day of having the display on, then the other culprit is going to be your brightness. (Some would argue that's less than a normal amount, but think about it... you get a new phone, you're going to play with it for a week or two until you've seen all the cool stuff. But at some point you're going to start putting it away most of the time and just using it when someone calls you, you get a message/email or maybe to play a game or two while waiting for the train.)
Set your brightness *all* the way down, just as a test for a couple days. Make sure all the "power saving" features of the display are turned *off* (auto brightness, and whatever that "picture detection" feature's called, I can't remember). You just want the display as dim as possible all the time, just to see what happens. See what the battery usage says after a day or two of this.
My bet is that you'll see a drop, and then as you get into a more normal usage pattern it'll drop further still. You can raise the brightness a couple ticks then as you learn how to stretch your battery out.
Personally, my display is rarely over 15% or so of my usage. Today it's 29%, but it's a Sunday and I don't have anything better to do but play around on my phone.
btw, it's still the first day I've tried this but that DRM thing might be working. It's almost 9PM and I'm still on like 80% battery, and like I said I have been using the phone off and on throughout the day.

That has helped tremendously. I installed it pretty much when I got the phone and I'm able to last the whole work day with 67% left. (10 hour day)

Related

Battery Life

Sorry if this has been asked already but what is the battery life on the nexus one,
My new one is on its way from america
I find the battery on my htc hero very poor,
Is this going to be the same
Thanx
I unlocked my phone, and in SetCPU I used the "profiles" setting and set the Sleeping mode to 245/245.
This way when my screen is "off" the processor is running slower. There is NO noticeable lag when turning the screen back on... and I am getting CRAZY battery life, even after pretty heavy use.
Search is your friend. From earlier this week:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=612741&highlight=battery
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=613756&highlight=battery
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=614450&highlight=battery
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=614450&highlight=battery
The consensus seems to be (VERY generally): better than the G1, not quite as amazing as the i3GS, but above all highly dependent on what features of the phone you use.
][
Definitely depends on use, and how many hours are good for you? Whats your hero get?
Well if honest I am a heavy user,
Music and Internet always on so anything which is improvement is good,
*********8
I unlocked my phone, and in SetCPU I used the "profiles" setting and set the Sleeping mode to 245/245.
This way when my screen is "off" the processor is running slower. There is NO noticeable lag when turning the screen back on... and I am getting CRAZY battery life, even after pretty heavy use.
***************
Wouldnt mind doin that
How many do you get right now on your Hero and whats your ideal amount?
Where is setcpu ?
SetCPU is an app, i think you can find it on here for free if you dont have a credit card or get it on the market for like a buck(just buy it and support the dev).
i dont want to root. Im guessing theres no option for non rooted users to adjust similar to the setcpu app? If not, I wonder why htc/google wouldnt want people to have access to that, seems incredibly important
I've been amazed at what I'm getting.. even with lots of stuff enabled I'm lasting more than a day. Just idling it was well on track to do 3 days+*.
Beats the pants off any other smartphone I've ever owned. Certainly not anything to worry about (assuming most people charge overnight.. if your usage pattern allows it to last 18 hours you're sorrted).
* But that's boring of course.. might as well leave it powered off at that point
DMaverick50 said:
i dont want to root. Im guessing theres no option for non rooted users to adjust similar to the setcpu app? If not, I wonder why htc/google wouldnt want people to have access to that, seems incredibly important
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When the phone is idle it spends most of its time downclocked anyway. I'd be surprised if you could save *that* much through setcpu but would be interested to see benchmarks.
Cycle the battery, mine lasts a whole day and is still half way by the time I get home after a full day of tinkering, receiving calls, emailing and playing games. You should let it discharge all the way then charge it up, all the way. Turn off apps you aren't running.
I think my issue previously was with it searching for a phone signal in a place where there was on. I tried today with my phone wireless off (in airplane mode) with wifi on, and used it extensively throughout my shift as necessary. After 13 hours, the battery only drained to 70%. That is downright amazing to me.
I also used it a couple days ago with the phone wireless on the entire day, 3G, as well as wifi. The phone that day lasted a good 20 hours before draining down to 10% remaining.
These two instances are both after I fully drained the battery and charged the battery twice.

Epic battery performance after months of use

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

[Q] Questions regarding battery life

I had searched previously and read some things about this "bump" charging stuff supposedly getting you many more hours of usage on a normal schedule.
Actually, guess I should preface with some background info. This is my first android phone, but I've been watching since 1.6 came out. So, the day I got my Epic it was rooted and I flashed Nebula ROM on it. I also tried out Epic Experience, but was more pleased with Nebula. Of course I'm running DK28 with the modem fix.
On to my question. What can be done to increase battery life on a fairly undemanding schedule, without causing the device itself to operate less smoothly?
I tried several of the bump charging methods I saw, but I'm sitting at 33% battery after 5:45.
I'm going to feel dumb if this is actually average and I'm just expecting too much, haha.
Thank you, kindly.
Kanojo said:
I had searched previously and read some things about this "bump" charging stuff supposedly getting you many more hours of usage on a normal schedule.
Actually, guess I should preface with some background info. This is my first android phone, but I've been watching since 1.6 came out. So, the day I got my Epic it was rooted and I flashed Nebula ROM on it. I also tried out Epic Experience, but was more pleased with Nebula. Of course I'm running DK28 with the modem fix.
On to my question. What can be done to increase battery life on a fairly undemanding schedule, without causing the device itself to operate less smoothly?
I tried several of the bump charging methods I saw, but I'm sitting at 33% battery after 5:45.
I'm going to feel dumb if this is actually average and I'm just expecting too much, haha.
Thank you, kindly.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can try calibrating your battery. If you don't know how, well here's some instructions:
To do this, all you have to do is let your battery completely drain. Then while the phone is off, charge it for around eight hours straight without turning the phone on (have it just showing the battery icon).
Since you are already at 33% or so, I'd suggest just letting it drain today, and have it just charge overnight.
I, too, am running the Nebula Rom, but I haven't tested it for a full day without charging it yet. So, you can try calibrating the battery if you would like to see if you would get any improvement, but in my opinion, 33% at 5:45 sounds great. I'd be satisfied with that.
Please let me know how it all turns out.
Hope this helps!
acer1096xxx said:
You can try calibrating your battery. If you don't know how, well here's some instructions:
To do this, all you have to do is let your battery completely drain. Then while the phone is off, charge it for around eight hours straight without turning the phone on (have it just showing the battery icon).
Since you are already at 33% or so, I'd suggest just letting it drain today, and have it just charge overnight.
I, too, am running the Nebula Rom, but I haven't tested it for a full day without charging it yet. So, you can try calibrating the battery if you would like to see if you would get any improvement, but in my opinion, 33% at 5:45 sounds great. I'd be satisfied with that.
Please let me know how it all turns out.
Hope this helps!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for the speedy reply, I will try that.
I wasn't really expecting 33%, but more around 50%. I've only sent three texts today on it (as I was trying to see how well it'd hold up) and so I assumed battery life would be fairly high. But I am also living in an area with extremely poor coverage, so bad that it'll start searching for signal if I move the phone 2 feet away. So maybe it is trying to acquire a signal often.
I'll report back in the morning. Any other advice/ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Kanojo said:
Thank you for the speedy reply, I will try that.
I wasn't really expecting 33%, but more around 50%. I've only sent three texts today on it (as I was trying to see how well it'd hold up) and so I assumed battery life would be fairly high. But I am also living in an area with extremely poor coverage, so bad that it'll start searching for signal if I move the phone 2 feet away. So maybe it is trying to acquire a signal often.
I'll report back in the morning. Any other advice/ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, there's basic things as well.
Check to see if Data Roaming is on, make the brightness Auto, no live wallpaper, no bluetooth, no GPS, No background data/Accounts Sync.
But you shouldn't have to do ALL of those. Just a couple if you haven't already to boost the battery a little.
And yes, searching for a signal could be the problem.
And only three texts? Nothing else? Maybe there is something wrong.
Tell me the results tomorrow after calibrating the battery.
I'm using midnight rom and I'm at 20h26m and 33% with moderate usage. You can try recalibrate and wipe 3x b4 install the rom. It might help. Good luck.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
Alright, it's 9:20 EST and I'm starting off with 96% battery life. I'll gauge how it holds up through "normal" usage, which is somewhat less conservative. Wifi will be on nearly constantly, my signal will be weak unless I leave, autosync is set to hourly with background data.
I normally get about 12-16 hours on what I call moderate use.
I leave gps on all the time. I make ~6-10 calls a day for 5-30 minutes. I send and receive ~30 texts a day. I'll put an hour or two worth of internet time per day. (not watching videos)
I kill the drm and friend locator services on every boot. This helped my battery life a lot.
It does help to train your battery dragon occasionally.
ntime60 said:
I normally get about 12-16 hours on what I call moderate use.
I leave gps on all the time. I make ~6-10 calls a day for 5-30 minutes. I send and receive ~30 texts a day. I'll put an hour or two worth of internet time per day. (not watching videos)
I kill the drm and friend locator services on every boot. This helped my battery life a lot.
It does help to train your battery dragon occasionally.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ya, that's the kind of performance I'd like. Are you running stock or do you have a rom installed? Also, what DRM and Friend Locater? Never heard of the latter.
acer1096xxx said:
Well, there's basic things as well.
Check to see if Data Roaming is on, make the brightness Auto, no live wallpaper, no bluetooth, no GPS, No background data/Accounts Sync.
But you shouldn't have to do ALL of those. Just a couple if you haven't already to boost the battery a little.
And yes, searching for a signal could be the problem.
And only three texts? Nothing else? Maybe there is something wrong.
Tell me the results tomorrow after calibrating the battery.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you saying to turn Data Roaming on or off? I could come up with a reason it would help either way, so do tell.
Same thing with Auto brightness, I would think that actually uses more battery than a fixed lower/medium brightness.
Do people on here really leave Sync and GPS off?
Compared to these settings, I'm completely lazy, and still get good battery life.
AndrewZorn said:
Are you saying to turn Data Roaming on or off? I could come up with a reason it would help either way, so do tell.
Same thing with Auto brightness, I would think that actually uses more battery than a fixed lower/medium brightness.
Do people on here really leave Sync and GPS off?
Compared to these settings, I'm completely lazy, and still get good battery life.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Turn off Data Roaming. The reason being is that with it on, your network will constantly search for data, and that drains the battery. The brightness I am actually not sure on. I have had better results with auto rather than, say, 0%.
If you get good battery life already, that's fine. But auto-sync isn't really necessary in my opinion.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA App
Alright, it's been 5:33 since it's been unplugged and I'm sitting at 68%. This is with wifi on the entire time, brightness set to auto, and data roaming off (no need for it to be on, I was considering toggling it based on my location in Tasker). Sync is on and I rarely have use for GPS in my day-to-day so that is off.
So I think the calibration as recommended by Acer1096xxx has effected the life of my battery for the better. Thank you, once again.
Hopefully this thread will help others out in the long run. I'll continue to monitor my activity and battery life.
EDIT: 57% as of 5 o'clock. Had to plug it in because I'd be going out tonight doing things. Overall, this is about the performance I was hoping.

Insane Battery Life

I'm hitting 41 hours and still have 19% battery life. I noticed it took around 10 full charges before my phone started to get this great battery life. I've been using it as normal and even listened to howard stern for a couple of hours yesterday. Talked on the phone a bunch of times around 30 texts and even used my 4g for a few minutes. I've never had an andorid phone last this long for me even when I had my Optimus S which I thought was awesome.
Anyone else getting this awesome battery life? I'll post screen shots when its about dead as I dont want to plug the phone into usb to get the pics.
Charging twice a day here. Its worse than my hero.
Sent from my bathroom, with toilet paper.
Zardos66 said:
Charging twice a day here. Its worse than my hero.
Sent from my bathroom, with toilet paper.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I would investigate as that shouldnt be. My shift lasts almost 2.5x my hero. I bet if I had your phone in front of my I could find out whats killing it soo fast.
Is your phone getting hot? I would do a full system wipe and start over from scratch and see if it doesnt get better after you try the things I've listed below. Note, I didnt have this great of battery life until 6 days after I purchased the phone and charged and discharged numerous times. The first few days the battery life was not good at all.
A little list of things to do, check and or disable;
1. Use spare parts and find out whats killing your battery ie partial wake usage, cpu etc.
2. Turn your window animations from all to only some animations
3. Turn off automatic display and keep it around 20-30%
4. I have auto sync off on all my appz (E-mail, Gmail, Facebook etc.). I update my E-mail and such manually.
5. Turn off data when not using it. I find data accounts for around 15-25% of juice used and thats just when on idle.
6. Only use widgets on the homescreen if you really have to (Running widgets use a lot of power over time)
7. Use Android Hackers tool from the market and it will break down how long your cpu was in a certain state. ie my cpu spent 65% at 245mhz and 28% at 806mhz.
8. Keep off 4G, Bluetooth, wirless networks for location and GPS if not using it (GPS uses less power than wireless networks and is more accurate anyway) I assigned Quick Settings to open when I hold down the search button. That makes it easy to enable/disable any of these setting within seconds.
9. Turn off google talk and make sure it doesnt sign in automatically (most people dont realise this)
10. Turn screen timeout to 15 or 30 seconds (if longer your phone can keep the display on accidentally while in your pocket if a button is pressed, wasting power)
11. Dont use a task killer unless its to kill an app you know drains your battery and therefore must be closed to save juice
12. Check your apps. Some apps keep using cpu etc because they were not programed correctly. (some appz I've found to drain my battery are; Yahoo Mail, Craigslist, AndTorrent and the market if a download is hung up. There are a few others I cant remember off the top of my head) If your phone is getting hot for no apparent reason this may be the cause.
13. Calibrate your battery by bump charging (charge your phone till its full while on, turn it off and charge till its full again. Then bump charge it around 5-7 times) Wipe battery stats if applicable. If you have a car charger, plug your phone in on the way to work to account for the little bit of drain that occurs once the phone is fully charged yet still on the charger.
Remember you can get china made batteries for very cheap. I paid $12 for 2 batteries and a wall charger off ebay. This phone uses the same batteries as the Hero and Evo by the way.
fifedogg said:
I would investigate as that shouldnt be. My shift lasts almost 2.5x my hero. I bet if I had your phone in front of my I could find out whats killing it soo fast.
I noticed Yahoo mail and Craigs list apps I downloaded from the market have a memory/cpu leak that kills your phone super fast.
Is your phone getting hot? I would do a full system wipe and start over from scratch and see if it doesnt get better. Note to that I didnt have this great of battery life until 6 days after I purchased the phone. The first few days the battery life was not good at all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yahoo mail DESTROYED my battery life on my hero so i havent used it in forever...sad to see it still had that problem....also I stopped using any battery widgets that show the exact percentage (as these are usually wrong anyway) and went back to using stock browser (Miren browser, while I really liked it, was eating my...)....i now check my battery through the settings....I was having varying battery life but after recalibrating by letting it die all the way then charging it up full i most recently got like 30 hours off the charger with moderate use and got down to 10%....coulda probably squeezed out a few more hours too if i left it idle....not too bad
StAlphonso said:
yahoo mail DESTROYED my battery life on my hero so i havent used it in forever...sad to see it still had that problem....also I stopped using any battery widgets that show the exact percentage (as these are usually wrong anyway) and went back to using stock browser (Miren browser, while I really liked it, was eating my...)....i now check my battery through the settings....I was having varying battery life but after recalibrating by letting it die all the way then charging it up full i most recently got like 30 hours off the charger with moderate use and got down to 10%....coulda probably squeezed out a few more hours too if i left it idle....not too bad
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I find that Battery indicator doesnt draw much power if any as I've always used it and never had a problem. The maker of the app states it uses no extra power. I love the circular battery indicator version found in the market. Its not a widget, it stays in the upper left corner of your notification bar. You should give it a try.
Phone doesn't get hot. I've started from scratch twice, I've ##DATA# reset. I had terrible service and data speeds before I did that and it did a number on my battery. Now it'd fine, but it just drains while doing nothing.
I never use task killers or auto sync, I live with spare parts and and monitor it, no real partial wake usage to speak of. I know how to save battery, my hero get 20+ hours with use and auto-sync on.
I'm thinking my battery might be bad. Feels like your talking down to me too, captain.
Sent from my bathroom, with toilet paper.
I haven't had mine a week yet, but atm I'm not getting half the battery life I did outta my Hero running AOSP's Gingerbread alpha.
I'm blaming the crap bloat that's part of the stock ROM.
With the display set to 15-20% I've got the display accounting for 69% of the battery usage. :/
Turning off sync is not an option and I feel defeats the purpose of a smart phone. Additionally, I fail to see the point in paying for 4G and not using it. (I do turn it off if I'm out of area for it or don't expect to be using much data.)
So thus far I'm disappointed in the battery life... but still think it'll improve vastly once rooted and cleaned up.
EDIT: Just did a test running Angry Birds for about 10 minutes... maybe 15. It ate up 9% of the battery in that time. Added another 1% to the display usage.
Zardos66 said:
Phone doesn't get hot. I've started from scratch twice, I've ##DATA# reset. I had terrible service and data speeds before I did that and it did a number on my battery. Now it'd fine, but it just drains while doing nothing.
I never use task killers or auto sync, I live with spare parts and and monitor it, no real partial wake usage to speak of. I know how to save battery, my hero get 20+ hours with use and auto-sync on.
I'm thinking my battery might be bad. Feels like your talking down to me too, captain.
Sent from my bathroom, with toilet paper.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm just trying to give advice so that other people understand what to do to get the most out of the battery. This wasnt meant to be just directed to you. Sorry for trying to help you out, Captain.
StAlphonso said:
... (Miren browser, while I really liked it, was eating my...)...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Miren's latest update last week is supposed to have "reduced battery usage". I've had no problems. Maybe time to come back to the Light..?
I was able to hit the 48 hour mark with light use.
fifedogg said:
I was able to hit the 48 hour mark with light use.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hey that's really impressive. I thought my 20 hours battery life was pretty good...kudos to you.
def getting better bat supply. especially from my hero which only lasted about 6-8 hours, just got my shift yesterday afternoon. from a full charge: Constant texting, facebook, Zenonia 2 (Downloaded wifi), Snes emu + 11 roms (3G), and customizing it to my hearts content. almost 12 hrs later had 20% until i plugged it up at work.
so far this thing is a golden brick to me
Just out of curiosity, how do you calibrate the battery? Just in case my battery life doesn't match the reports (I know my luck )
tatonka_hero said:
Just out of curiosity, how do you calibrate the battery? Just in case my battery life doesn't match the reports (I know my luck )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its under # 13 on my 3rd post.
getting great battery life isn't that surprising given you've got a 1500mah battery much like the evo and epic however 48 hours is rather impressive.
Sent from my cm7 Evo 4G!
Working on calibrating my wifes battery and damn this thing is hard to kill. Even with with everything running for 5 hours its still over 20% finally decided to bring out the big guns. Turned on navigation and the flashlight. I'll post when I see the battery life after calibration.
Sent from my cm7 Evo 4G!
Edit: Phone plugged in at 7:53pm PST. Now to see how long it takes to charge.
Edit #2: Phone finally fully charged almost an hour after my evo finished its 0 to 100 at 12:19am
Edit #3: Holy F***. This phone takes forever to die and to die. Finally on the second off charge. I wouldn't still be doing this but for the fact that its saturday.

Almost 30+ hours == EC01 + SuperClean 2.9.2

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

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