Database Users

Is your 4G a battery killer?

I tested the following:
Turning 4G on in a full bar area and letting it stand idle for one hour.
I lost about 20% battery in one single hour.
The phone had the screen off, wifi off and all apps but the essential ones off.
On 3G i lost about 5%/hour.
4G is supposed to be an "always-on" service with such a battery drainage?
I was sure it was supposed to be a power efficient service, like WiFi or at least like 3G.
Note the phone also gets a little hot after one hour if being idle with 4G on.
I wonder if other people are seeing the same results?

clubtech said:
4G is supposed to be an "always-on" service with such a battery drainage? I was sure it was supposed to be a power efficient service, like WiFi or at least like 3G.
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Ummmm...
Wow...
ummmm...
4g = bad for battery

OK...Thanks!
I really wanted someone else to test this and report back.
Maybe it is just my unit or the ROM that i am using?

clubtech said:
OK...Thanks!
I really wanted someone else to test this and report back.
Maybe it is just my unit or the ROM that i am using?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LoL sorry brotha' I was just messing around
You gotta admit though, you set yourself up for that one
In all seriousness, 4g is an absolute battery killer! ESPECIALLY if your in an area where you don't get good 4g signal.
If your in a good area and surrounded by 4g then the phone doesn't really have to work at all to keep the signal BUT if your in an area where there's not much 4g signal, like most of America, then it will destroy your battery life (and make your phone hot) because your phone keeps searching for it over and over which chews up the battery. I would ALWAYS keep 4g off unless your downloading something until the 4g becomes more expanded across America. Also download the app battery indicator and make sure you keep track of your battery temperature with it in the status bar. I never let my battery get above 99*F since that will cause permanent damage. In your first post you were talking about losing 20% in an hour while on 4g which would alot of sense since the phone (on 3g) is only slated to get 4-5 hours of talk time, with 4g on always searching for signal the 20% loss seems about right.
Sorry again for messing with you earlier

np.
I am with full 4g bar when testing, so it is not a signal issue.

Yeah, it's a huge battery drainer. I forgot I turned it on in town, took a nap and had 85% battery left, fell asleep and took a 2 hour nap, woke up and it was dead dead mofo dead.
So yeah, it's a battery killer.

Good thing you can barely use the main advertising feature of this phone.

roybotnik said:
Good thing you can barely use the main advertising feature of this phone.
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LOL A+
stupid10char

Theory as to why there is such a difference in some people's battery life times

I live in Idaho. Sprint advertises that they have 'mammoth coverage' around here, but they're wrong. They don't. Well, they have coverage (except for my house and office) and the 3G/4G speeds are usually complete **** unless you're within sight of a tower.
Data from the towers out in Caldwell haven't worked for over 2 months and Sprint claims that they're working just fine and have recently been updated - apparently they updated to dial-up. I really wonder how they're even selling phones over there right now.
Idaho = Battery life is usually 5 to 10 hours with normal usage.
2 weekends ago I was in Omaha and used my evo a little bit less than normal, but I could get through the whole day and still have 50%+ battery life left. The 3G speeds were also 2x better, as well as service in general.
I think it depends on where you're located and if sprint has maintained/updated their towers. I also think that most of the towers in Nampa/Caldwell (20 mi. out of Boise) are older nextel towers, which are probably complete ****/half working.
Just my theory.

Sounds plausible, but I have no idea scientifically speaking. I could guess but I don't think it would be productive.
My honest suggestion? Post this over at the dslreports.com forums; there were some really knowledgeable people lurking there.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

I agree. In addition to rogue apps/processes, it seems that weak network is #2 on my list of things to check when my batt life is draining too much.

This isn't really a theory, it is fact. If you have bad coverage you can basically watch your battery drain. I could drain mine dead overnight by leaving my phone unplugged and in the basement.. I had 1 bar of roaming service. I now hqve an airave and battery life drains much less overnight.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App

teamgreen02 said:
This isn't really a theory, it is fact. If you have bad coverage you can basically watch your battery drain. I could drain mine dead overnight by leaving my phone unplugged and in the basement.. I had 1 bar of roaming service. I now hqve an airave and battery life drains much less overnight.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
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ive had my batter die in 3 hours because of no service. I watched my battery go from 70% to 30% in 1 hour because of no signal. Since I'm not running CM6 the roam control app has been well worth the couple of bucks. No more missed calls and far less battery drain when im in low signal areas.

Poor 3G low signal is the biggest battery problem for Android!
Android (not the Evo but the entire OS) has a very poor system for dealing with Low Signal for 3G and it does NOT automatically switch over to 2G when it's supposed to which CAN and DOES result in greatly increased battery life.
Other phone OS's do this or are supposed to do this but for some reason Google has just not implemented a good system for dealing with this COMMON issue.
I use a program called JuiceDefender (Paid version is best but the free version will prove to you how useful it is) and it is literally the best app I run on my Evo. Overnight I went from my phone dying by 4pm when working at a location with low signal to having it last multiple days in some cases depending on my usage.
Do yourselves a favor, Get this application and if you have your phone rooted you get many extra features out of the full version. Can't speak highly enough of this application.
Tim

teamgreen02 said:
This isn't really a theory, it is fact. If you have bad coverage you can basically watch your battery drain. I could drain mine dead overnight by leaving my phone unplugged and in the basement.. I had 1 bar of roaming service. I now hqve an airave and battery life drains much less overnight.
Sent from my PC36100 using XDA App
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I agree with that and know that when you have 0/1/2 bars it really drains your battery life, however, I get the same battery life if I'm at home all day using it (0/1/2 bars), or if I'm at college and have 5 bars all day and I'm not using it quite as much.
I have fresh 3.3 with the htc kernel 53 fps (and all the latest radios/pri/prl/ect.) and have seen much improved battery life, but it's still the exact same.
I also have an airave at the office (which is out in Caldwell where the data doesn't even work) for the other two people on my plan, and while they have seen slightly less battery drain since we got the airave (for free), it's not a mind-blowing difference, other than the data actually works. They're also running the 2.1 stock, but rooted with unrevoked.
I guess I'm wondering if staying connected to a tower with older tech/Nextel uses more power than if it's connected to a sprint tower.

Hrshycro said:
I think it depends on where you're located and if sprint has maintained/updated their towers. I also think that most of the towers in Nampa/Caldwell (20 mi. out of Boise) are older nextel towers, which are probably complete ****/half working.
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There's no way your Evo is working off of any Nextel towers. Those are IDEN and your Evo is CDMA...not happening. It's been known for years now that if you have poor/no signal, your battery will drain rapidly as the device will constantly search for a better signal.

anthony67 said:
There's no way your Evo is working off of any Nextel towers. Those are IDEN and your Evo is CDMA...not happening. It's been known for years now that if you have poor/no signal, your battery will drain rapidly as the device will constantly search for a better signal.
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Good to know - How do people get Sprint Phones to work on Boost mobile then? Boost is using nextel towers, or that's what I've read several times.
I agree with that and know that when you have 0/1/2 bars it really drains your battery life, however, I get the same battery life if I'm at home all day using it (0/1/2 bars), or if I'm at college and have 5 bars all day and I'm not using it quite as much.
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Hrshycro said:
Boost is using nextel towers, or that's what I've read several times.
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You're half right. Boost does use nextel towers--For iDen phones. They do use the Sprint network for CDMA phones. Basically boost carries both CDMA and iDen phones.
As for how people get Sprint phones to work with Boost(CDMA)... Hm... Let's just say they do something shady and possibly illegal...They clone ESNs.

Time without Signal question

My fascinate seems to have abnormally high time without signal. Right now it is reporting 60% time without signal (Cell Standy is at 15% of battery use overall). Sometimes I have weak signal at my house or in certain spots at work, but very rarely do I go without a signal.
Is there some setting that I should look at? Or is my signal really that bad and I just never noticed it before since this is my first smartphone that actually reports this information?
Thanks!

It's probably the prl list which tells your phone what towers it can talk to. Try running the *228, option 2 to update the list and see if it helps. Also, do you live in a former alltel area? That can complicate things as well. There may be an extra setting in the mobile network menu that you can change to improve reception.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App

garywojdan81 said:
It's probably the prl list which tells your phone what towers it can talk to. Try running the *228, option 2 to update the list and see if it helps. Also, do you live in a former alltel area? That can complicate things as well. There may be an extra setting in the mobile network menu that you can change to improve reception.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
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I assume that *228 options 2 is just to update the roaming lists? If so, I have run *22899 (which just runs it automatically), but I can try that again since I haven't done it since rooting and installing new ROMs and kernals.
As far as being in a former Alltel area, I am not sure, I am in the Binghamton, NY area. In my mobile network menu there is only two options; Home and Automatic. It is currently set to Automatic.

How do i know if I live in a former alltell area, and if i do how can I improve my signal?
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App

No other suggestions and/or ideas?

Our radio sucks. Its a known issue with the phone. Put the Fascinate side by side a Droid X or Droid 2 or Droid Eris or Droid Incredible or Droid 1 or ..., you get my point, and you'll see that the Fascinate always has about half the signal strength that all the other phones have. I had >1% TWS while I was on Sprint with my Epic, but I switch to Verizon (which is supposed to have better service) and I get 33% TWS all day.

I have the same problem I get anywhere between 60-70% without a signal at home.
When I go to bed at night I lose about 25%. I called up verizon they sent out a site team and got back to me, supposedly I am on the fringe edge of where tower is, and nothing they can do and that is why it is marginal, even though my other phones work fine like my old blackberry.
It turns out the 3G needs a lot more signal, and my phone is constantly searching which is draining.
Only way I can remedy this is at home only use Wifi, and never have 3G. I do that now and only lose about 4% battery at night.
It appears the antennae really stinks compared to other phones. Maybe an update will fix it but I doubt it.

I regularly commute from the metro nyc area to long island, and I can verify that the phone has an obvious quirkiness in the cell phone reception. While I have anywhere between -109 to-96 dbm if signal strength in rural long island, I have full bars in the city. while that sounds normal, the reception drops tremendously as data is being accessed. The radio sucks and there is nothing we can do about it baring some engineering work or radio tweaking that is hard to test in the dev community. Flashing radios run a higher risk of bricking than your run of the mill custom rom.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App

ludevious said:
I regularly commute from the metro nyc area to long island, and I can verify that the phone has an obvious quirkiness in the cell phone reception. While I have anywhere between -109 to-96 dbm if signal strength in rural long island, I have full bars in the city. while that sounds normal, the reception drops tremendously as data is being accessed. The radio sucks and there is nothing we can do about it baring some engineering work or radio tweaking that is hard to test in the dev community. Flashing radios run a higher risk of bricking than your run of the mill custom rom.
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App
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Click to collapse
Same exact thing I work in NYC and get full 4 bars..while I live about 40 miles north of the City. I usually get anywhere from -96 to -101 at home and -86 in NYC

Unfortunately, that doesn't sound off for your area. According to Verizon's coverage map, Binghamton is right on the northern edge of a rather sizeable no-coverage zone extending out of Pennsylvania. Also, the cellreception.com ratings from other people in that area are quite low.
That, combined with -- as other people have mentioned -- the Fascinate's seemingly sub-par radio means I don't doubt the 60% number is accurate. The Fascinate definitely doesn't receive a signal as strongly as other phones, I can attest to that -- my Droid 1 received a steady (if not strong) signal in some places my Fascinate goes in and out (or just out) of service. It's frustrating, and there doesn't seem to be anything we can do about it. I just hope it's a firmware issue that Samsung can fix -- and actually fixes -- rather than subpar hardware.

Falcyn said:
Unfortunately, that doesn't sound off for your area. According to Verizon's coverage map, Binghamton is right on the northern edge of a rather sizeable no-coverage zone extending out of Pennsylvania. Also, the cellreception.com ratings from other people in that area are quite low.
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That area, VZW has a roaming agreement with Sprint or some other carrier as I was up in that large "uncovered" chunk this past summer and had service the entire time.

Falcyn said:
Unfortunately, that doesn't sound off for your area. According to Verizon's coverage map, Binghamton is right on the northern edge of a rather sizeable no-coverage zone extending out of Pennsylvania. Also, the cellreception.com ratings from other people in that area are quite low.
That, combined with -- as other people have mentioned -- the Fascinate's seemingly sub-par radio means I don't doubt the 60% number is accurate. The Fascinate definitely doesn't receive a signal as strongly as other phones, I can attest to that -- my Droid 1 received a steady (if not strong) signal in some places my Fascinate goes in and out (or just out) of service. It's frustrating, and there doesn't seem to be anything we can do about it. I just hope it's a firmware issue that Samsung can fix -- and actually fixes -- rather than subpar hardware.
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Hmm never knew about that site cellreception thanks for that!
I just checked and now I see why I have barely any coverage, I am about 30 miles form verizon nearest tower.
Interesting thing is there is a sprint tower about 1 miles west of me...hmm
I always thought about switching to Sprint for cheaper and better phones I am tempted to return this and do that

For what it's worth, I've gone to 0% time without signal since updating to DJ05, but I still see non-trivial "Cell Standby" battery usage anyway. Usually around 15% after a day of use. Not sure if that means something is whack in DJ05 and the 0% is bogus or if it means that "Cell Standby" power usage actually has very little to do with that value. Not knowledgeable enough. It might be worth your time to try DJ05 if you haven't already.
There is also the hidden menu that lets you configure CDMA and GSM stuff, but I tried those (while on DI01) and *anything* I did in there just made it worse. I read somewhere that the radio may be looking for GSM services which shows up under "Cell Standby". My intent was to change the radio to CDMA only, but again, changing it from the default "WCDMA Preferred" just made things worse for me.
That second part was kinda meaningless .. lol, sorry. My reason for posting was to point out that my "Time without signal" dropped to 0% by installing DJ05, but didn't seem to have an appreciable affect on "Cell Standby".

djp952 said:
For what it's worth, I've gone to 0% time without signal since updating to DJ05, but I still see non-trivial "Cell Standby" battery usage anyway. Usually around 15% after a day of use. Not sure if that means something is whack in DJ05 and the 0% is bogus or if it means that "Cell Standby" power usage actually has very little to do with that value. Not knowledgeable enough. It might be worth your time to try DJ05 if you haven't already.
There is also the hidden menu that lets you configure CDMA and GSM stuff, but I tried those (while on DI01) and *anything* I did in there just made it worse. I read somewhere that the radio may be looking for GSM services which shows up under "Cell Standby". My intent was to change the radio to CDMA only, but again, changing it from the default "WCDMA Preferred" just made things worse for me.
That second part was kinda meaningless .. lol, sorry. My reason for posting was to point out that my "Time without signal" dropped to 0% by installing DJ05, but didn't seem to have an appreciable affect on "Cell Standby".
Click to expand...
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I think that Cell standby is battery used by the cell radio when it's not in use. Time without service is battery used by the radio when not in use and looking for service.

djp952 said:
For what it's worth, I've gone to 0% time without signal since updating to DJ05, but I still see non-trivial "Cell Standby" battery usage anyway. Usually around 15% after a day of use. Not sure if that means something is whack in DJ05 and the 0% is bogus or if it means that "Cell Standby" power usage actually has very little to do with that value. Not knowledgeable enough. It might be worth your time to try DJ05 if you haven't already.
There is also the hidden menu that lets you configure CDMA and GSM stuff, but I tried those (while on DI01) and *anything* I did in there just made it worse. I read somewhere that the radio may be looking for GSM services which shows up under "Cell Standby". My intent was to change the radio to CDMA only, but again, changing it from the default "WCDMA Preferred" just made things worse for me.
That second part was kinda meaningless .. lol, sorry. My reason for posting was to point out that my "Time without signal" dropped to 0% by installing DJ05, but didn't seem to have an appreciable affect on "Cell Standby".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yep I am on DJ05 and did not make a difference. Out of curiosity before Dj05 what % were you getting without signal?

I am an Epic owner, same phone, sometimes same problem. One of the things I do is called the airplane toggle trick. It works for me, don't know what it might do for you.
My phone goes to 50% standby when I boot or turn off and on for any reason. To fix this, I turn off DRM in Running Services and do this trick.
Turn Airplane Mode on for maybe 30 seconds, then turn back off. This resets the radio.
This returns mine to 0%, so might try this.

[Q] Anyone having signal issues?

I just picked my new Fascinate yesterday and have been noticing something strange. I routinely have a very low signal with 3G and WiFi in places I've always had a great signal (or so I thought). Just to get it out of the way, I am not using any kind of case and I have already done a *228 update.
For example, tonight I put my Fascinate, a friend's Continuum, and a friend's original Droid in front of me on a table to compare their 3G signals. The Droid reported 4 bars, the Continuum 2 bars, and my flickered between 0 and 1.
At home, my "old" Omnia 2 routinely got 3-4 bars (still does even though it's deactivated) and my gf's LG Ally gets the same. However my Fascinate gets 1-2, sometimes dipping to 0.
Oddly, I have the same issue with my WiFi signal. At home my PC and laptop have a full strength signal while the phone is lucky to have a that first dot and maybe a bar. At work, I can walk within 4 feet of my Wireless-N router and still not have a full signal
Now everything *seems* to work so I'm hoping it's just an algorithmic display issue, but I have gotten a "Network Error" message a few times. For good measure, I'll probably pop into Verizon to compare my signal to the various displays there.
My question is: Is this a general Fascinate issue? Do I have a lemon? Should I just hope 2.2 is magic?
Thanks

same problem here.
I'm really hoping this gets fixed with 2.2.

I've had two fascinates now, and they've both had really poor signal strength compared to any other phone I've used or seen. Was at lunch the other day with a friend with a Droid 1, and I was getting 1 bar, he was getting 4. At home, it's consistently 1 to 2 bars at best, and I live less than a mile and a half from the nearest tower.
While I don't drop calls, I think it's pretty clear that the phone has a particularly week antennae design.
Since you say you just got the phone, I assume you haven't rooted and played with other roms yet. But in case you have, I noticed a significant drop in signal strength, both cellular and wifi, using JT's DJ05 rom. And it was more than just a display issue, since the wifi connection would repeatedly drop - even in the same room as my router. Switched to the stock DJ05 and I was back to normal (if you consider 1 to 2 bars normal).

Just wanted to follow-up on this. After a week of comparing signals to every smartphone I ran into, I came to the conclusion I either had a lemon or the Fascinate had serious engineering issues.
I went back to my local Verizon store and compared my phone's signal strength to all the Android phones in there, including the other Fascinates. Every phone was between -73 and -86. My phone never got any better than -101. So they swapped phones for me (new one out of the box) and this one performed like all their other phones in the store. I am now enjoying my old, normal, strong signal strength and my battery is still at healthy 80% after several hours of use, even a little wifi usage.
Moral of the Story: Check your signal strength (on any phone) against the phones in the store before you leave and don't be afraid to demand a new phone if you have that sort of concrete data to back it up!
Sent from my SCH-i500 Fascinated using the XDA App

DI01 has a signal reporting bug that is fixed in DJ05/DL09. With DI01, the best I got was -86dBm, and the jumps did not really seem to make sense. After going to DJ05, the reported signal goes up to -50dBm or so and moves in a logical direction (go inside, signal goes down) where before it would just move randomly. It is possible that there was also bad hardware, but I'd guess that it had more to do with the crappy software Samsung provided.

Interesting. I've not had any ambition to root/flash my Fascinate (I swear I did it weekly with my old Omnia 2) so for whatever it's worth, my experience was always with the stock DI01.

Hopefully you won't have similar problems after we get the maintenance update, whenever that may be.

Battery Life since Sprint update.

Anyone see worse battery life out of thier tab since the sprint update? I could normally use it for a day in a half before I would have to jump on a charger. I used it yesturday and at the end of the day the battery looked good still. This morning it wouldnt even power on. I did have it in my backpack in my truck. Not sure if that effected it. Just ordered some extra charging cables and a mobile charger for it...

sprint ota slow 3g and battery drain
YES.
Just came searching for this from my wife's sprint sgt. Also, 3g has become TERRIBLE. trying to figure out how to un-fuxor this OTA. wifi still works great... gonna try flushing all the radios and prl and such..
sorry i'm late to the party, you have any news?