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Hi guys,
I just want to know, what battery life are you guys getting with push email turned on. I have to charge my phone almost twice a day with reasonable use.
10 emails
1 hour calls
4 sms
1 hour web browsing
(no wifi or gps)
I can get 3 days with push switched on if I only use 2G and don't use the phone very much.
ie. push isn't a big battery drain in itself.
Maybe push is not big battery drain but being connected to 3G or HSDPA network is BBBBBBIIIIIGGGG battery drain.
I can get through near the week (5 or 6 days) making a few phone calls and SMS with Data Off whereas with 3G on, I will barely last 2 days (and surfing in the train when going to work (2h), battery will not last a day !!). And as push mail implies data on, I would say that it has an impact !!
3G kills the battery.
You can still push email through 2g.
I wonder if someone can create a program that will automatically switch the modes on and off depending on the amount of data being transmitted?
aad4321 said:
still nothing out there to switch it to 2g when the screen is off huh?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
THAT! would be an awesome feature.
Data = radio being used, display = live wallpapers and the amount of time the screen stays on plus other additions are a big battery drain but sync in itself isn't that bad even on 3G and I have a G1 with its crappy battery.
Check Settings...About Phone...Battery Use to see what is using the most power. This can help identify unexpected battery drain.
For example some people also forget about widgets that use data like the weather and news widget. To maximize battery turn off all "background data" apps that you don't really use.
Also get Advanced Task Killer and set it to auto kill apps that you don't want running long term (be sure to setup the exclude list for those you want running).
You can use the Power Control widget to enable and disable unused items like Wifi, bluetooth, GPS, and background data.
Set your screen brightness to as low comfortable. On my phone the screen uses the most battery so this is important. You can use the Power Control widget to increase brightness quickly if needed.
Use 2G to save battery. For most stuff it's really not that bad. Use Wifi when you can as uses less power than 2G and is faster than 3G.
I use my phone a lot and it lasts all day. I don't really care if it lasts longer than 16 hours or so if it does all the fun stuff I want between charges.
^Excellent tips! Welcome to XDA!
Bought my Xperia just over a month ago, and installed juicedefender and juiceplotter to help manage my power use.
At first, I did the whole charging cycle thing, and managed to get battery life up to nearly 20 hours after a week! In the past few weeks however, my phone barely lasts 10 hours now...the battery dies before I can get a chance to recharge. I am a heavy user, but that doesn't seem to explain the sudden drop in battery capacity.
Because of the drop in power over the last few weeks, I have set EVERYTHING to not update, and google sync has been set to sync every other day.
Will my battery just continue to get worse? or do I have a faulty battery?
don't get me wrong, I love my new phone...I just need to know if this is a typical problem, or if I need to get a new battery.
Thanks!
Hi - I'm getting about 40 hours out of mine.. I tend to switch mobile data off when I'm at home as I use wifi.. the problem seems mainly to lie with 3G.. so when I'm out and about I switch wifi off and mobile data on.. but I tend to keep to 2G (GSM) for background syncing etc.. and switch 3G(GSM/WCDMA preferred) on when I want to do any active stuff.. like internet browsing of using the XDA app... I also have my Wifi sleep policy set to "sleep when screen is off"..
What do you use your phone for? if you can tell me a bit about how your using your handset I might be able to give you some more specific advice.
Thanks for the fast reply!
I use juice defender to switch off 3G when the screen is off. It connects every 15 minutes, could that be the issue?
I've looked for a way to switch to GSM, but I can't seem to do it with my carrier(don't have the option in my settings).
I use a lot of data, up to 3 gigs per month 3G only(on average). 4 or 5 calls a day, and probably 100 texts per day. I keep my screen at around 25% brightness.
If you can't switch to GSM then maybe try switching mobile data off all together when you're not using it..(when travelling etc)... (far from ideal I know!).. but it might help.. I think that the 3G radio isn't sleeping properly.. the new software update which is due out anytime now MIGHT solve it.. but only if you're either on an unbranded handset (sound like you're not) or your carrier pushes the update through to you...
The other things you can try is to switch off "Search for updates automatically" in the phone settings... and switch of determine location by wireless networks (in the location settings menu)..
There was a thread about auto brightness causing constant cpu drain, leaving it autobrightness is thought to be battery kind`er.
Ive stopped using task managers and just use default android control and its good for my battery. I check the ram availability occasionaly and though it gets down to around 30 or 40 or meg it shows no slowdowns or hangups but I do reboot after charging every other night.
I'm experiencing similar behavior: poor, then good, then poor, then good again, of course with similar usage. I don't use any task killer and have 3G always on. I have tried 3 different batteries: the stock one, the one from my X1, and the 1800 mAh from Mugen: same pattern with every battery.
I definitely think that there's something bad in the design of the power circuitry and/or in the kernel.
I keep seeing all these threads about how people are getting rediculous hours on 1 charge, but mostly all the post I see are people with rooted phones. What are the best ways to increase battery live on a epic with stock rom?
Those crazy battery life u see is ppl putting their phone in airplane mode and with very limited use. They don't mean anything. But some tips to improve batt life are keep screen brightness down, turn off 4g when not in use, maybe use juice defender to automatically turn off 3g whenever the screen is off.
Sent from my Epic 4G
I'm 100% stock, unrooted.
Turned off Auto-Sync
Brightness set to auto
Wifi on, since I'm usually within range of work or home wifi
Swapped Wifi policy to never drop when asleep. (prevents wifi from dropping and going to 3g)
Killed that absolutely stupid DRM process
Activate Airplane mode after initial boot and turn it back off. (Due to Samsung bug)
Have any program that syncs set to sync at 2hr intervals
My battery life with heavy usage will last over 6 hours (games, txts, browsing, app downloading). With moderate usage it usually can go 15 hours (sans app downloading), and with light usage I've pushed it 2 days (games and txts).
Mind you I don't use the browser much since 90% of my day is in front a PC, Mon-Fri.
I'm 100% stock, no root as well.
1.Train your battery!
when I got my phone I did at least 3 full charge/complete discharge cycles
2.I do not use any Task Killers or JuiceDefender (tried and uninstalled for ineffectiveness), I just use built in tool to monitor running programs and kill off the one I do not need. I prefer not to install application that do not have clean exit programmed. I do use JuicePlotter to monitor battery charge/discharge.
3. After each reboot toggle airplane mode on and off(Airplane trick)
4. Go to Menu/Settings/Applications/Running Services and shut down all services that not needed (DRM, MediaHub, etc)
5. Set brightness to minimal possible value (works fine for me), not auto set - when I need it on the street just slide the finger across the status bar and raise the level as needed.
6. All 4G, GPS, Wi-Fi are off and on only when needed. I use Wi-Fi home, 4G at work, rest of the places 3G or whatever is available. My data/sync is always on. Wi-Fi set to never sleep.
7. I have Roaming Guard off since my house in the very poor reception area so it's roaming most of the time but there is wi-fi for data.
8. Use dark background/wallpaper (I use Star Wars light speed jump live wallpaper)
IMO the battery life is depend on the type of use. From my 2 month experience the following battery killer tasks are:
1.Streaming video, music with screen on (will discharge the battery even when plugged in.
1a.Streaming music with screen off.
2. I haven't tried tethering (hot spot mode) but would think it's a killer as well
3. Browsing web, especially over 3G
4. Roaming
5. Game playing.
6. GPS
Obviously you can have a bad (defective) battery, but it's likely less then 1%.
Good luck!
nikon120 - What do you consider moderate? I consider my usage to be moderate, but I can't go 15hrs. Yesterday after fully charging the phone from mid point, my phone completely died after 5hrs, with very light usuage as most of that time I was busy. Today with light to moderate usage, my phone is indicating that it needs to be charged at roughly hr 10.
stud_muffler - I'm not familair with this airplane trick you're referring to. Can you enlighten me?
I'm doing most of the things suggested in this post, but I still don't think the battery usage I'm getting is up to par. The battery life on my Epic is much worse then what I was getting on my WinMo TP2, with roughly the same amount of usage.
noreboy said:
stud_muffler - I'm not familair with this airplane trick you're referring to. Can you enlighten me?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
After you reboot the phone press and hold Power button until it buzz.
Menu will appear.
Select and touch Airplane Mode option. It will turn off all radio and show plane icon in the status bar.
wait few seconds and repeat to turn radio on.
that's all.
This isn't a thread for when your battery drain is excessive on standby, this is a thread dedicated to figuring out how to simply get more power to the phone for extended runtime.
I'm using a 5000 mah external battery pack for extra charge, and it seems to be good enough to last me at least an extra day or two of usage, which is great. It seems like the only other options are cutting up the battery door to fit an extended battery from the evo 3D or just carrying extra batteries...
Best easy change for me was always using wifi instead of the network when at home and work. Made a huge improvement
Hunt3r.j2 said:
This isn't a thread for when your battery drain is excessive on standby, this is a thread dedicated to figuring out how to simply get more power to the phone for extended runtime.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So....how to get the most time out of your battery in standby?
As you've allready said:
One of the biggest improvements is possible by using a Sensation or Evo3D battery. With that i get a nice 1% per hour in standby. (It's actually a bit lower than 1%).
While not using the phone it's unnessecary to have 3G activated. Recieving emails and texts via whatsapp, viber etc via 2G is good enough. For everything that is more datahungry you can allways activate 3G manually.
Keep background data turned off. I use K9 Mail which works independently and Whatsapp recieves messages too. But a lot of other stuff doesn't syncronize which means less wakelocks and thus less power consumption.
Same with locations. As long as you don't WANT to tell google your every step you can keep network based location turned off.
If you need a location fix quickly you can allways turn on gps for a moment. After using the FasterFix app (i guess you need root for that), i get a gps lock in 5 seconds, so i can determin my location really fast and share it with others (for intance via whatsapp) without having to keep it on all the time.
And last but not least:
You probably don't need to know the current outside temperature every 5 minutes. So set that to manual update too.
Doing these things doesn't turn my smartphone into an overweight dumbphone with a battery problem and i get a maximum of over 4 days of standby time out of it.
Normally my battery holds for roughly 35 hours (1 day and 11 hours), but it's usually awake for 1/4th of the time serving as my newspaper and video and mp3 player.
/edit:
Totally forgot:
Use llama!
You'll never have to worry about forgetting to set your phone on vibrate while at work and setting it to loud at home.
You can configure it so it only activates wifi at home and turns it off again if you didn't connect to any access point after a set amount of time. I haven't had to activate/deactivate wifi manually for ages without having to worry about it constantly searching for networks and sucking my battery dry!
What he said
Dlog said:
So....how to get the most time out of your battery in standby?
As you've allready said:
One of the biggest improvements is possible by using a Sensation or Evo3D battery. With that i get a nice 1% per hour in standby. (It's actually a bit lower than 1%).
While not using the phone it's unnessecary to have 3G activated. Recieving emails and texts via whatsapp, viber etc via 2G is good enough. For everything that is more datahungry you can allways activate 3G manually.
Keep background data turned off. I use K9 Mail which works independently and Whatsapp recieves messages too. But a lot of other stuff doesn't syncronize which means less wakelocks and thus less power consumption.
Same with locations. As long as you don't WANT to tell google your every step you can keep network based location turned off.
If you need a location fix quickly you can allways turn on gps for a moment. After using the FasterFix app (i guess you need root for that), i get a gps lock in 5 seconds, so i can determin my location really fast and share it with others (for intance via whatsapp) without having to keep it on all the time.
And last but not least:
You probably don't need to know the current outside temperature every 5 minutes. So set that to manual update too.
Doing these things doesn't turn my smartphone into an overweight dumbphone with a battery problem and i get a maximum of over 4 days of standby time out of it.
Normally my battery holds for roughly 35 hours (1 day and 11 hours), but it's usually awake for 1/4th of the time serving as my newspaper and video and mp3 player.
/edit:
Totally forgot:
Use llama!
You'll never have to worry about forgetting to set your phone on vibrate while at work and setting it to loud at home.
You can configure it so it only activates wifi at home and turns it off again if you didn't connect to any access point after a set amount of time. I haven't had to activate/deactivate wifi manually for ages without having to worry about it constantly searching for networks and sucking my battery dry!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Exactly what he said, but you can automate a lot of it by using an app called Tasker. I use it to sync all data on my phone for 3 minutes every 4 hours so it's always up to date. It can also automate the GPS on/off depending which app I use so it switches on when I open CoPilot and turns off again when I close it.
Tasker can also replace Llama if you can find 'profiles. to do it. Llama looks pretty good though.
I think the biggest drain is the display. With auto brightness on, the sensor will monitor the changes in your surrounding every second the moment you turn on the screen. Turn that off and manually control the brightness save a lot of battery.
Or just use lower autobrightness script.
I use Invisibright. Long hold on search softkey + slide enables me to set the brightness to whatever I want in a second no matter what apps are running.
Hunt3r.j2 said:
Or just use lower autobrightness script.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is still useless as your sensor is still working every time you turn on your screen. The sensor is draining your battery. Not the brightness value.
Autobrightness sensor drain
So you think that there is a greater drain from the light sensor than from an uncontrolled screen brightness?
Interesting thought. I'll manually set my brightness level a round20% for the next charge cycle and see what effect it has, though I suspect that as my display currently accounts for 20% of battery drain it won't make all that much difference.
I use juice defender and I think its actually working.
Sent from my Inspire 4G using XDA
I noticed that my S4 i9505 was getting hot despite what I was doing, playing heavy games like RR3, or just seeing some stuff on the gallery, and my battery is lasting around 10h...
So I made a test, put the screen timeout to 10 mins, and let it on the homescreen (with black background and no widgets, I have absolutely no widget on any homescreen), the battery drained very quick, and the screen was hot like hell
I forced to close all apps, cleaned RAM, and began the test again, same thing, battery draining quick, and screen very hot...
So I tried turning off wifi+GPS+mobile data, and made the test again, the battery didn't lose even 1%, and the screen was room temperature...
Now, why is it getting so hot and draining battery with wifi+GPS+mobile data even if I don't have any widget, and I always chose APPs like facebook to keep me always offline and never notify anithing?
This phone was very expensive, and I use Gotya to protect it from thieves, but I need to keep wifi+GPS+mobile data ON with I want this program to work, so I don't want to need to turn everything off and take the risk of being robbed and now getting it back, but also I just wanted to the battery last long enough so I don't need to charge more than at night while I sleep....
These are the options I use daily:
http://imageshack.us/a/img841/6088/zxeg.png
http://imageshack.us/a/img138/6043/7fk1.png
Even with power saving ON on two places, it rarelly lasts enough to not charge it before I go to bed
And this is my homescreen:
http://imageshack.us/a/img59/2005/i8b6.png
http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/659/2p8w.png
Using Wifi+GPS+Mobile Data, it will spend ~4% every 10 minutes... but when I turn them off, it'll spend ~1% every HOUR!
Specht77 said:
http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/659/2p8w.png
Using Wifi+GPS+Mobile Data, it will spend ~4% every 10 minutes... but when I turn them off, it'll spend ~1% every HOUR!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's not too unusual. What do you expect? Using Wifi+GPS+Mobile Data does consume battery rather quickly on any device, particularly when the screen is on and driving a 5" Full HD screen.
If the Wifi+GPS+Mobile Data have weak signals, the battery will be consumed even more quickly than normal as the respective radio strains to connect to the weak signal. Even when the phone is completely off your phone, the battery will lose power, though at a slower rate.
The art and science of power management is about knowing what you want and prioritizing your needs based on realistic performance expectations. Almost nobody needs to run Wifi+GPS+Mobile Data at the same time, so ask yourself what's the thing you are doing and then prioritize your power expenditure based on those needs.
In my case, I don't use autosync. I sync manually every hour or so if needed, or less if not, and same for location services: Off until I need them. I toggle my data off when not using it, use Wifi over mobile data because it tends to be stronger signal and use less battery, keep my brightness at manually set reasonable levels, and I can easily get two days out of a charge, even with 4-5 hours of screen-on time, which includes gaming, surfing, calls, texts, voicemail, etc.
I'm not dissatisfied with the battery life, but I am dissatisfied with a few other things on the S4. It's not a perfect device, but overall, it's good, and I'm not even running a stock ROM, which is most typically said to give even better battery life overall.
Every Wiz-bang "feature" of Touchwiz comes at a price. There's no free lunch, my friend. Turn off what you don't need, or be prepared to pay the price for it.
donalgodon said:
That's not too unusual. What do you expect? Using Wifi+GPS+Mobile Data does consume battery rather quickly on any device, particularly when the screen is on and driving a 5" Full HD screen.
If the Wifi+GPS+Mobile Data have weak signals, the battery will be consumed even more quickly than normal as the respective radio strains to connect to the weak signal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
About the screen, as I said, in 10 minutes with W+G+M ON (Don't want to keep repeting every time) it spends +-4% with screen turned on (and it even gets HOT!)
with W+G+M OFF it spends 1% or less with the screen turned on (at least on my homescreen that is very dark) (and it keeps on room temperature)
I just expected that it didn't drained the battery so furiously, since I have no widgets to keep getting updates from internet, Sync is turned off, etc...
Specht77 said:
About the screen, as I said, in 10 minutes with W+G+M ON (Don't want to keep repeting every time) it spends +-4% with screen turned on (and it even gets HOT!)
with W+G+M OFF it spends 1% or less with the screen turned on (at least on my homescreen that is very dark) (and it keeps on room temperature)
I just expected that it didn't drained the battery so furiously, since I have no widgets to keep getting updates from internet, Sync is turned off, etc...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I live in a warm, tropical climate, and at times, during gaming or in poor signal areas, my S4 will get a bit warm, but nothing unusual, and again, when you have the radios turned on, they are going to heat the device up and consume the battery, and the hotter it gets, the worse the power loss is. It's just a fact. There are inescapable Laws of Physics at play here. There's no way around them at present.
The radios use a lot of power, and much more so when they are all on at once (as you described) and straining to connect in a poor signal area.
donalgodon said:
are going to heat the device up and consume the battery, and the hotter it gets, the worse the power loss is. It's just a fact. There are inescapable Laws of Physics at play here. There's no way around them at present.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
By the way you're talking to me, I assume you think I'm a dumbass, it's obvious that the hotter it's getting it's because it's speding more energy, that's why I'm putting enphasis on the fact it's getting HOT, because I'm with absolutely no APP open, even made a "clear RAM" to close everything, and still it's getting HOT of how much energy it's spending even in IDLE
I have a nokia N8, and if I let it with screen on, on IDLE, wifi ON, 3G on, it won't get hot as my S4 is getting from the draining of the battery
Specht77 said:
By the way you're talking to me, I assume you think I'm a dumbass, it's obvious that the hotter it's getting it's because it's speding more energy, that's why I'm putting enphasis on the fact it's getting HOT, because I'm with absolutely no APP open, even made a "clear RAM" to close everything, and still it's getting HOT of how much energy it's spending even in IDLE
I have a nokia N8, and if I let it with screen on, on IDLE, wifi ON, 3G on, it won't get hot as my S4 is getting from the draining of the battery
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's not what I think. I don't experience what you do, so I can only guess that it's something related to a) Tochwiz and/or your software cong or b) something hardware related to your device.
Have you thought about flashing CM to test it? I'd be curious to see if it continues.
FWIW, I'd love a Nokia-based Android device. Their hardware is amazing.
Go into Settings > More > Developer Options > Show CPU Usage. It should indicate which process is using a lot of CPU and heating up your device.
That gotya protection app should be working overtime on all radios keeping it awake and running all the time ... may be something with it's settings or you should find another one to do the job ... generally if you have some apps syncing and an open data connection halves your battery life and even more if that is mobile data but still your case is certainly abnormal and i think it has to do with the particular app you mentioned using ...
uninstall it and test how battery hold with data connections and gps on ...