Database Users

I9100 in China - Comparison (FW, battery life, carriers, stats, etc.)

Hi there,
I got an SGS2 GT-I9100 recently and I am still trying to tweak it to suit my needs.
I'd like to ask the people living in China about their stats and configuration since it seems many issues are usually location/carrier related.
My biggest problem so far is battery drain. I have noticed that whenever wifi is on, my battery goes down by around 1% every 15 minutes or so with phone in standby. When wifi is off I can lose about 1-2% every hour.
I mean, after seeing lt_ler battery stats even with stock FW, having wifi on (night usage), I think there must be something wrong with my settings or phone.
BetterBatteryStats reports no important wakelocks. CPUSpy reads what it seem to be normal Deep Sleep time.
I think it might have something to do with the wifi router. Mine is the one from China Unicom (中国联通) ZXV10 H108B (v. 2.0.0 BJ).
My phone carrier is China Mobile（中国移动）.
I am using Frankenstein KK5 firmware with Siyah 2.4.2. I will be trying uninstalling different apps and then changing kernel, modem or whatever I can think of if it doesn't work.
I also get a high percentage of "Cell standby" battery use in the stock battery usage monitor, reporting "100% time without signal", although I have signal all the time at 4 bars and have no trouble making or receiving calls/sms. I think this wasn't happening before installing Siyah.
So please, people, share your thoughts, stats, settings and ideas. It'll be much appreciated. Also, if some better Chinese reader than me can find some thread/post somewhere about this on some Chinese website, like gfan, please let me know and I'll try and decipher it myself. I just can't find it...
PS: I'll try to add some screenshots later.

hi bro,
im leaving in Suzhou China area and using china mobile service also.
i dont encountered the problem as u describe above.
im running MIUI galnet ICS version with Siyah 2.5.1GT. baseband XXKI4.
on single charge (using extended 2000mah here), can last me up to 2.5-3 days using my previous roaming malaysian SIM card (no data). refer to picture.
using china mobile simcard, yield nearly similar result. again with data-off.
i dont use any special configuration js default conf from MIUI's rom.
have u tried different ROM?

Thanks, mate. I might give MIUI a try, since it is Chinese after all, I just wanted to stay close to stock for now.
Do you use wifi?

no prob !
yeah did use wifi in hotel. but only ON when wanna use. if not i turn it off.
at night also i turned it off.
yeah, u should give MIUI a shot. pretty nice and neat. since used it dont wanna use standard TW's rom anymore. hehe
but prepare to have few disadvantage as below:
1. degrade camera quality
2. no HDMI out, TV out not sure
3. some kernel might give unsmooth experience when watching 1080p video

I'm afraid the problem here has to do with wifi. Because as I said, when turned off at night I get a reasonable performance. But during the day, when it is on because I need to have mail pushed, the battery fades quickly...

I'm in Beijing and have no issues with battery life on China Mobile. I always keep the device on with data, gps, wifi etc. Most of my usage at the hotel is via wifi and when I'm out is on edge. Can generally get 25-30 hours on a single charge. I'm using stock KK5 with siyah kernel v2.4.2 with KL1 modem.

Should close wifi and background data.U can enable them once per 30 min or an hour.Continuous usage on wifi,especially background data can cause u great battery drainage.
For me,if i close wifi and background data,it only drops 1 or 2 percent an hour,but it drops drastically if they are on.Sometimes 20 percent in one hour.It's just a Galaxy S2 issue.Try to flash different roms and kernels to have better battery life.
I am currently in china using china mobile.

[Q] Battery life terrible, despite trying all the supposed "fixes", hardware problem?

[Q] Battery life terrible, despite trying all the supposed "fixes", hardware problem?
I got my N4 a bit less than a month ago by this point. I've rooted and tried most ROMS from stock to CM10.1 to PA, etc. However, my battery life is consistently not so good. Coming from a One XL on CM10, I was used to bad battery life, but I expected the N4 to be better.
I don't have any screenshots, but here are my averages:
Time on Battery: 10-14 hours
Screen on: ~1.5 hours (usually, never have gotten over 2.5)
Android OS kept awake: ~1-1.5 hours
I know I'm among the group of people with the problem of Android OS keeping the phone awake, and I see all of these kernels attempting to fix the msm_hsic_wakelock issue, but I'm still having that as well.
I'm always on auto-brightness, Google sync on (calendar, chrome, gmail), Google Now enabled, etc. I'm also always on data, usually 2 bars + (the signal never gets worse than yellow on the battery graph.
Lastly, on wifi, all of these issues are gone. My idle battery drain is also phenomanol on wifi compared to data or even no wifi + no data. In about 8 hours I drained ~8% even with the data off.
Any ideas? I'm getting really frustrated. I see people claiming 2+ hours screen time or 20+ hours on battery on stock phones! I'm nowhere near the average battery times.

I know I'm among the group of people with the problem of Android OS keeping the phone awake, and I see all of these kernels attempting to fix the msm_hsic_wakelock issue, but I'm still having that as well.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Android OS is not keeping your phone awake. It's one of those crappy apps you have installed that are causing a wakelock causing the phone not to deep sleep.
Download: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1179809
Use it to debug partial and kernel wakelocks (primarily partial wakelocks). Check CPU states using that app or download CPU Spy from play store.
It needs to be deep sleeping.
Google Now: Disable cards that you dont use.
Turn off auto brightness and adjust it to your liking (CM10.1 has a feature if you long press on status bar it will adjust its brightness so you can do it like that).
Use Franco Kernel r23 (it's the most stable one, if you want to experiment you can try r26).
Google Maps: turn off Google Maps Latitude and its automatic reporting of your location and uncheck auto reporting in your location.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/...xLDEsImNvbS5iaWdleWVzMHgwLnRyaWNrc3Rlcm1vZCJd use that app with Franco Kernel (or buy his app) to adjust its kernel settings.
http://zephik.com/upload/Screenshot_2012-12-14-19-05-58.png is a screenshot from last month. Pretty good battery overall for me.
Press the thanks if I helped. Will reply back if you have any questions or follow ups.

I've been on CM10.1 nightly 1231 for 3 days now and I can happily say that my battery is much better than before.
I've averaging 24-28 hours with 3 hours screen on with data only and usually charging at around 10%.
Always Enabled:
All Location Services
Google Sync
Always Disabled (except when needed):
Google Maps/Latitude location settings
Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS
Google Now cards that I don't normally use
Some things I've noticed:
- When I flash a new ROM and restore my TiBu (flashable zip or regular restore) I find that my battery life is average at best.
- When I flash a new ROM and fresh install my apps from the Play Store my battery life is good to great.
- Third party kernels can sometimes be wonky on this phone. I haven't tried Faux or Franco kernel since flashing 1231 because I've been getting great performance on CM kernel.
- When my kernel CPU is set to "ondemand" the performance is average at best. Changing it to "interactive" has helped improve my battery life... with no other kernel tweaks involved.
Apps like Facebook and Facebook Messenger seem to cause issues with my battery life also. When I was on CM10.1 nightly 1223 I had Facebook Messenger installed and my averages were 12-14 hours off battery. So by eliminating a few apps on fresh ROM installs I've been able to see the different effects they've had on my battery life. Basically any app that uses GPS can potentially be a battery hog even when the phone is not in use.
So from my points above are also some of my takeaways. Try a fresh install and watch what apps you install. Try a few different kernel governors (esp if you're on a custom ROM). You can improve performance by trial and error!
Good luck.
EDIT: zephiK's points above are also valid and I can confirm they've helped my battery life also.

asawoszc said:
I've been on CM10.1 nightly 1231 for 3 days now and I can happily say that my battery is much better than before.
I've averaging 24-28 hours with 3 hours screen on with data only (WiFi disabled) and usually charging at around 10%. All Location Services (with exception of Google Maps/Latitude) are enabled and as well as Google Sync.
Some things I've noticed:
- When I flash a new ROM and restore my TiBu (flashable zip or regular restore) I find that my battery life is average at best.
- When I flash a new ROM and fresh install my apps from the Play Store my battery life is good to great.
- Third party kernels can sometimes be wonky on this phone. I haven't tried Faux or Franco kernel since flashing 1231 because I've been getting great performance on CM kernel.
- When my kernel CPU is set to "ondemand" the performance is average at best. Changing it to "interactive" has helped improve my battery life... with no other kernel tweaks involved.
Apps like Facebook Messenger seem to cause issues with my battery life also. When I was on CM10.1 nightly 1223 I had FB Msgr installed and my averages were 12-14 hours off battery. So by eliminating a few apps on fresh ROM installs I've been able to see the different effects they've had on my battery life.
So from my points above are also some of my takeaways. Try a fresh install and watch what apps you install. Try a few different kernel governors (esp if you're on a custom ROM). You can improve performance by trial and error!
Good luck.
EDIT: zephiK's points above are also valid and I can confirm they've helped my battery life also.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree 100% with Facebook. The facebook app sucks your battery life HARD, especially if you plan to have it refreshing intervals. The app continues to request GPS location, so therefore because of that I disable the GPS on my phone completely (its that bug where if u have GPS globally on your phone you see it on the top left of your screen, and it doesnt go away). I leave FB all notifications off and manually sync it by pulling up on news feed. It's either that or check FB via mobile webpage.
Another thing I forgot is your refresh intervals. Make sure your apps don't have it on like syncing every 5/10/15/30/45/60 minutes. Set it to a couple hours more. using a twitter app? instead of having it sync in the background, just manually do it so you get all the missing tweets all at once. No reason to have it sync in the background randomly.
+1 on interactive. on Franco kernel it uses Interactive as it's default governor and it includes a lot of the latest interactive patches that really help out. It also includes qualcomm fixes with msic (not 100% but its better than stock), and newer drivers that will most likely be included in the next OTA.

Thank you for the replies everyone. In regards to all of the fixes you've suggested, I've tried all of them in the past week or two based on hours and hours of reading. This problem even exists on a freshly installed ROM with the bare minimum apps.
Now that I think about it, I wonder if there may be a problem with the radio in my phone. I live on a farm with an AT&T tower, yet I'm only getting "ok" signal, when I should be getting perfect signal. Called Google and just ordered my RMA, seeing as this battery problem has persisted from the day I first loaded up stock 4.2.1 on the phone upon receiving it.

If you constantly have a low signal, that will drain your battery a lot, because it has to boost the signal and that needs a lot more power.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using xda premium

nosenuggets45 said:
Now that I think about it, I wonder if there may be a problem with the radio in my phone. I live on a farm with an AT&T tower, yet I'm only getting "ok" signal, when I should be getting perfect signal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This would have been useful in your original post. Obviously "worse" signal is going to cause more drain on your battery. Hopefully it's just a flaky radio for you but if the replacement has the same issues then it's something else and you should keep at it until you figure it out! That's half the fun with these phones.

My only concern was that he said android os was up there, so that means he has a app preventing his phone from sleeping.
personally i wouldnt take a RMA on poor battery life but as a result due to signal.... but yeah signal does play a huge factor in your battery life

[Q] Please help with battery life

Hello all, I am a new comer here. I have a motorola defy plus mb526.
I've been switching between stock firmware android 2.3.5 and CM10 android 4.1.2 many times since I couldn't manage to make 3G/HSPA work properly (I had signal drops, lower signal strenght and no 3G at all, only HSPA worked well).
So after the 4th or 5th time I came back finally to stock firmware, I noticed my battery lasted less than 12 hours instead of the normal 48 hours duration I had before (both android 2 and 4, with even a slight advantage towards android 2).
My battery stats seem to point that my IDLE/Inactive phone consumed 35%, against only a 9% corresponding to the screen consumption. I am 70% of the time connected to WIFI, and sometimes I connect to 3G. It seems my phone is consuming a lot battery when IDLE.
Do you have any suggestions on how to diagnose this issue??
What I did until now:
>> Installed a new battery stats app more detailed
>> Waiting for the battery to clean up, to wipe battery stats and see if that helps (I did it before I installed the new rom though)
Thank you and sorry for my english
JV

First off, for the signal issue you could've changed the baseband from settings/advanced.
And for battery usage problem try a clean sbf flash and wipe data. Then install those apps only which you used earlier when battery life was good. If you get the same level of performance then one of the newer apps is messing with the deep sleep.
Also charge your phone for a couple is hours at 100% to calibrate battery properly
Sent from my MB526 using xda premium

Thanks for the reply, I've been doing some tests and finally decided to go back to quarx CM10. I'm in argentina so 3G pretty much sucks. But i'm gonna have patience and try to make it work.
Apart from this, unfortunately, battery is still down. But I have a new theory. The same day I started experiencing low battery duration (plus the same day I overclocked the phone and flashed it), I removed the screen block (so there was no password or slide needed when turning the screen on), I think that could have been the reason behind the "Inactive/Idle phone" consuming more battery than the screen itself.
I have reverted this and battery seems to last longer (still seems far from the old 48 hours duration =*( ), plus the battery stats no longer report that inactive phone consumes more than screen.
I will be keeping on the diagnostics and hope its not the battery hardware but some crappy battery stats on my phone
Thanks

JeansenVaars said:
Hello all, I am a new comer here. I have a motorola defy plus mb526.
I've been switching between stock firmware android 2.3.5 and CM10 android 4.1.2 many times since I couldn't manage to make 3G/HSPA work properly (I had signal drops, lower signal strenght and no 3G at all, only HSPA worked well).
So after the 4th or 5th time I came back finally to stock firmware, I noticed my battery lasted less than 12 hours instead of the normal 48 hours duration I had before (both android 2 and 4, with even a slight advantage towards android 2).
My battery stats seem to point that my IDLE/Inactive phone consumed 35%, against only a 9% corresponding to the screen consumption. I am 70% of the time connected to WIFI, and sometimes I connect to 3G. It seems my phone is consuming a lot battery when IDLE.
Do you have any suggestions on how to diagnose this issue??
What I did until now:
>> Installed a new battery stats app more detailed
>> Waiting for the battery to clean up, to wipe battery stats and see if that helps (I did it before I installed the new rom though)
Thank you and sorry for my english
JV
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Get setvsl, and change the battery usage... keep ur phone cool, check the temprature with battery solo widget
turn off data when not in use, us 2G if possible.. lower the brightness....

samuellewis47 said:
Get setvsl, and change the battery usage... keep ur phone cool, check the temprature with battery solo widget
turn off data when not in use, us 2G if possible.. lower the brightness....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
whats the medium battery temperature I should target?
Thanks for the tips they're interesting ive used setvsel before ill try lowering the voltages.
But you sound like you understood this happens since ever, while my statement is about this happening only since last device flash.

nexus 4 battery

Hi !
i own an nexus 4 device and i have a battery problem .
before i baught this device i read online and i already knew that his battery isnt very good , but i never taught it would be that bad !!
i barely touch the phone and thr battery keeps draining !!
my question is what can i do to make it better..maybe to replace my rom , or install another kerner...anything please help !
thanks in advanced, Orel

turn off stuff which you are not using, eg. data, bluetooth, NFC, wifi, location services;
and turn your screen brightness down as much as possible.
that's all you can do, but it should make a big difference.
also think about investing in a compact portable battery charger.

My battery life on my Nexus 4 is awesome.
Download wake lock detect to find what apps are eating up your battery.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/...EsImNvbS51enVtYXBwcy53YWtlbG9ja2RldGVjdG9yIl0.

Install a custom rom and go try a custom kernel.
DO NOT ASK WHAT ROM AND WHAT KERNEL IS THE BEST
Try all of them and see how it is for YOUR device. Try undervolting if you want to. Personally I'm running PA with Franco with a -100 undervolt. 8 hours on standby takes away about 1-2 %.

[Q] Defy battery life

Just a question for Defy plus users. With which ROM-Kernel have you experienced to have the best battery life in your opinion? I used to have 3 days with stock GB. In CM10.1 and 10.2 barely lasts a day...I'm about to try CM7.2 or flash a different kernel on 10.2 if thats possible.

PerryTrademark said:
Just a question for Defy plus users. With which ROM-Kernel have you experienced to have the best battery life in your opinion? I used to have 3 days with stock GB. In CM10.1 and 10.2 barely lasts a day...I'm about to try CM7.2 or flash a different kernel on 10.2 if thats possible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try CM7.2, its very stable. CM10.1 and CM10.2 have a custom kernel, there's no other kernel around, so you have to stick with the kernel CM10.x gives. My battery life with CM is much better than the battery on stock GB. I get atleast 2 days with moderate use (whatsapp, messaging, browsing, camera). You have to investigate why battery life is bad. Get betterbatterystats and check for wakelocks.

hotdog125 said:
Try CM7.2, its very stable. CM10.1 and CM10.2 have a custom kernel, there's no other kernel around, so you have to stick with the kernel CM10.x gives. My battery life with CM is much better than the battery on stock GB. I get atleast 2 days with moderate use (whatsapp, messaging, browsing, camera). You have to investigate why battery life is bad. Get betterbatterystats and check for wakelocks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Tryied to flash CM7.2 stable (after converting ex4 to ext3) but bootloader came with an error...Then i flashed stock 2.3.6 sbf to start from the beginning and after flashing CM7.2 i have the same error again...Any advice? Thanks in advance

PerryTrademark said:
Tryied to flash CM7.2 stable (after converting ex4 to ext3) but bootloader came with an error...Then i flashed stock 2.3.6 sbf to start from the beginning and after flashing CM7.2 i have the same error again...Any advice? Thanks in advance
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try this - http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2359305.

Defy+ MB526
Running a Defy+ with CM10 and my moderate(data,whatsapp,some music,camera and wifi) usage gives me about 24 hours. The thing is, I'm mostly on wifi (give or take about 12hrs) the rest in outside with data. IF i go with data the whole day, I think i only get about 12 hours. With data, battery life is really bad.
Installed betterbatterystats and it shows for kernel wakelock, is mostly wl1271_wake. while for partial wakelock, its NlpCollectorWakeLock (Google Services)
Also, my baseband is South East Asia (where I am located) with 3.4.3-361
Is this normal? How can I get my phone to last 1.5 days at least like some users here get?

coldfusionhybrid said:
Running a Defy+ with CM10 and my moderate(data,whatsapp,some music,camera and wifi) usage gives me about 24 hours. The thing is, I'm mostly on wifi (give or take about 12hrs) the rest in outside with data. IF i go with data the whole day, I think i only get about 12 hours. With data, battery life is really bad.
Installed betterbatterystats and it shows for kernel wakelock, is mostly wl1271_wake. while for partial wakelock, its NlpCollectorWakeLock (Google Services)
Also, my baseband is South East Asia (where I am located) with 3.4.3-361
Is this normal? How can I get my phone to last 1.5 days at least like some users here get?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
First of all, don't turn on your phone if you don't need to use it. Second, wifi tends to use battery power and in some earlier ROMs I remember it used to cause the phone to not sleep properly, which might be your case since you're still on CM 10. I use Deep Sleep Battery Saver to turn my wifi on/off every certain amount of minutes.
I disable most, if not all, Google services and enable them only when I need them, since they send alarms every now and then to make sure your phone is online.
In BBS check which apps are setting the most alarms, and either disable them or you can use Autostarts or App Settings (Xposed module + xposed framework) to disable the receiver for the specific app that is waking your phone, and see if it works (some apps crash).
In my case, I'm currently at 62% with 18 hours of usage, and I haven't even done all that I mentioned above, with Google's location service having woken my phone 426 times, and Line 408, which is nasty in itself.

coldfusionhybrid said:
Running a Defy+ with CM10 and my moderate(data,whatsapp,some music,camera and wifi) usage gives me about 24 hours. The thing is, I'm mostly on wifi (give or take about 12hrs) the rest in outside with data. IF i go with data the whole day, I think i only get about 12 hours. With data, battery life is really bad.
Installed betterbatterystats and it shows for kernel wakelock, is mostly wl1271_wake. while for partial wakelock, its NlpCollectorWakeLock (Google Services)
Also, my baseband is South East Asia (where I am located) with 3.4.3-361
Is this normal? How can I get my phone to last 1.5 days at least like some users here get?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had about 24 hours with CM10.2 on defy+ too...Then i switched to tha latest nightly CM7.2 and now i get 2 days or more...

Antiga Prime said:
In my case, I'm currently at 62% with 18 hours of usage, and I haven't even done all that I mentioned above, with Google's location service having woken my phone 426 times, and Line 408, which is nasty in itself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now, thats what I'm talking about! Some useful tips there too, will give them a shot.
I also use Battery Widget Reborn to show me my battery usage graphically. Based on my observation, being on wifi consumes very little. Running purely on data consumes more (even when I turn wifi search off). Perhaps the newer build works ok with wifi now.
How do I disable these Google services?
Also, you mentioned you haven't done 'all' yet, may I ask what you have done so far that got you to 62% with 18h of usage?
Thanks again
---------- Post added at 10:26 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:21 PM ----------
PerryTrademark said:
I had about 24 hours with CM10.2 on defy+ too...Then i switched to tha latest nightly CM7.2 and now i get 2 days or more...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Also some good times but I'll try stay away from CM7.2 as best I can. Thats just me though. Thanks for sharing those times, will keep it in mind.

What I have found until now is, Google location service is a battery hog, which can be seen from wakelock. In ettings->location & security, turn off GPS and wireless networks both. And what I am now experiencing is signal searching related battery drain is very big, like poor signal, 2G/3G switching, sticking in WCDMA and not able to switch back to GSM, those cannot be seen from wakelock.

For less battery consumption I turn off Data AutoSync.