Database Users

[Q] Questions about improved battery life

So the day I bought my vibrant I had data issues. I talked a tmobile tech support guy and he helped me with my problem, great. But afterwards he asked me how I was liking my phone since he had one as well. We talked some about the phone and all, but then I asked about the battery life.
Heres the interesting part, he said after getting around 5 hours of use out of a full charge, he put the battery in the freezer over night (in a zip lock) and charge it afterwards. He claims to be getting a whole 24 his of battery with moderate use.
Is there any truth to this statement? I'm sure he was over exaggerating to some extant but he was a tech and I wanna take his word for it but dont want to try it lol.
Another thing is I want to know other ways to improve my battery life. I heard "training a battery" thrown around these forums, how do I do this?
I try to keep stupid services from running by going to settings>app>running services. Is this enough or is there a better way?
First post, hope it was a good one lol.

I hear ya man the battery is really bothering me too. It's basically dead by the time u get home, which is not good enough for me. I called T-Mobile and they are sending me another battery.
When I get the new battery I'll try the freezer thing.
Well, gotta go... battery is almost dead at this point. : (
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

when i got the phone i calibrated the battery like i did with my g1 with the cm releases. basically let the battery die completely then charge fully. don't know if that had any effect, but with how much i use my phone (moderate-light texting, browsing, gps when it works, no gaming) i could probably get through 2 full days. with playing some games i can still easily get a full day.
putting the battery in the freezer overnight shouldn't have any long term effect on the battery. it may improve your battery life very shortly because a colder battery holds it's charge better, but once it's heated up (or at regular idle temp in your phone) any small benefit you may have had is gone.

Try Juice Defender. It is working wonders for me. I am going on 8 hours of up time and I am at 75%. Normally I would be getting close to needing a charge.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

apple_g said:
Try Juice Defender. It is working wonders for me. I am going on 8 hours of up time and I am at 75%. Normally I would be getting close to needing a charge.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
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What settings do you use? Do you use the default settings from the setup?

What the heck are you guys doing to kill your batteries?
I use my phone off/on all day off the charger at 6am and I turn it off and charge it at 11pm. Often I'm normally around 30-60% depending on the use through out the day.
Turn off what you don't need. I mean do you need wifi on all day? Do you need 3G on all day? I'm guessing you don't unless you are streaming video all day.

kizer said:
What the heck are you guys doing to kill your batteries?
I use my phone off/on all day off the charger at 6am and I turn it off and charge it at 11pm. Often I'm normally around 30-60% depending on the use through out the day.
Turn off what you don't need. I mean do you need wifi on all day? Do you need 3G on all day? I'm guessing you don't unless you are streaming video all day.
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Yeah I don't get it, this phone has great battery life for me. I get about 20 hours out of a charge and I use it quite a bit.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

apple_g said:
Try Juice Defender. It is working wonders for me. I am going on 8 hours of up time and I am at 75%. Normally I would be getting close to needing a charge.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
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Can you elaborate on your settings? I was thinking of installing this app and getting rid of the task killer since I'm getting very inconsistent battery usage each time after a full charge. Have you tried Ultimate Juice?

michael800 said:
Can you elaborate on your settings? I was thinking of installing this app and getting rid of the task killer since I'm getting very inconsistent battery usage each time after a full charge. Have you tried Ultimate Juice?
Click to expand...
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get rid of your task killer.

I think its just luck of the draw. When i first got my Vibrant i was getting at least 20 hours out of a charge. I had to exchange my phone due to a few annoying dead pixels and now im lucky to get 8 - 10 hours out of a charge. Everything is set up as it was on my original phone.

I just use the default settings at startup.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

I have all widgets turned off, wifi off, gps off, brightness on minimum and a solid/static black wallpaper.
I use the phone for very few calls and very few txts... mostly use it for web browsing throught the day and some news apps - with a little paper toss mixed in.
I use my phone more than the average guy, but the usage is in line with my usage on my iphone and HD2. I know how to be gentle on the battery, but I still have to charge it when I get home from work.

My battery lasted 2 days the other day. Got down to 15 percent. It's very strange. I was using it but not very often maybe once every few hours. But I played some ff7 to demo to my friends, used the gps to get directions. Most importantly I started killing all nonessential apps with astro immediately after I stopped using them. I think this is what's prolonging my battery. Sure theyre not using anymore cpu cycles but they're still taking up ram, and that is a constant drain folks.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

pittphan said:
I hear ya man the battery is really bothering me too. It's basically dead by the time u get home, which is not good enough for me. I called T-Mobile and they are sending me another battery.
When I get the new battery I'll try the freezer thing.
Well, gotta go... battery is almost dead at this point. : (
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
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This phone has much better battery life than my last smart phone. What are you expecting from it?

Welshy992 said:
Sure theyre not using anymore cpu cycles but they're still taking up ram, and that is a constant drain folks.
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There is no difference in draw whether you are using 1K or 256 MB, the chip will always draw the same amount of power to maintain the memory.

I measured current consumption from the battery. It takes about 20 to 60 seconds for the CPU and everything to ramp down into their sleep state. Anything that wakes it up often kills batteries quick. I believe most of the power being used is idly switching sleep states. Can't wait for custom ROMs to allow tuning.

standby time is much more important.

im suffering a bad battery right now.
my phone will ran out of battery after like 6 hours' use. it's not as good as iphone 4, but not that bad. all the android handset dont perform good on it. but my battery went down to 85% from full charge after 8 hours sleep. any solution to this? another problem is that when i browse xda on my phone, only 12 % run out after 1 hour's use. but when i play the bakery story, the battery go down 1% every 2 minutes.
i just want to know this happened. maybe the game eat more power, but not that much i think.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

Have u tried Juice Defender? It's free from Android Market. Made a massive difference to my battery life. The phone used to die after around 8 hours but no it lasts all day and still has around 70% when I'm going to bed.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App

gareth7o9 said:
Have u tried Juice Defender? It's free from Android Market. Made a massive difference to my battery life. The phone used to die after around 8 hours but no it lasts all day and still has around 70% when I'm going to bed.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
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Juice Defender settings please?

rengift said:
im suffering a bad battery right now.
my phone will ran out of battery after like 6 hours' use. it's not as good as iphone 4, but not that bad. all the android handset dont perform good on it. but my battery went down to 85% from full charge after 8 hours sleep. any solution to this? another problem is that when i browse xda on my phone, only 12 % run out after 1 hour's use. but when i play the bakery story, the battery go down 1% every 2 minutes.
i just want to know this happened. maybe the game eat more power, but not that much i think.
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA App
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In regards to browsing XDA for an hour vs playing the bakery story, it's likely because XDA is much less CPU intensive. When the CPU is being stressed, the battery gets eaten up pretty quickly.

Terrible battery life on my Sprint Nexus :(

I just bought it yesterday and the battery like last around 4 he's. Now I bought this phone cause I heard it has great battery life like the Atrix. What do I do? I have juice defender running. Please help
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using XDA App

If you just bought it yesterday..... then give some time to calibrate thr battery! Just keep using it and let the battery reach normal. Most new batteries require 3-4 charges to start running fine. Give it a few days
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA Premium App

+ 1 the battery needs a few cycles to break in. Also, are you rooted are you running a custom room or kernel these things can have an affect on your battery also.

No I'm not rooted or have a custom kernel. I'm running stock.
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using XDA App

Strange, I get a day and a half of heavy use with the brightness maxed and running a live wall paper. I thought my Xperia Arc had great battery life but the Nexus S is insane!
OP are you using task killers? Don't. It takes up more battery for your Nexus S to re-start those apps than it does to manage them on its own.

It took my battery like a week to act right. Give it time
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using XDA App

gunstar3035 said:
Strange, I get a day and a half of heavy use with the brightness maxed and running a live wall paper. I thought my Xperia Arc had great battery life but the Nexus S is insane!
OP are you using task killers? Don't. It takes up more battery for your Nexus S to re-start those apps than it does to manage them on its own.
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a day and a half?? howd you pull that off? im usually charging about 10-14 hours thorough heavy use.

agree with everyone else, give it a few days.
I used some advice i found the said kill battery, charge full, kill battery, charge full, kill, charge, then use it. Charge it while it is off during that time.
First couple of charges, the battery would die after about 5-6 hours of constant "messing around" with the phone. Now it seems like it'll last a good time.
Im completely stock as well.

jark99 said:
a day and a half?? howd you pull that off? im usually charging about 10-14 hours thorough heavy use.
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I dont know. I don't really game on it so maybe thats it, but I am surfing the web constantly. When I go out I turn wifi off...thats about it. Oh and the only widget I am running is a clock and the weather for the clock is set to refresh every 3 hours "simi clock" is what its called.
Thats about it, I dont know what else to say. I came from an Xperia x10, Samsung Captivate, Xperia Arc, and now the Nexus S and its MILES better...so much so that I have decided that I will only ever own a "Nexus" line of Android.

gunstar3035 said:
I dont know. I don't really game on it so maybe thats it, but I am surfing the web constantly. When I go out I turn wifi off...thats about it. Oh and the only widget I am running is a clock and the weather for the clock is set to refresh every 3 hours "simi clock" is what its called.
Thats about it, I dont know what else to say. I came from an Xperia x10, Samsung Captivate, Xperia Arc, and now the Nexus S and its MILES better...so much so that I have decided that I will only ever own a "Nexus" line of Android.
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Haha agreed on the nexus part! My battery might get day n half tmrw! Welll see....i guess im constantly on it doing one thing or another
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA Premium App

No task killers here. Just juice defender.
gunstar3035 said:
Strange, I get a day and a half of heavy use with the brightness maxed and running a live wall paper. I thought my Xperia Arc had great battery life but the Nexus S is insane!
OP are you using task killers? Don't. It takes up more battery for your Nexus S to re-start those apps than it does to manage them on its own.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using XDA App

Like everyone else said you really need to give it some time to break in.
My first day with the Nexus the battery was dying as I left work (roughly 9 hours off the charger).
After owning the phone for about a month now it's changed dramatically.
It lasts well through the entire day, every day. Before I go to bed it's usually sitting around...
70-80% LIGHT use.
50% Moderate use
35-40% Heavy use. (Note: I don't play games, Heavy use to me is multiple short calls, many emails, many texts, IM)
I've never actually had the phone die on me.
I'm using CM7 (Latest Nightly) and the Netarchy CFS Kernel (default settings with the exception of VooDoo Color tweaks)
I don't use Juice Defender. Phone sits on 3G most of the day at the office, at home it sits on WiFi with the WiFi sleep policy set to never. (Wifi uses much less power then 3G, if you have WiFi, USE IT! and set sleep policy to never so WiFi stays on constantly instead of switching back to 3G when the phone is idle)
Do use a task manager but it didn't seem to make a huge difference.

Aside from letting your battery calibrate, you should try out juice defender. I know alot of people might scoff at a such an application but I've experienced over a two fold increase in battery life using said application. However I am running an undervolted netarchy 1.3.4 kernel with Oxygen, but said increase in battery life is with the same configuration.

Yeah it takes around a week to break in the battery. My battery life is pretty awesome. I usually charge it every other day now. It lasts a long time.
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using XDA App

Guys... battery break in isn't gonna change his usage from 4 hrs to 12 hrs. No battery break-in does that.
In all these cases I suggest looking at battery info in the OS itself to see if something kept the phone awake or whatever.
Sure heavy use in your first few days will always take a huge toll on battery. Calibration shouldn't totally throw off your battery life down to 4 hours either.

You guys who say heavy use, can you quantify that?
talk time per day?
texts per day?
roaming?
4g?
how many emails sent/received per day?
time on internet?

/shameless plug
try battery tweak in dev forums... i posted it in both of them

DroidBabe said:
I just bought it yesterday and the battery like last around 4 he's. Now I bought this phone cause I heard it has great battery life like the Atrix. What do I do? I have juice defender running. Please help
Sent from my Nexus S 4G using XDA App
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I'm in the same boat as you. Just got my Nexus S 4G on three days ago and the battery dies QUICKLY. The first day it died in 5 hours (with normal use and 4G off). By the time I unplug it and get to work, which is only a 20 minute drive, it's already down to 93%. I'm hoping everyone else is right in saying that the battery just has to be worked in a little.

I have 8 hours on battery right now with about 40% remaining in day 2 of my Nexus' usage. I made about 6 phone calls, sent out about 20 text messages, browsed the internet while waiting for a job interview and played Plants V Zombies when I was taking a dump.
I really only expect it to improve from here.

Out of curiousity, does anyone here have their "Use Wireless Networks" checked under the "Location and Security" settings (where it uses your 3G)? I have this enabled and I know this will drain my battery, but I wonder how much? The only app I have that updates my location while the screen is off is the stock News and Weather app (which only updates every 6 hours, a bug that automatically turns itself back on if you reset your phone). How much collection would Google do other than that?
Also, the other thing I have enabled is my Exchange set to push through the default Email app. However, this never really shows up on the battery usage app, so is push STILL killing the battery a lot through the stock app?
I'm just trying to see how people can get two days with 50% left after work (if just on 3G). On WIFI, MAYBE, but def not on 3G......

Mandatory android app

Juice defender.
All your problems shall disappear.

What problems might those be? Don't see how using juice defender will fix any problem other than battery life, which I don't have a problem with on my atrix without using juice defender.
Sent from my MB860

Thank you captain
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App

what does this do?
I used this before and I found it was pretty inconvenient with wifi/3g and always having to wait for these to get turned on or turning them on myself.
I did see 11-13 hour battery with my normal use (light surfing, 1-2 hours calling, many many text)...but then I removed it and I have everything pop up when I click on it and I am getting 9-10 hour battery life.
I am not normally a battery hog...but I REALLY like it when something I click on WORKS then and there...without a no connection message.
I am more than willing to lose the extra battery time for the convenience....maybe if I start using more battery intense stuff Ill revisit this app but for now...I like things to work when I expect them too...

I prefer to use SetCPU to lower the CPU speeds when it's off, and when the battery reaches 25%. Works great for me. I used JuiceDefender, but I just had nothing but problems with it.

What cybercookie said
If I'm low and I'm out I just turn off auto sync and background apps
Sent from my GT-P1000 using Tapatalk

With 2.3.4 im getting best battery ever. I am major user and I got 12 hours today which is a record for me. Haven't had so much time on since my treo 650 with the 2200mah seidio battery! Outstanding.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App

I am using Juice Defender on my stock Atrix. I don't know what you guys do to your phones but if going to GB means having to charge my phone twice a day I will not do that. I used to be big into flashing my Tilt 2 and HD2 but for now I'll wait.
I get over 24 hours of battery easily with moderate use (meaning a few games, a lot of text messaging, some web browsing and at least 2 hours of music).
Last charge lasted from 3 pm one day to 6 pm the next day at 20% battery when I plugged it in again.

General thread to discuss battery life

So...the title says it......i hope OP will make this thread sticky....
I made this thread to avoid the multiple threads discussing this matter and its solutions.
OK...everybody tell us how is his battery life......
personally mine last 1 day with heavy usage.....2 days with light usage.....
and please everybody tell us wich rom in the use...and how much using it...and all the statistics that you can get...
You are welcome to post any of your problems with batteries and solutions....

I get about the same, 1 full day with quite heavy use in terms of messaging and surfing.. It does drain alot faster playing games or watching videos.
Sent from my X10i using XDA Premium App

Dnt nw how u guys get 1 day or more mine gets down in 12-13hrs heavy usage connectd to 2g completely
Sent from my X10i using XDA Premium App

2 days with medium usage 3G, 4 days 2G heavy usage.
I have always said this phone has really good battery life, and for me it does.

right now my battery is on 32% and from the last charge past 1d 8h 12m with medium use

I had 3-4 days with stock 2.1 with my typical light usage. Now with stock 2.3.3 this increased to 5-6 days.
(few calls per day, no games, no music, 3G almost always disabled)

Compared with latest 2.1 with bb 67 on stock 2.3.3 battery life is worse. 1 day with heavy usage, and 2 days with light usage - 2g connected constantly.

I suggest everybody post screenshots and what rom you are using.
Sent from my X10i using XDA App

Sometimes, it doesn't even hold for on day. Heavy usage. Web, Facebook, gmail sync, twitter sync (and a couple of others) perhaps I should change the sync.
3G only. Wi-fi sometimes

Android: Froyo 2.2
ROM: FreeX10 Beta4 HF 1
Kernel: DoomKernel/zKernel
On: WiFi, Data
Off: GPS
Usage: Medium
Battery: 2-3 days
Android: Gingerbread 2.3.3
ROM: Stock SE GB
Kernel: Stock SE GB
On:WiFi, Data
Off: GPS
Usage: Medium
Battery: 2-3 days
Android: Gingerbread 2.3.5
ROM: CM7-ZMOD
Kernel: DoomKernel/zKernel
On: WiFi, Data
Off: GPS
Usage: Medium
Battery: 1 day
Might just go back to stock until battery life comes back.

Mine dies after 6-7 hours of medium usage such as like 1 hour youtube 1 hour of xda and like 15 minute of music whit everything off except wifi and no data connection
Sent from my X10i using XDA Premium App

Does the mobile networks play a role when it comes to battery life in terms of network coverage etc... Mine fully charged with average usage lasts less than 24 hours. Well i do a bit of surfing and FB and mail sync in on. Is it due to that ? I did a calibration as well after flashing wolfs rom from stock.
Pls advice !

shahkam said:
Mine dies after 6-7 hours of medium usage such as like 1 hour youtube 1 hour of xda and like 15 minute of music whit everything off except wifi and no data connection
Sent from my X10i using XDA Premium App
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One hour of you tube? playing videos obviously... thats just fine, i do pretty much the same but with gaming instead of youtube and a couple of hours talking, wifi and 3g always on, sync every 30 mins constantly checkin facebook, twiter and xda till ot get to arond 15% in like 7 hours
running wolfbreak´s gb 4.0.3 ROM with stock kernel and oc and uv (they work fine together for me)

There's a theory.....and i personally tested it and it works....
if you wanna get a great battery you must charge it at the percent of 20 or 15.....and it lasts a 2 days...
and i charged it at 0%..it keep about 4 hours charging...and it doesnt last a day....
im not very sure.....test it guys and see it if it works and tell me the results.....
dont forget about the THANKS botton.....

these threads are pointless imo...
everyone's usage is different, and you always get people saying "oh my phone lasts 3 weeks on a single change".... Pfft sure it does
There is no point in really comparing, yes you can get great battery life if you don't use your phone but what does that prove?

scoobysnacks said:
these threads are pointless imo...
everyone's usage is different, and you always get people saying "oh my phone lasts 3 weeks on a single change".... Pfft sure it does
There is no point in really comparing, yes you can get great battery life if you don't use your phone but what does that prove?
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Hey man... this is negativity .... i made this thread to avoid multiple threads of the same matter....READ first man......

walidhiphop said:
Hey man... this is negativity .... i made this thread to avoid multiple threads of the same matter....READ first man......
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So what?
I'm giving my opinion on the topic of battery life comparisons in general, it was not any way offensive to you.
I'm simply stating that unless there is a way to objectively measure that the usage was the same, what does "this many hours" actually really mean?
Plus everyone's ideas of "moderate","heavy", etc... are completely different.

walidhiphop said:
There's a theory.....and i personally tested it and it works....
if you wanna get a great battery you must charge it at the percent of 20 or 15.....and it lasts a 2 days...
and i charged it at 0%..it keep about 4 hours charging...and it doesnt last a day....
im not very sure.....test it guys and see it if it works and tell me the results.....
dont forget about the THANKS botton.....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tried at 15% didn't see much of a difference lol
Sent from my X10i using XDA Premium App

Hey guys,
I charge at 15% and my battery lasts for 7 hours. I use 2G data on always, no wifi, no gps, no music, no videos, but heavy surfing and apps download and update.
I think this battery life depends on the climate conditions where u stay.
I stay in India where temperature is above 40 deg.
Sent from my X10i using XDA App

Guys..
I just missed out 1 more thing..
I also use JUICE DEFENDER ULTIMATE. This has definitely increased my battery life to double.
Sent from my X10i using XDA App