Database Users

24 hours w/a Nexus One

I just finished my 24 hour testing of the Nexus One for my employer and figured I would give my 2 cents worth:
1. On screen keyboard: Great, especially when used in landscape. Portrait has a bit more room side to side than the G1, and it makes it easier, but I wouldn't go so far to say in protrait it is a night and day difference. Landscape truly is, and I had no problem typing long messages in landscape mode, and using portrait for quick stuff. A physical keyboard is still a better option, IMO as a keyboard lover, but the onscreen is executed very, very well.
2. Speed/Android 2.1: I have tested some of the 2.1 ports on my G1, and as nice as they are, they do not give justice at all too what 2.1 is on a Nexus One. Blanket statement, the phone is faster and 2.1 is a great advancement. A more astute observation that I wasn't expecting, websites load much, much, much faster on the Nexus One. I didn't do an actual stop watch test, but a realistic guess says sites load about twice as fast. I am on an EDGE network where I do most of my surfing when not using WiFi... when on WiFi it was more dramatic (I actually loaded 1 site faster on the Nexus One than on my computer)
3. Stability: I tried my absolute best to slow it down and make it unstable. Couldn't do it. At one point in time, I had 23 apps open, the browser had 3 windows, I had youtube running, music, and so forth. Of course, several of the apps had to "reload" the last point I was at, but with this phone "reloading" is pretty much instant. The longest it ever took was one of the web pages had to re-download the content. I found that the phone's cache held my normal use just fine without ever having to reload.
4. Fit/Finish/Style: The phone has a very solid feel too, despite being very light in weight. Fits well in the hand, comfortable being used as a phone, and I got a lot of comments on it when I was out and about testing the "wow" factor (I was asked to go to a busy restaurant/bar and see how many people asked me about it). And, as odd as this might sound, being right handed the back button being on the far left was not a big deal, and I actually liked it's placement a lot since when I used it in landscape mode it was much more comfortable hitting it, and I think this is what they had in mind when they designed in like that.
5. Battery Life: Damn! That is all you need to know, Damn! I tried, really, really hard to push this to the max and see how fast I could run it down. I had WiFi and GPS both going, music playing, and was surfing the web as quick as possible, messing around with google maps taking a look at new and interesting places, and gave up. I used 80% of the battery in those 24 hours, for about an hour I was trying my best to run it down, and for the rest a little above typical usage. Today it only went down 20% from 9AM-5PM. My G1 is usually about 60% gone over that period.
6. Conclusion: I am someone that pretty much demands a physical keyboard for me to even think about buying a phone. I am getting a Nexus One as soon as they become available through the company I work for. My manager is a BB addict, and she said as soon as we get it she is switching as well. That is a huge statement, her daily phone is a BB 9700, she texts and writes most of her emails from her phone, and the Nexus One out performed her BB 9700. She was using the google voice service to write, but she said out of all the texts and emails she wrote using it she didn't have a single typo!
Edit:
On the battery, I might not have been 100% clear in re-reading this review, and want to say some people on this board have had different results and opinions. To add another experience, my manager used the phone for 2 days and didn't have to charge it, but she didn't use it nearly as much as I did. I am also editing that part of my review, so if you read it the first day it was posted it might be a little different for clarity sakes.

As expected, from a god of the Android phones.

Thanks pjcforpres for this write up/review. Il been holding out on the Nexus one mainly because of Keyboard. Im with Tmobile and have the latest 2.1 rom. I was even considering going to Big Red for the Droid but your review seems honest and has answered a few things for me with Keyboard, Battery life and speed. I may give it a go. Thanks much!

Building on your 2nd point... I was amazed at how quickly apps installed from Market... it was practically instantaneous!

24bronco said:
Thanks pjcforpres for this write up/review. Il been holding out on the Nexus one mainly because of Keyboard. Im with Tmobile and have the latest 2.1 rom. I was even considering going to Big Red for the Droid but your review seems honest and has answered a few things for me with Keyboard, Battery life and speed. I may give it a go. Thanks much!
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I want to point out that I edited the battery review part, and added a note at the end. It didn't read as clearly as the original thought when I wrote it.

I'm a hard keyboard junkie myself, and I have to say that I'm still not as great with the N1's soft keyboard than any hard kb. I don't think they will ever quite pare up.
However, the voice input is really incredible I especially love sitting down in my car, long-pressing "search" so the voice search comes up, and saying "Navigate to burger king." The phone opens Google Maps Navigation, plots the course from my location to the nearest Burger King, and begins turn-by-turn navigation.

Nice review...this bad boy has Awesome speed & eye candy!

Good review but the battery life on the N1, as much as I love this device, is horrendous. It's absolutely terrible. But then again, I actually expected it to be so it's not a big deal. I will get the fattest battery I can when they come out. I use the phone so much that I've actually had to start charging it a third time in one day.

honestly, i'm actually faster with the soft keyboard than i was with a hard board, because i don't have to actually press anything. i've tried on other screenboards too, and this thing is like butter compared to those. a hard keyboard was my sticking point for a long time, but no longer. not after this

You know, I kind of experienced the opposite in terms of battery. My G1 would last all day, with fairly regular usage and by the time I went to bed I was around 70% left battery.
I've had my N1 off the charger since around noon today, and its at 50%. so 24 hours at that rate would completely drain my battery. Overnight also, I left it unplugged, it was at 72% when I wend to bed (around midnight) and 60% when I got up (8:30a), so 8 hours standby consumed 12% battery. My n1 is also currently set to 2G only, as I flip/flop 2g/3g at my house (my g1 did the same here since they put up the new 3g tower).

I left mine off the charger overnight, and had 2% consumption. Not sure what to tell you other than check how often you have your stuff syncing, and what all you have in your background. I don't like task killers much, but I do use them to kill any media apps since even with those chilling in the background waiting for you to come back, they like to drain battery.
So far, on the 3 devices being used in our test group, we have all experienced the same great battery life I reported. Like I already said, my manager made it 2 days on 1 full charge (I think that was officially 44 hours). A couple others in the group experiened the same thing. The data specialist, who is a very heavy user (near constant actually) made it through the work day. That is the first time a smart phone has done that, including BB's.
We all have different ideas of what normal usage is and what heavy use is. Being that I sell cell phones for a living, and gotta fill out fun forms that define those for me, I would like to think my idea is closer to average than some of you guys. Let me put it like this, I guess, for me constant use does not =heavy use. Constant use=Constant use. Heavy use= an average of using the phone 30 minutes out of every hour. Average use=Using the phone less than 15 minutes an hour. As well, we factor in what that usage is, is it data? Is it phone calls? Is it media player?
There are tons of factors that can cause one man to think great battery life and another horrible. I tried my best to write my review and assesment based on my personal experience on a criteria that is based off 4 years of selling cell phones as well the guide sheet made up by 25 people with over 150 years combined experience in the cell phone world.

pjcforpres said:
I left mine off the charger overnight, and had 2% consumption. Not sure what to tell you other than check how often you have your stuff syncing, and what all you have in your background. I don't like task killers much, but I do use them to kill any media apps since even with those chilling in the background waiting for you to come back, they like to drain battery.
So far, on the 3 devices being used in our test group, we have all experienced the same great battery life I reported. Like I already said, my manager made it 2 days on 1 full charge (I think that was officially 44 hours). A couple others in the group experiened the same thing. The data specialist, who is a very heavy user (near constant actually) made it through the work day. That is the first time a smart phone has done that, including BB's.
We all have different ideas of what normal usage is and what heavy use is. Being that I sell cell phones for a living, and gotta fill out fun forms that define those for me, I would like to think my idea is closer to average than some of you guys. Let me put it like this, I guess, for me constant use does not =heavy use. Constant use=Constant use. Heavy use= an average of using the phone 30 minutes out of every hour. Average use=Using the phone less than 15 minutes an hour. As well, we factor in what that usage is, is it data? Is it phone calls? Is it media player?
There are tons of factors that can cause one man to think great battery life and another horrible. I tried my best to write my review and assesment based on my personal experience on a criteria that is based off 4 years of selling cell phones as well the guide sheet made up by 25 people with over 150 years combined experience in the cell phone world.
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Actually, I think the battery life is pretty good considering the what the phone does. It's just horrible compared to, for example, a non-smartphone. I'm not sure what people mean by "heavy use" but when I say heavy use, I mean my phone is on and I'm playing with it for five hours straight browsing, using data, video, music, games, apps and a combination of those. I rarely talk on the phone. Messaging, browser, music and apps are where I use my phone most. Basically, I use every feature for hours at a time. I live on my phone (for play and work so it's not as bad as it sounds). So if heavy use for others is 30 minutes out of every hour like you said, my heave use is many hours of constant use. But overall, the N1 is a wonderful device and it would take a lot for me to give it up (N2? LOL).

We/ I would call that constant or near constant use. Yes, heay usage might and is what most would call that, but when evaluating battery life on a more concise basis we would call that constant use for clarity and consitancy in the evaluation process from phone to phone and person to person.
I do agree, as well, that many people seem to compare a smart phone to a dumb phone too easily and readily for what their expectations are concerning battery life. IIRC, I can't see it as I write this, in my original post I said for a phone that does as much as the Nexus One, the battery life is great. And of course you say the same!
In my experiences, the Nexus One is just below a BB for battery usage, way better than WinMo, and an improvement over the G1(my personal phone right now). When you consider that it can do way more than a BB, faster, and better, the battery life becomes IMO better than a BB's. As the data specialist found, he actually had better battery life with the Nexus One than he did with his BB 8900 and 9700.

My first 24 have been like a love story

halfsight said:
My first 24 have been like a love story
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Yeah, it was so hard for me to give the phone to the next tester, it was like breaking up with my first love! I am actually thinking about ordering an unlocked off Google because I miss it so much already!

Although my N1's battery is clearly better than my G1's, it's still not nearly what some people are reporting. On weekdays, I get up about 7am and take my phone off the charger. On my way to take my daughter to school, and then on my way to work, I stream Pandora the entire way, on 3G (about 60 minutes in traffic). I get to work by about 8:30, and my battery at that point is at about 80-85%. My G1 would be about 65-70% at that same point. By the time I get home (about 3pm), streaming music all the way home (about 40 minutes). Battery life by the time I get home is around 45-50%, possibly less, depending on if I did much texting at work. By the time I go to bed (9 or 10pm) I'm at around 20%.
That's pretty much an average day. Only once have I completely drained the battery where my phone would not turn on, and it hit that point at about 8:30pm that day. This was not possible on my G1. I would have to charge it at work in order to do all of the above, and I'd still be in the 10-20% range by 10pm.
I think the biggest difference isn't the hardware 'or' the software, but mostly the 1400mah battery compared to the 1000mah battery on the G1. Although, the fact that the N1 is so much faster, means I get more things done in less time, which means more time in idle, and more battery saved.
I did just notice something though... I've had my phone unplugged since 8am this morning, it's now 2am, and I'm still at 20%... can't complain

what are you guys' battery use distribution?
according to the battery use showed on the phone, the screen drains most of my batter most oftenly more than 70 percent.

sEventoRii said:
what are you guys' battery use distribution?
according to the battery use showed on the phone, the screen drains most of my batter most oftenly more than 70 percent.
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That seems to be the prevailing "peak" usage.

Better Battery Than They Say

Ok so I read a post that said drain your battery completely for better performance so i did.Got low bat warning and played Avatar to kill it quick.Only it didnt die fast,seemed like forever for this damn thing to really die!!!Maybe I just imagined it so I tried it again.Got low bat warning and watched a 25 min youtube vid followed by a 16 min youtube vid and several rap videos before it cut off.Try it and see how long it takes to really run out of juice and I think youll be surprised

I remembered with my G1, that once i got the low battery warning, I was always able to milk every ounce of power from that battery.

after picking up my vibrant yesterday, i charged to a full 100% with the phone turned off
i've been on it all day long, installing apps and restarting quite frequently, and i just got my first battery warning (21%)
will probably run it into the ground after work for another full cycle charge then just charge whenever it needs it. seems to have more than enough to make through a full day, and i'm only saying this because i haven't been able to put it down since this morning and it's still ticking
edit: and this is all done indoors with fluctuating 3g/2g coverage (home and work)

I have twice run my battery into the ground and charged to 100% with the phone off. Now I am getting a little over 25 hours on a single charge. this battery is indeed better than they said it was.

ardchoille said:
I have twice run my battery into the ground and charged to 100% with the phone off. Now I am getting a little over 25 hours on a single charge. this battery is indeed better than they said it was.
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Better than what?
If coming from an old WM, sure, it's better.
But coming from an iPhone, which lasted for 2 days with real use, the battery of the Vibrant sucks.
With moderate use, I can's get through a full day (14-16 hours). It's the one real problem I have with this otherwise great phone.

MacGuy2006 said:
But coming from an iPhone, which lasted for 2 days with real use, the battery of the Vibrant sucks.
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3GS or 4? cause the battery on anything before that was abysmal.

lolcopter said:
3GS or 4? cause the battery on anything before that was abysmal.
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I had two 3Gs (now have a Galaxy S and a Vibrant). It lasted almost double what the Vibrant does, with similar use.
Love the screen of the Samsung, but the battery is making me a little depressed. I am hoping that Froyo will improve it a bit.

MacGuy2006 said:
I had two 3Gs (now have a Galaxy S and a Vibrant). It lasted almost double what the Vibrant does, with similar use.
Love the screen of the Samsung, but the battery is making me a little depressed. I am hoping that Froyo will improve it a bit.
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yeah, hopefully drops sometime soon.
it seems battery life is either really good or really poor, not a lot of middle ground. of course, this could mostly be because of different peoples' opinions. but i'm coming from a dumbphone i only had to charge once a week, and so far i'm pretty impressed. like i mentioned earlier, i've been on this thing non-stop since this morning, and it's just now flashing the battery symbol at me. i imagine once i go through a couple of full cycles, and the new toy factor wears off, it will be a non-issue (for me)
what is your real world usage like?

MacGuy2006 said:
I had two 3Gs (now have a Galaxy S and a Vibrant). It lasted almost double what the Vibrant does, with similar use.
Love the screen of the Samsung, but the battery is making me a little depressed. I am hoping that Froyo will improve it a bit.
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Why not just buy some extra batteries? I picked up 3 extra batteries for when I fly so I can watch movies with no worries...
I get great battery life on my Vibrant. Make sure you turn off everything that you don't need....wifi, gps, keep screen brightness low and not on 100% at all times etc...obvious stuff....

lolcopter said:
what is your real world usage like?
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Just checking email and talking for maybe 30-60 minutes, plus a few texts.
iunlock said:
Why not just buy some extra batteries? I picked up 3 extra batteries for when I fly so I can watch movies with no worries...
I get great battery life on my Vibrant. Make sure you turn off everything that you don't need....wifi, gps, keep screen brightness low and not on 100% at all times etc...obvious stuff....
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Man, I have turned the brightness down to below stock, and I do have two extra batteries. But that's kind of like going back to my WM days.
After the getting spoiled on the iPhone, which would last for almost two full days with everything running, and with similar use, I really hate having to constantly think about the battery, and worry that it's going to die on me.
True story:
Someone hit my car a few days ago and I tried to take a pic with my Vibrant. It was in late afternoon, so the battery was at 15% I guess -- so the phone effectively told me to "F*** Off." Or at least that's how I took it No pic, of course.

MacGuy2006 said:
Just checking email and talking for maybe 30-60 minutes, plus a few texts.
Man, I have turned the brightness down to below stock, and I do have two extra batteries. But that's kind of like going back to my WM days.
After the getting spoiled on the iPhone, which would last for almost two full days with everything running, and with similar use, I really hate having to constantly think about the battery, and worry that it's going to die on me.
True story:
Someone hit my car a few days ago and I tried to take a pic with my Vibrant. It was in late afternoon, so the battery was at 15% I guess -- so the phone effectively told me to "F*** Off." Or at least that's how I took it No pic, of course.
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I hear where you're coming from...have you tried switching out the battery to a different one? I know that some of the batteries were faulty and gave people horrible battery life.
The iPhone also ran at a much slower clock speed and it was equipped with a pretty good battery. There's no denying the awesomeness of the iPhone battery...I'm just thinking that you may have a bad battery. Try changing it out.
There's also a 2800mAh battery pack coming out very soon....it may suit your wants and needs...

The iPhone also lacks widgets and multitasking - and the screen is not as bright so those all help in maintaining battery life.
If you crippled your android in the same way - you could get 2 days pretty easily as well.

dseo80 said:
The iPhone also lacks widgets and multitasking - and the screen is not as bright so those all help in maintaining battery life.
If you crippled your android in the same way - you could get 2 days pretty easily as well.
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Very true...
It's like a Geo Metro vs. Ferrari ...hypothetically, if they had the same size gas tank which one would consume more gas and run out faster? It's obvious...

iunlock said:
Very true...
It's like a Geo Metro vs. Ferrari ...hypothetically, if they had the same size gas tank which one would consume more gas and run out faster? It's obvious...
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Come on now....
I have both, and they both have their good points and bad points.
The battery is a bad point for the Vibrant.
The screen is the best point (it's actually not "brighter", but has much better contrast than a backlit LCD). I keep the Vibrant's screen at it's lowest brightness, anyway.
But in terms of speed, there is really not much difference in daily use - if anything, the iPhone 3Gs feels a little smoother much of the time. Again something Froyo might improve.
My well conditioned battery is at 5%, after 16hrs 54 min., with very light non-call use today (calls are at 49 min. 26 sec.).
My point is, that I have to expect more after using the iPhone, while some here are obviously happy with it. But it ain't great.

MacGuy2006 said:
Come on now....
I have both, and they both have their good points and bad points.
The battery is a bad point for the Vibrant.
The screen is the best point (it's actually not "brighter", but has much better contrast than a backlit LCD). I keep the Vibrant's screen at it's lowest brightness, anyway.
But in terms of speed, there is really not much difference in daily use - if anything, the iPhone 3Gs feels a little smoother much of the time. Again something Froyo might improve.
My well conditioned battery is at 5%, after 16hrs 54 min., with very light non-call use today (calls are at 49 min. 26 sec.).
My point is, that I have to expect more after using the iPhone, while some here are obviously happy with it. But it ain't great.
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Something is wrong with your battery if that's all you're getting.

vapotrini said:
Something is wrong with your battery if that's all you're getting.
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We get five to six hours of display on with this phone. That number is perfect if the phone was on 35% precent or more of those 16 hours.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App

It's ALL about the apps you use.
My battery life is pretty good, I can go two days with moderate phone use and my normal heavy-e-mail and occasional messaging usage. I don't do much web browsing with it, but I fiddle with it constantly throughout the day.
My friend couldn't get through one day on his, so I encouraged him to play around with some of the apps he had that I didn't, and now he can get well into day two before it gets low enough he wants to recharge.
My wife complained about her battery life, and I realized she was pinging four e-mail accounts once per minute. Just cutting that back to a five minute interval made a huge difference.
Even so, I've ordered spare batteries and a charger since I travel often and a missed call could cost me a lot of money, and they're too cheap to not keep a few around. (In one of those other threads somebody linked to an ebay deal with two batteries and a charger for 8 bucks.)

vapotrini said:
Something is wrong with your battery if that's all you're getting.
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or he's got a bunch of widgets.
That's almost universally a theme when people complain about Android battery usage.

Got my replacement Vibrant yesterday afternoon, charged it full while turned off and took it out at around 9pm. Worked on it a little last night and today installing apps browsing and about 60 min talk time so far.... 3PM and still got 30% left.
Definitely much better battery life than the one I had on first phone. I did get a replacement battery as well, but haven't tested that one yet. This one so far is working as expected.
I haven't rooted yet so I am not sure if that and lag fix has any affect on the battery.
Also ATK is not installed yet, and i hear it has adverse affect on battery. Is that true?

what do you guys see on the battery code?
G7, G8 or G9?

Battery life is getting better and better.

I haven't really done anything different, but my battery life in the past few weeks has just gotten better and better.
Right now it's 3pm. I put in a fresh battery at 9pm last night. Batt level: 55%. I was asleep for 7 out of those 18 hours, but I've had wifi and BT on the whole time. I've read and replied to 15 emails, maybe 10 texts, 15 min of calls, surfed the web for 2 hours, played about 30min of games, and had music streaming for 1.5 hrs. I've easily been making it through long work days (8am-8pm) of moderate/heavy use, whereas before I would need to recharge after 6-8 hours.
Anyone else noticing better battery life after the first few weeks? (of course, it might have to do with the fact that I'm playing with it less, but there are days when I play with it constantly and it's still doing better than 12+ hours)

I'm still on the first week with my current vibrant and I have noticed a slight improvement in battery life since I first got it--the fact that my life is pretty consistent day to day (phone-wise) helps me track it. Maybe the hardware and software need to be 'broken in' per-se?

Kubernetes said:
... I've easily been making it through long work days (8am-8pm) of moderate/heavy use, whereas before I would need to recharge after 6-8 hours.
...
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Yeah, it does get better, but 12 hours is not good enough nowadays -- if you go to dinner after work, the battery will be dead before you get home.
This is my biggest gripe about the Galaxy S -- compared to my old iPhone 3Gs the battery life just sucks.
I am hoping that the efficiencies that come with Froyo will squeeze a few more hours and make it usable for a full day.
If Samsung gets off its lazy (or incompetent) butt and upgrades us to Froyo soon, of course.

MacGuy2006 said:
Yeah, it does get better, but 12 hours is not good enough nowadays -- if you go to dinner after work, the battery will be dead before you get home.
This is my biggest gripe about the Galaxy S -- compared to my old iPhone 3Gs the battery life just sucks.
I am hoping that the efficiencies that come with Froyo will squeeze a few more hours and make it usable for a full day.
If Samsung gets off its lazy (or incompetent) butt and upgrades us to Froyo soon, of course.
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I can get close to 36 hours from mine, not sure what you guys are doing.

lralexl said:
I can get close to 36 hours from mine, not sure what you guys are doing.
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The question is, what are you not doing? We can all get it to last the long, but this is a smart phone. I cannot afford to treat it like if I was stranded on an island.

Before I get into my post I just wanted to say I'm running stock out of the box with no root/ROM/etc. Just plain ol vanilla Eclair...with the JI5 via Kies.
I'm getting about 32 hours myself. I do use tasker to set up profiles only to turn things on when I want them. Such as sync will only be enabled for specific apps when I run them then off when I close them. GPS is only on when I run Maps/Yelp/any geo-aware app then it turns itself off. Turn on silent mode/vibrate when I'm at the office by recognizing specific cell towers...stuff like that.
I also disabled "Use Wireless Networks" under Location & Security since Google says it will use it even when the phone is off. I don't know why but it's been saving on battery too. I also don't use any task killing app such as ATK since I think the phone should be smart enough to manage the memory by itself.
edit: Oh, I use automatic brightness settings too with manual brightness control on the browser (usually on low-med setting)

Mark271 said:
The question is, what are you not doing? We can all get it to last the long, but this is a smart phone. I cannot afford to treat it like if I was stranded on an island.
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Everything enabled except brightness. i turn off wifi and bluetooth when sleeping, and have sync set to once an hour for social contacts and such. For facebook etc i manually update my feed when i want to check on it, or it auto updates every hour.

Kubernetes said:
I haven't really done anything different, but my battery life in the past few weeks has just gotten better and better.
Right now it's 3pm. I put in a fresh battery at 9pm last night. Batt level: 55%. I was asleep for 7 out of those 18 hours, but I've had wifi and BT on the whole time. I've read and replied to 15 emails, maybe 10 texts, 15 min of calls, surfed the web for 2 hours, played about 30min of games, and had music streaming for 1.5 hrs. I've easily been making it through long work days (8am-8pm) of moderate/heavy use, whereas before I would need to recharge after 6-8 hours.
Anyone else noticing better battery life after the first few weeks? (of course, it might have to do with the fact that I'm playing with it less, but there are days when I play with it constantly and it's still doing better than 12+ hours)
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I'm at a point of consistent battery life of about 13 hours of moderate to heavy use. Been this way since about the middle of August. The longest I've pushed it was close to 21 hours but i'm normally in the 11-12 range.
Glad your phone is leveling out though

Kubernetes said:
I haven't really done anything different, but my battery life in the past few weeks has just gotten better and better.
Right now it's 3pm. I put in a fresh battery at 9pm last night. Batt level: 55%. I was asleep for 7 out of those 18 hours, but I've had wifi and BT on the whole time. I've read and replied to 15 emails, maybe 10 texts, 15 min of calls, surfed the web for 2 hours, played about 30min of games, and had music streaming for 1.5 hrs. I've easily been making it through long work days (8am-8pm) of moderate/heavy use, whereas before I would need to recharge after 6-8 hours.
Anyone else noticing better battery life after the first few weeks? (of course, it might have to do with the fact that I'm playing with it less, but there are days when I play with it constantly and it's still doing better than 12+ hours)
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Nah it's not any different from when you first bought it, you're just using it less, even though you think you are using it the same.
Trust me, when people buy a new phone, the first few days or couple weeks they can't take their fingers off the phone, and it appears battery sucks. As you get over your new toy phase, you don't play with it as much, and magically you think the battery has grown new cells.
bye.

MacGuy2006 said:
Yeah, it does get better, but 12 hours is not good enough nowadays -- if you go to dinner after work, the battery will be dead before you get home.
This is my biggest gripe about the Galaxy S -- compared to my old iPhone 3Gs the battery life just sucks.
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There are easy ways to take care of this if you really need better battery life. First, call T-Mobile and complain that battery life is shorter than advertised. They'll walk you through a script and send you a free spare battery. Second, get an external battery charger. They're all over ebay for about ten dollars, and most come with generic spare batteries.
I've now got a charger and three batteries, so I can pretty much make it through an entire work week without worrying. (You couldn't do that with a 3GS!)

Kubernetes said:
There are easy ways to take care of this if you really need better battery life. First, call T-Mobile and complain that battery life is shorter than advertised. They'll walk you through a script and send you a free spare battery. Second, get an external battery charger. They're all over ebay for about ten dollars, and most come with generic spare batteries.
I've now got a charger and three batteries, so I can pretty much make it through an entire work week without worrying. (You couldn't do that with a 3GS!)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Are you serious?!
You really like carrying a pocketful of spare batteries?
I have 2 spare batteries, but I pack them only when I travel.
The damned phone should be able to last throughout a full day (meaning 16 or so hours) without having to worry about turning features off or limiting your calls and mail checking).
I never had to even think about the battery with my iPhone 3Gs.

you must really be glued to your phone if you can't make it a full day

lolcopter said:
you must really be glued to your phone if you can't make it a full day
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Uhm, I am actually using it exactly the way I used my iPhone, and the way I need to use to do my work.
It just has crappy battery life
What are you comparing it to? A WM6 phone or something?

lralexl said:
I can get close to 36 hours from mine, not sure what you guys are doing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I get nice battery life but I use it too much, then "a day" is from 5am to 10pm, it's just too useful, and when you check usage, it's 75% display.
36 hours would be easy if I limited my screen on-time....while I would like a UV kernel it's likely not helping enough. My display is on lowest, yet I'd love a lower setting.
Aside, the more background services check stuff while screen is off, battery life hours down.
Overall, I am VERY happy with the battery life.
Sent from my Vibrant.

MacGuy2006 said:
Are you serious?!
You really like carrying a pocketful of spare batteries?
I have 2 spare batteries, but I pack them only when I travel.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Um, the batteries are pretty small and skinny. Are you wearing pants with no pockets or something? Seriously, the thing can almost fit in the coin pocket of some jeans.
The damned phone should be able to last throughout a full day (meaning 16 or so hours) without having to worry about turning features off or limiting your calls and mail checking).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Should? Says who? The phone is pretty average for its class. You can either complain that things are not the way you want them, or you can adapt by carrying around a diminutive spare battery.
I never had to even think about the battery with my iPhone 3Gs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You must be one of the few 3G/3GS users to never worry about battery life. Most of the users I know have (or had) to recharge mid-day, a pain in the butt since the battery is not removable. Your 3GS has a much slower processor/GPU, and a smaller screen with a quarter of the pixels; but even then, google "iphone 3gs battery life" and you'll get page after page of reviewers and users complaining about the abysmal battery life.
(of course, someone here claims that his Vibrant can go 40+ hours, so maybe your iPhone is a similar outlier.)

SamsungVibrant said:
Nah it's not any different from when you first bought it, you're just using it less, even though you think you are using it the same.
Trust me, when people buy a new phone, the first few days or couple weeks they can't take their fingers off the phone, and it appears battery sucks. As you get over your new toy phase, you don't play with it as much, and magically you think the battery has grown new cells.
bye.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its exactly what the problem is. When I flash a new rom I spend 30minutes getting back to the way I like it and my battery suffers from it. When I actually use my phone like its intended to be used I get great battery life.

Are you using any kind of ROMs? I think some ROMs greatly improves battery life.

Kubernetes said:
...
Should? Says who? The phone is pretty average for its class. You can either complain that things are not the way you want them, or you can adapt by carrying around a diminutive spare battery....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Only a true nerd....
I wear skinny jeans.... ))
Kubernetes said:
...You must be one of the few 3G/3GS users to never worry about battery life. Most of the users I know have (or had) to recharge mid-day, a pain in the butt since the battery is not removable. Your 3GS has a much slower processor/GPU, and a smaller screen with a quarter of the pixels; but even then, google "iphone 3gs battery life" and you'll get page after page of reviewers and users complaining about the abysmal battery life.
(of course, someone here claims that his Vibrant can go 40+ hours, so maybe your iPhone is a similar outlier.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dude, I've had one iPhone 2G and two iPhone 3Gs. I also have two Galaxy S variants (international and a Vibrant).
There is no comparison between the iPhone 3Gs and the Galaxy S in terms of battery life. With the same kind of usage, the iPhone 3 Gs would last about 32-37 hours, while the Galaxy S would last about 12-13.
Even the iPhone 2G lasted about 18-20 hours. Now, compared to my previous HTC WM6 and WM6.5 phone, the Galaxy S does have longer battery life, but that's nothing to be so proud of.
The Galaxy's screen is certainly better than the 3Gs's, but the Super AMOLED is supposed to be more efficient than the LCD on the iPhone. Plus, in real world use, the iPhone 3Gs certainly feels smoother than the Galaxy S, even with the lag fix, and scrolling on the iPhone is smooth as butter, while the Galaxy S is choppy.
And it's not just the OS, because the EVO scrolls noticeably smoother than the Galaxy S.

I consistently get 20+ hours out of one charge. I can't really use my phone at work, but during breaks and lunch I'm always getting on it and checking mail/feeds/youtube or whatever and still have about 70% by the time I go home. I usually have more than half by the time I go to bed unless I've been doing some tethering or heavy audio/video streaming.

SamsungVibrant said:
Nah it's not any different from when you first bought it, you're just using it less, even though you think you are using it the same.
Trust me, when people buy a new phone, the first few days or couple weeks they can't take their fingers off the phone, and it appears battery sucks. As you get over your new toy phase, you don't play with it as much, and magically you think the battery has grown new cells.
bye.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lol...thats so true...

[Q] horrible battery life! anyone else?

Hi, I been having the HTC Surround for a little over a week now. I love the look and feel to it (I know OS wise it has a lot of improvements to do but I'm willing to put up with it for a bit, considering its a new OS). However one thing I notice is that it has horrible battery life! The phone last about 10/12 Hrs on a full charge. During this time period, there is no heavy use; tops 50 txt messages send and received, about an hour of music, screen lock (brightness set to low, when on), perhaps 15 minutes of talk time, data connection turn off, about 20 minutes of WiFi (I turn off WiFi when not in use), rest of the time on stand by as mention before (with the screen locked). Another thing i noticed yesterday night was that my phone was charge completely, i left it on stand by and within 5 hrs that i slept the phone had gone a little lower than 3/4ths (data connection was off).
I read a post here that said battery may drain quicker when phone is left in cold weather and i thought maybe this could be the case. However I'm really skeptical because i live in Los Angeles. Cold weather, which is this time of the year, is mid 40 degrees at its lowest! That's not cold! But anyways i guess I'll try putting that theory on a test (imma try keeping it warm, see if it makes a difference)
so is anyone else experiencing horrible battery life? Or am I just an unlucky person who got a defective battery?
THANKS in advance

gravewormx said:
Hi, I been having the HTC Surround for a little over a week now. I love the look and feel to it (I know OS wise it has a lot of improvements to do but I'm willing to put up with it for a bit, considering its a new OS). However one thing I notice is that it has horrible battery life! The phone last about 10/12 Hrs on a full charge. During this time period, there is no heavy use; tops 50 txt messages send and received, about an hour of music, screen lock (brightness set to low, when on), perhaps 15 minutes of talk time, data connection turn off, about 20 minutes of WiFi (I turn off WiFi when not in use), rest of the time on stand by as mention before (with the screen locked). Another thing i noticed yesterday night was that my phone was charge completely, i left it on stand by and within 5 hrs that i slept the phone had gone a little lower than 3/4ths (data connection was off).
I read a post here that said battery may drain quicker when phone is left in cold weather and i thought maybe this could be the case. However I'm really skeptical because i live in Los Angeles. Cold weather, which is this time of the year, is mid 40 degrees at its lowest! That's not cold! But anyways i guess I'll try putting that theory on a test (imma try keeping it warm, see if it makes a difference)
so is anyone else experiencing horrible battery life? Or am I just an unlucky person who got a defective battery?
THANKS in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What "theme" are you using?

If I don't use my phone, it will last for days. Even when I use it through out the day, it lasts well into the next morning/afternoon.
The battery life does get better the more you drain/charge it.

dressanderc said:
What "theme" are you using?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm using a black background and lime tiles...

XeNoMoRpH1030 said:
If I don't use my phone, it will last for days. Even when I use it through out the day, it lasts well into the next morning/afternoon.
The battery life does get better the more you drain/charge it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
well, I been having it for a week now. I seen no difference in battery life. But imma give it another week or so. See if this works. Then I'm gonna try buying different battery. If that doesn't help, I think I'm going to have to switch back to my Samsung Captivate. I would hate doing this, but this type of battery life is a deal breaker. Today, it was even worse! It lasted me only 9hrs while I was at work, which at least 8 of those hrs it was on stand by!

Sounds like you have a bad battery, bro. I'd get it replaced at the store you bought it from.

dressanderc said:
Sounds like you have a bad battery, bro. I'd get it replaced at the store you bought it from.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
yeah, I'm going to try this on my day off which is on Monday. Also gives me time to test out the other persons suggestion
thanks for your opinions. I'll get back to you guys and see what happens.

My surround - now two weeks old is showing much improved battery life. It didn't make it through a day when I first got it. Part of that was due to my fiddling with it and part due - I think - to the battery conditioning.
Now, it is going a full day on a charge. I am also switching off 3G and on WiFi when I am in my office or home. It is a bit of a pain in the butt and I hope that M$ gives up some APIs soon so that someone - cough Bruce Jackson cough - will write an app. We'll see.

I have noticed that the Bluetooth drains the battery considerably faster. Try turning Bluetooth off when you don't need it.

acur8ly said:
I have noticed that the Bluetooth drains the battery considerably faster. Try turning Bluetooth off when you don't need it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't use the Bluetooth at all. So this can't be the problem. but thanks anyways. (I might need this information since I was planing on using one in the near future).
So I notice that now, my Surround does get better battery life. (which is absolutely crazy! since now I have the screen brightness on medium and data turn on lol). I guess the battery just needed to be use and charge a bit more. However, I still think battery life could be improved. (hopefully, future updates will teak some system settings that will do this)
I have also decided that I will keep my Surround instead of going back to my Captivate I wish battery life would be better and the OS to be more "open" but truth be told, I fell in love with my phone haha Then when i went back to my Samsung Captivate, it felt weird. Android felt much slower.
So i gave it a little test; I launched messaging, email, music, browser, etc on both phones at the same time. Turns out both of them launch these native applications in the same amount of time.
I guess what makes WP7 fell smother and faster is the (eyecandy) transitions.

think its the battery
ya i have had mine for 2 weeks now and i think the problem is the fact that the battery is a 1230mAh, and we also have a samsung focus with a 1450mAh battery that will last an exra 2-3 hours longer which makes a huge difference! im hoping htc will make a larger mAh battery avaliable, mine will only last anywhere from 5-7 hours from normal use

I just ordered a Mugen 1300mah battery..not *much* more capacity, but hopefully it helps a bit!

if i dont use my surround (like not using too much 3g, wifi, music, gaming, and just normal phone calls and texts) it can last a whole day and probably a lil more, but when i do too much 3g/wifi/gaming/music it drains quickkkkkk.
and i do hope htc will have a larger capacity battery for the surround soon... 1230 is kinda small compare to other phones nowadays..
but still this has much better battery life than my previous phones (diamond2 and touchpro)
i just find myself carrying the usb cable and wall charger alot in my bag :]
and having a car charger is a plus also.

My girlfreind has had the phone since xmas. Initially the battery would lose its charge very quickly. I had her do a bump charge and just let the battery settle in. She can now go up a third day wothout the need for a charge with moderate txt.
Be aware the quick drop whenn taking it off the charger is NORMAL. Read this thread for a discussion of that http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=871051
Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk

Agree - Bad Battery Life - But not as bad as some....
Smart phones, in general, aren't what I would call great at conserving battery life under any condition. Pick any model of high-end smart phone and tell me who can get more than 2 days (using every trick in the book to eliminate unnecessary drain). Yes, this phone is under-powered in terms of only having a 1300 mAh battery when it should have a 1400 or 1500.
Cut the unnecessary stuff when you are not using it - Bluetooth, WiFi, etc.
You can easily get a day + out of this phone with moderate/mixed use (some talking, some browsing, some multi-media viewing). That's pretty good, I'd say (from my relative experience across many different types of smart phones). I just plug it in every night.....pick it up in the morning and go. Haven't had any issues with it running out during the day.
Now, if you are starting first thing in the morning and running movies, have the bluetooth going, the WiFi on........well, heck yes, you are going to have a battery drain problem. If you want to run it that way.....just leave it plugged in.

Has anyone used a Seidio Innocell 1300mAh Replacement battery? Was wondering if it was worth the investment to improve the Surround's poor battery performance.
Thanks,

So...when is someone gonna step up to the plate and improve battery technology? It really sucks that these phone manufacturers are giving us ALL these fancy features that drain the battery and when we complain about having poor battery life they are telling us to not use all those fancy features...kinda defeats the purpose of buying a smartphone, am I right?

guys .. wake PLZ UP ))
1 ghz (1-2 core cpu ) ..
3.8 and more screen ..
DEDICATED GRAPHICS .
OS .
with DIRECTX9 Interface .
and that all spiced up with 1600 ma battery in best case .
and that you wana to run more then 6 hours on full load ? say THX TO MS .. for NON multitask os .. overwise battery life was even more lol then this

dgduris said:
My surround - now two weeks old is showing much improved battery life. It didn't make it through a day when I first got it. Part of that was due to my fiddling with it and part due - I think - to the battery conditioning.
Now, it is going a full day on a charge. I am also switching off 3G and on WiFi when I am in my office or home. It is a bit of a pain in the butt and I hope that M$ gives up some APIs soon so that someone - cough Bruce Jackson cough - will write an app. We'll see.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I noticed this as well. As time went by the battery actually started to last longer. When i first got it i used it less than i do now and the battery would die before i even got home for work. Now it lasts till about an hour or so after i finish and get home.

does the surround use the same battery as the HTC desire HD?
Theres an ebay seller that is selling a surround battery and wall charger but the wall charger has a sticker that says: For HTC Desire HD

[Q] HELP in Extending Xperia Play Battery Usage

problem solved by gingerbread 2.3.3 update

The problem is that gaming takes a lot of battery power. I haven't attempted to game for 6 or 7 hours straight but generally speaking, the Play has the best battery of all the handsets I've played with in a really long time. I jumped from a Captivate to the Play and even with little use, the only way I would get through a day is by charging while at work. No problem anymore with the Play, which always has way more charge than I expect to see when I check out my battery life. On the Captivate, you'd be lucky to get 3 or 4 hours of non-stop gaming before it was dead. My first charge, I went 36 hours on my Play with quite a lot of gaming (though not all in one sitting and probably not as concentrated as you). I can hit the promised 5 hours of straight gaming.
I've rooted and removed a few small apps here and there, nothing too huge. I don't bother with attempting to save battery life by going GSM only or just using a headset. Not sure what else you can do. Maybe your apps are more battery-hungry than mine.

Well I havnt modden not even rooted my play but I get 24 hrs or more easily with 1-2 hours gaming and moderate web browsing
Sent from my R800i using XDA Premium App

One thing I ha e noticed is if you are in a poor signal area and the phone is constantly searching for signal it will drain the battery quite fast.... just a tip to check out... I've solved my battery issues by turning the phone off when inside the office as after 2 hours of no use with no data or wireless connections the phone would lose 20% battery
Sent from my R800i using XDA App

I came from the iPone 3GS to the Play and the iphone had great battery life for movies, music and web. But when you played games the battery died fast. I still need to try with my Play but I think I get more playtime from it. Download Advance Task Manager and run it when you are finished playing around with your phone each time, great little app. I also killed the widgets. Widgets are awesome and I wish I could use them but they seem to kill my battery fast. I'm going to order the charger with extra battery from Ebay soon. (Probably today)
It charges a separate battery on a stand so if you have a big game day you can swap out the battery during the day.
I love this phone for games. The iphone has a lot of games but 1 in 100 are worth the time. And the touch screen sucks for playing games. But the iphone beats the android for ease of use for thing like managing space.
Also get App to SD Pro. It is worth it and I like to buy cool tools if it saves me time of going through all my games to see which ones I can move to the SD card.

neptune said:
One thing I ha e noticed is if you are in a poor signal area and the phone is constantly searching for signal it will drain the battery quite fast.... just a tip to check out... I've solved my battery issues by turning the phone off when inside the office as after 2 hours of no use with no data or wireless connections the phone would lose 20% battery
Sent from my R800i using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hear that at work I have to put it on Airplane Mode.
For to increase battery you can put advance task killer on or something and get it to auto kill after lock like I did for my HTC Hero but with new advancements in the custom roms I didn't need it. I expect custom roms to help battery. Untill then, think about getting a new bigger battery. Look in the accessaries thread and find mugan batteries.

narflynn619 said:
Settings
Android System
Crash Monitor
com.sonyericsson.usbux
Diagnostics Tool
MtpApp
Media Server
SecureClockService
Maps
devicemonitor
Messaging extension
Music
Call log extension
Sony Ericsson Sync
Setup Guide
Get Games
Chinese Keyboard (i need this one)
Please help me.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You have another couple in there that I would get rid of
Crash monitor, SecureClockService, SetupGuide, Sony Ericcson Sync.
If any of those make you nervous, have a look at this thread for details on each (look for the entry from "constin").
http://forum.xda-developers.com/archive/index.php/t-1047689.html
As always, freeze first Oh, and kill your music service when not in use also.

I leave my house at 7 am for work with a fully charged phone.
I play with it at work for about 2-3 hours on and off. (my work place is really easy going, not much to do atm )
I get home at 4pm (which is now) and battery is 48%.
Then i play with it around 1-2 hours at night when i am in bed after 10 pm.
Normally the battery is around 15% then and i put it back on charge.
So i guess 6-7 hours worth of non-stop gaming sounds about right tbh.

For no signal situations, you might want to grab NoBars from the market. When it sees that you have no signal, it puts the phone into airplane mode to save your battery and then checks for signal again every ten minutes or hour or whatever you set it to.

hey,
this is Android, not iphone
get more batteries and a dock charger~

yanyu said:
hey,
this is Android, not iphone
get more batteries and a dock charger~
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank god its not an iphone, theyl forget to put a microphone on the next one lol

I've been using Juice Defender, it works great IMO. Turns off 3G and Wifi whenever the screen is off, runs scheduled data periods to let apps/widgets update, etc.