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Am I the only one who finds it apalling?
Today my battery was on red warning by 1 o'clock.
I have 'unlimited' (FUP 1Gb) data and was just doing things - the hone can do so much - but my battery only lasts hours - not the full day I need
Love my Ameo - hate the keyboard (compared to the Universal) and the battery life!
Confucious said:
Am I the only one who finds it apalling?
Today my battery was on red warning by 1 o'clock.
I have 'unlimited' (FUP 1Gb) data and was just doing things - the hone can do so much - but my battery only lasts hours - not the full day I need
Love my Ameo - hate the keyboard (compared to the Universal) and the battery life!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have never gotten near exhausting the battery before I am exhausted -- that is 12-15 hour work days. The only time I got close was when I did several presentations using TV-out and forgot my AC power adapter. Right now my battery stands at 60%; it's nearly 7:00p local time and my day started at 4:30a. Didn't do much other than e-mail and phone, but still I have been really pleased with battery life.
As to the keybd, based on what some posted, I was thinking I might go sans keyboard using a soft keyboard like tengo or resco keyboard. In fact the keyboard hasn't bothered me at all. It nicely springs into place when I open the case and types at an OK level.
My biggest complaints are actually the lack of buttons for quick launch... along with the little joystick thingy, which I don't particularly love. The D-Pad on my Wizard seemed more usable. In these two respects my Wizard was easier to navigate. Otherwise, I'm loving the Advantage.
Me too, but ...
I have found mixed results. Some days the battery seems to nosedive and some days when I am expecting trouble its not too bad.
I believe bluetooth really drains the battery. Also when the unit is connected via activesync even though I am using a 'mains powered' dual USB synch cable it hardly seems to charge at all.
However when connected via activesync I use "Screenoff" and this helps a lot.
re keyboard - nothing to be said I just carry the device with me and use TenGO as an SIPS.
HOWEVER while reporting a bug to TenGO (very good people btw) I powered up my old Universal and remembered the old screen size and memory for installed programs - Advantage I love you after all!
Am I the only one who loves the joystick or what? Id take it any day over the D-Pads, dpads are well and good but I find the joystick alot more usable.
As for battery life ive found the biggest drain (as would be expected) is the brightness of the LCD screen. Using default settings the battery life was quite solid (2 days at least, with moderate useage and a fair bit of HSDPA'ing), however to compensate for the poor screen protector that came with it which I applied, I ratcheted up the brightness and sure enough have had to charge it every night since. Which is no big deal for me, but on a day when I have to use VGA out and BT I can see it struggling to make a full day on the highest brightness settings.
TenGo works quite well and the screen is large enough to use VGA SIPs with your finger even, but I still dont mind the hardware keyboard just takes a lil getting use too.
Using any data connection uses a bit more battery than a GSM phone conversation. So if we get 5-6 hours of GSM, then we should get about 4-5 hours of 3G and GPRS/Edge data usage.
However, I have seen that turning down the brightness to 3 steps above the lowest setting yields me a good 6 hours of Edge use. This setting works well indoors or in lower sun light conditions only.
My biggest issue with the device is that it reflects everything. The glare is horrible in high light conditions, almost making it unusable while outside on the street.
Using bluetooth isn't so bad. I've seen it might drain 10% of your battery over a period of 24 hours with no usage except keeping it on.
So, no, I don't find any strange battery patterns with my U1000, at least not yet.
I have push mail enabled so the 3g connection is always on and working. I often have bluetooth on. I still usually get pretty much a full working day without coming close to the battery dying.
However, I do keep the screen on the lowest backlight setting (i.e. one stop away from the end of the scale) and the screen turns itself off after 2 mins.
Try this while charging...
Ive found that when i charge up my Ameo using the USB adaptor to get it to actually charge I:
Turn off bluetooth
Turn off GPRS / 3G data connection
Then i activate WM5torage
This means activesync doesnt try to load up and keep the screen on. I then put the device into standby so the screen isnt on and I managed to get it to charge up to 80% throughout the day.
Otherwise even with bluetooth on and the internet permanently connected i found the battery life to be very good (altho yesterday i could of sworn i charged it up overnight, got to work, played about with the new google maps application, GPS came on, etc, etc, downloaded a few maps, then battery life said 10%! Cant of charged it up the night before. Gonna keep my eye on this)
can I suggest big power users get this
http://www.clove.co.uk/viewProduct....Category=CE3E87A6-CAEF-4504-B115-1B3AA016C2E5
U20 5400mAh external battery/charger. about the size of an ipod and comes with connections to charge device.
Mine does the trick, lives in my bag and is 2.5 times our battery life=3.5 overall.
Should even extend confucious to 5pm.......
I might end up having to get one of those external chargers - but it's yet another thing to carry! Most of the time I can charge it overnight or at the office.
I think it's using the screen that is the problem - I have BT on all the time for my headset and 3G for my push email from my server but it's when I'm I'm browsing the internet / using google maps / using TomTom that drains the battery.
TomTom drains the battery faster than my car charger charges it :|
there are so many things you can do with Athena that it seams a shame not to do them all lol - especially as I've just found the FUP on W'n'W Pro is 3Gb not 1
Confucious said:
ITomTom drains the battery faster than my car charger charges it :|
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Click to collapse
That's weird - check the ampage of your car charger.
apd said:
That's weird - check the ampage of your car charger.
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Click to collapse
It was a cheap one that has worked with ll my other PDAs and SmartPhones but i have ordered the powered Brodit holder now so I'll wait to see if that's better.
Confucious said:
It was a cheap one that has worked with ll my other PDAs and SmartPhones but i have ordered the powered Brodit holder now so I'll wait to see if that's better.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I ahve being using a Brodit one for a few weeks (albeit that it was the one from my Exec - I have only just received my Ameo Brodit holder) and it charged the battery no problem, even when using full brightness and internal GPS
My normal car charger charged my Universal OK - but fails with my Athena.
Today I didn't do a lot with my phone - listened to music on the way in with my BT headset, a few texts, push email running. Got it out at lunchtime and battery was dead - it was on red warning but turned itself off - I've been in meetings all mormning so haven't been able to charge the phone.
Something is wrong!
Could it be that the screen isn't turning itself off - I've noticed in the standard case it soesn't always when the keyboard isn't completely closed to the screen - but I am on default settings and the screen should turn itself off after a couple of mins inactivity anyway. Could WMP or something be keeping the screen lit?
Something is killing my battery anyone got any ideas?
I'm wondering if instead of the screen you have an app running in the background that doesn't go to sleep and continously taxes your CPU... could even be WMP... check with a taskmgr program to see what you have running or use another app to check your CPU load.
I haven't heard of the screen not dimming outside of Nav software, but saw plenty of misbehaving apps...
Battery saving while playing music
I have found "screenoff" an excellent help with this both for locking the screen (I now almost always leave the keyboard and case at home ) and for battery saving.
I'm beginning to think its that little screen which is soaking up the power.
Confucious said:
TomTom drains the battery faster than my car charger charges it :|
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mine too, until...
I had an unbranded mini-USB car charger. When using TomTom, the effect was a net drain on battery power.
Today (and partly as a result of this thread), I tried the branded HTC charger that I had lying around (and that I thought would make no difference). Interestingly, I now have a net gain. (Started at 80%, drove around for an hour, charge is now 90%.)
Seems that all car chargers are not the same.
(Also the HTC charger has a natty, blue lit, logo; much better than the red LED.)
For your charging issues check out :
http://www.pocketpctechs.com/main~u...AE+cable+accessories~item~LSP%2DDUOADPT01.htm
It drastically improves the charging. I bought one then bought them for everywhere.
CPA said:
can I suggest big power users get this
http://www.easydevices.co.uk/pp/HTC...HTC_ADVANTAGE_EXTERNAL_EMERGENCY_CHARGER.html
U20 5400mAh external battery/charger. about the size of an ipod and comes with connections to charge device.
Mine does the trick, lives in my bag and is 2.5 times our battery life=3.5 overall.
Should even extend confucious to 5pm.......
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm looking at this one (am spending some time in our captial city next weekend) to extend the time between charges needed. Does this device resolve the 'pin out' problem and keep the phone charged? Has anyone else got testimonials about this? Its a not insignificant £40 so I don't want to bother if it doesn't solve the charge problem mentioned here and elsewhere with the differing pin outs. TIA
hammermedia said:
For your charging issues check out :
http://www.pocketpctechs.com/main~u...AE+cable+accessories~item~LSP%2DDUOADPT01.htm
It drastically improves the charging. I bought one then bought them for everywhere.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm looking at their product but I am confused. they specify that the advantage uses an 11 pin plug to charge when it appears to be a 5 pin USB mini-b connector. I don't know where they get the 11 pin connection from. also they SPECIFY that these adaptors can only be used with their Sync & charge retractable cable (thus implying that they are different from a std USB to mini-b 5 pin cable) this may be the case as I have tried charging my Blueant Z9 BT headset using a generic USB to micro (or mini-b 4 pin) and I get an overcurrent error on my USB port. It appears that the Blueant supplied cable is different.
Any Ideas on the HTC 11 pin cinnector referenced at http://www.pocketpctechs.com/images/items/LSP-DUOPRO01.jpg ?
Joe
Are you on the right page for HTC Advantage?
http://www.pocketpctechs.com/main~u...dvantage+Lil%27+Sync%AE+Cable+Accessories.htm
With the HD2's pretty short battery life compared to my previous HTC phones, and also as I was a bit bored , I decided to have a look at how much the different systems drain in the HD2, and did some tests.
So for anyone interested, here are the results:
Base consumptions: (pick the one that suits your situation)
Standby, phone on, WIFI+BT off, no connections active: 5mA
Processor running idle, screen off, connections as above: 55mA
100% CPU usage (Coreplayer benchmark), connections as above: 315mA
USB connected, connections as above: 125mA
Additions: (add this to the base one depending on what you have on)
Connections:
BT on, idle: +1mA
Wifi on, idle: +5mA BUT!! If you enable wifi during standby (with BsB Tweaks or the WifiNoStandby CAB), the processor does NOT go to standby
anymore, so the base needs to be the 55mA above!
Connected to EDGE, idle: not measureable
Connected to 3G, idle: +4mA
Beware those 2 will occasionally and unpredictably send data every now and then, so this doesn't necessarily mean much.
BT transfer (file copy through ActiveSync, 120kB/s, CPU usage ~2%): +80mA
Wifi transfer (file copy with Wifi Remote access, 1MB/s, CPU usage ~3%): +200mA
EDGE/3G transfer: Pretty impossible to measure due to so many variables, but can be extreme (total current consumptions of 850-1150mA, so very approximative 500-800mA draw from the data connection during page loads are common!), and leads to most of the energy draw when using the net a lot. EDGE uses more power than 3G, consumption is higher when network coverage is lower, bad network throughput or congestion also mean lots of retries/overhead and less effective data transfer, using power for a longer time until the data is finally there.
Memory access (large file transfer):
Internal read/write through ActiveSync (speeds 2.5 / 2.1 MB/s respectively): +20mA / +130mA
Card read/write through ActiveSync (speeds 3.2 / 2.7MB/s respectively): +25mA / +40mA
Card read/write in USB disk mode (speeds 7.5 / 5MB/s respectively): +40mA / +45mA
Backlight:
10%: +65mA
20%: +78mA
30%: +90mA
40%: +105mA
50%: +121mA
60%: +136mA
70%: +154mA
80%: +170mA
90%: +190mA
100%:+210mA
GPS:
+95mA
Flashlight (with HTC Flashlight):
Level 1: +32mA
Level 2 (same as camera flash on): +107mA
Level 3 (same as camera "bright flash during shot"): +530mA
And remember the battery capacity: 1230mAh
So with this you can calculate your battery life for various activities. For example:
- Playing a video with full backlight: Let's say the video is well encoded (30% CPU use, for example 720x400 1Mbps DivX), that's about 150mA base, + 210mA backlight = 360mA, resulting in about 3h20 battery life.
- Same at night with only 40% backlight: Life goes up to about 5h!
- Wifi during standby for an 8h night, or a program that somehow prevents the phone from entering standby: 60mA or 55mA respectively, draining about 40% of the battery during that time.
- GPS program, with 70% backlight: Let's assume 150mA for the processor as it has some work to do, 90mA for the GPS, 154mA for the backlight = 394mA, or 3 hours.
- Music through wired headphones, screen off: the 55mA base plus a little 5mA as MP3 decoding is nothing for the CPU = 60mA or 20h.
- Same with a BT headset, with about half the BT bandwidth: 60+40 = 100mA or 12h
etc.
Charging
[EDIT 14.04.10]
This is now a dedicated section as I did some more thorough charging tests.
So, as some of you might know, the HD2 has 2 charging "modes".
- One is USB, that is used if the phone is connected to a PC, or an unknown device. In this mode, the current the HD2 will draw from the port/charger is limited to approx. 470mA, to stay within the maximum of 500mA a USB port can supply.
- The other is "dedicated charger", which is recognised on the original HTC charger (and some others, it's becoming a standard for a "dedicated charging USB port") by shorting of the 2 data pins of the USB connector in the charger.
USB charge
Important to know, during USB charge, the phone will NOT go to sleep, as it's supposed to be connected to a PC, and be running either ActiveSync, Disk drive mode, or modem, and in all 3 cases would be expected not to shutdown. So not only the current supplied to the HD2 is low, but the phone draws some of it for itself, leaving very little for actual charge - so expect loooong charge times.
USB charge with screen on (backlight dimmed, 10%): 285mA
USB charge with screen off (standby): 345mA (which shows the processor still runs and draws the "base USB" current)
Dedicated charger
When used with a charger that has the 2 USB data pins shorted, such as the original charger, the HD2 will draw a current that is proportional to the voltage on the USB power lines. To measure this I have used the original supplied USB cable, a variable regulated power supply, USB socket (with data pins shorted), and 2 meters for voltage/current. Voltages are measured at the "PC" end of the USB cable, so not taking account of losses in the USB cable. Will talk more about this later on.
Current vs Voltage diagrams are attached. Charge current is proportional to voltage, linearly until it reaches the max charge current, approx 830mA. This was measured so that the only draw is charge. If the phone is turned on while at max charge current, it will draw extra, until it reaches about 980mA, and will then stop to respect the 1A rating of the stock charger.
Now, to the influence of USB cables. I initially had some trouble with inconsistant numbers, phone only drawing 670mA from the stock charger, i.e matching neither the ~350mA from USB, or ~830mA from stock charger in "normal" condition. Turns out that to make it more convenient on my workplace I was using an USB extension between charger and HD2 cable. It was a $2 extension I bought on Dealextreme. Removing it solved the problem... and after making those measurements I poked with it again. Turns out that at 1A current, the voltage drop in the extension (which by the way isn't longer than the HD2's USB cable) was 1.8V! Yep, nearly 2 Ohms for a 1.5m extension! Couldn't believe it.
I have a cheap Chinese microUSB cable that wasn't as bad,but still significantly more resistive than the stock one, hence me noting I used the stock cable for my tests. So, quality of the cables, extensions, adapters IS important! Note the phone correctly reaches full charge current a little bit under the 5V USB spec, so everything is well tuned.
Now, important to know, Most 3rd party chargers will not have the 2 USB data pins shorted, and will thus result in the same behavior as mentioned under USB charge, the processor will also be running continuously drawing the "base USB" current.
It is often possible to modify 3rd party chargers by opening them and shorting the pins, speeding up charge. The voltage/current curve behavior is actually helping there, because thanks to it if the charger is overloaded its voltage will most likely fall a bit, and the HD2 will thus draw less and find a nice balance point. This DOES NOT mean there's no possiblilty of damaging the charger, but all 3 I modified did well. One that was really weak resulted in not much more current being drawn after the mod than before (i.e voltage fell very low, approx. 4.4V), however the gain from not having the processor running like in USB mode still sped up charge a little.
Thank you, that is one useful chunk of comprehensive information
Could you please explain the exact measuring method for these tests?
40% backlight at night is a tough example tho, Lumos on my device is set to 10% for 0 sensor value, and only because I can't set it to lower than 10%... nice to know battery drain goes up twice from 10% to 60%!
Also, 100% is usually really necessary under direct sunlight, in a normal lit room probably 40% backlight is more than enough to watch a video... all in all, with your superinteresting info, the battery doesn't look like lasting "too short" now, but more or less "the right amount considering the battery capacity".
My iPaq 210 has a 2200mAh battery, just to make a comparison... that's why I could go for 8 hrs during some bus trips while watching tv series, and I just needed to swap battery and used a little of the second one.
What's your estimate of the drain caused by activating push email? I've recently been doing some rather crude experiments myself, and one provisional conclusion is that push email on a hotmail account uses a lot more battery than push email on an Exchange server.
Excellent stuff, you are to be congratulated.
I have a long held theory and I wonder if you are in a position to to test it?
I believe that battery consumption is greatly increased when an app is run from mem card and would be intrigued to see a comparison between an install to this as opposed to phone mem.
Any chance?
Battery levels
I found that power consumption of the battery got even worse after I went to Rom 1.66.707.1. However, after a few days, I let it run all the way out, switched back on, it ran out after a few minutes. Then after an overnight charge I found the battery (on standby) only went down by about 10 -12 % in 24hrs. I'm hoping this performance will continue.
What did you use for the testing?
pa49 said:
Excellent stuff, you are to be congratulated.
I have a long held theory and I wonder if you are in a position to to test it?
I believe that battery consumption is greatly increased when an app is run from mem card and would be intrigued to see a comparison between an install to this as opposed to phone mem.
Any chance?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That would be reasonable as reading from an external media will need energy to access its contents... still, once the app files have been loaded into the device's RAM, it shouldn't matter much
You could also test by comparing:
1) copy say 30mb from one location to another of the internal mem
2) copy from microsd to microsd
3) copy from mem to microsd
4) copy from microsd to mem
ephestione said:
Could you please explain the exact measuring method for these tests?
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Click to collapse
Simply using the built-in current sensor, getting the reads from AEBPlus battery information screen, and methodically turning things on/off once the others are evaluated and can be subtracted from the total reading.
ephestione said:
40% backlight at night is a tough example tho, Lumos on my device is set to 10% for 0 sensor value, and only because I can't set it to lower than 10%...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really? You should force the backlight off then
I love bright images myself, so even in my bed in total darkness if I watch a video or photos I'll force 100% backlight I have Lumos set to force 100% for Coreplayer, Resco Photo manager and HTC album
Of course not for browsing or just messing around, in that case it's 20% for me
Shasarak said:
What's your estimate of the drain caused by activating push email? I've recently been doing some rather crude experiments myself, and one provisional conclusion is that push email on a hotmail account uses a lot more battery than push email on an Exchange server.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's one thing I'd have no idea about... I've never used push email at all. And that's "standby usage", so hard to evaluate, as you never know when it kicks in.
Measuring that would need to be done on a long time. I'd say to leave your phone one night with push email off, one night with Exchange only, and one night with hotmail only, and then check the difference, preferably with a battery at about 80% charge at the start (mine seems to fall from 100% to 90% in a few minutes before becoming more regular, so I'd say the top of the scale isn't that reliable).
And I should really try push email once, that would be nice, but I *think* I have no provider that can do it for me... well I have a gmail account I never use, I should try to see if I can have it check my usual 3 mail accounts, aggregate and push... never really looked into that stuff.
pa49 said:
Excellent stuff, you are to be congratulated.
I have a long held theory and I wonder if you are in a position to to test it?
I believe that battery consumption is greatly increased when an app is run from mem card and would be intrigued to see a comparison between an install to this as opposed to phone mem.
Any chance?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks
Well I'd tend to refute that theory, because when I tested the BT and Wifi in use I tried read from internal memory, write to internal, read from card and write to card, and all 4 were identical. I should have mentioned it indeed, but I was mostly interested to seeing if reads (wifi/BT "sending") and writes (wifi/BT "receiving") would have an influence on consumption, which wasn't the case, as well as whether the throughput was different, which wasn't the case either.
But I've done a few more tests, see the updated first post
One intersting thing is firstly that when the HD2 is connected to USB, the current draw grows significantly, so I've made a new "base consumption".
Next, the card is actually faster than the internal memory both in reads and in writes, tested both through activesync for consistency. Writing to the internal memory eats a LOT more than writing to the card. Reading from the card eats a little more than reading from internal memory, probably evens out as the reads are shorter due to faster transfer rate.
I've added some charging tests as well. Apparently, even if the phone "disconnects" from USB when turned off, the processor still runs and uses about the "USB connected" base current.
kilrah said:
Simply using the built-in current sensor, getting the reads from AEBPlus battery information screen, and methodically turning things on/off once the others are evaluated and can be subtracted from the total reading.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
d'oh aebplus has a battery information screen, checking it right away In that case you'd have to take into consideration aebplus' current absorption anyway... which is not measurable as you cannot check the current intake of aebplus without aebplus being running
I have the cab on the sd already, but didn't install if after noticing that didn't work for button assignments with later versions of the rom... does it work for you on that side? I used the program all the time on my previous ipaq because it was oh so useful but never got around to notice it had a battery info subsection.
Really? You should force the backlight off then
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wouldn't have much sense doing it in the dark would it (admitting it's possible altogether on the HD2!)
But I actually used my oooold casio cassiopeia, about 7 years ago, with backlight turned off, while reading ebooks with speed reader plus during train trips, as the neon lights created a reflection good enough on the display so that I didn't need backlight...
in the end, the backlight died altogether and until I bought a new device, I managed to use it with light turned off
A flashing LED (incoming SMS warning, e.g.) seems to add consumption of 1-3mA.
Running FlexMail in background with a push service (IMAP IDLE) adds up to 30mA.
ephestione said:
does it work for you on that side?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
AEBPlus works fine for me yes... but I don't have a "latest version" ROM AFAIK. I don't like WM6.5.x new softkey arrangement, so I'm staying with 6.5.
Anyway more about Push, I configured that through gmail yesterday, and it works just fine. I left it on during the night, and this morning I had lost 8% battery. So it's pretty much negligible. I received 2 e-mails during the night and was on 3G network.
this is a nice topic! i am interested in how much extra it uses when you are playing a MP3 with the build in HTC app?
maybe it would be a nice idea to make a program that outputs results like you pasted fast and easy (something like a benchmark app) so we can test different rom's fast? too bad i cant write anything otherwise i would try..
OK, seems MP3 uses 120mA screen off, both with Sense player and Coreplayer, so:
Processor running idle, screen off base + 65mA
But it seems to make some pretty big "jumps" once in a while. Maybe they both decode ior fetch from memory by "batches"...
my test,
HD2 rom 1.66
with BT on and BT off (configured but no connection to headset) difference in consumption is 60mA .!
BT is draining my HD2 .!
kilrah said:
OK, seems MP3 uses 120mA screen off, both with Sense player and Coreplayer, so:
Processor running idle, screen off base + 65mA
But it seems to make some pretty big "jumps" once in a while. Maybe they both decode ior fetch from memory by "batches"...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK, I can't confirm the BT issue. Did you observe over a long period of time? The "quiet" current for MP3 I seem to get is 185mA with screen on and backlight at 10%, but sometimes it will climb to 280-320mA for a moment and go down again, both with BT on and off. With screen off for a while it seems to stabilise at the "quiet" level.
BTW, it seems that Advanced task manager isn't reporting CPU usage levels properly. Does someone know of a CPU monitor that works correclty on the HD2?
Yup. review over multiple 6 mins. all baseline(3g/brightness) setting the same. resetting each time for off on BT.
kilrah said:
OK, I can't confirm the BT issue. Did you observe over a long period of time? The "quiet" current for MP3 I seem to get is 185mA with screen on and backlight at 10%, but sometimes it will climb to 280-320mA for a moment and go down again, both with BT on and off. With screen off for a while it seems to stabilise at the "quiet" level.
BTW, it seems that Advanced task manager isn't reporting CPU usage levels properly. Does someone know of a CPU monitor that works correclty on the HD2?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Another consideration:
Data connection sucks power when used actively. Badly. As mentioned in the OP I haven't made comprehensive tests due to low monthly allowance, but I've had a look during normal use.
I'm pretty regularly doing 1hr train rides, during which I will be listnening to music , and browse the net at the same time. It's usually bright, so backlight will probably be at 70%. Signal is relatively low most of the time, on EDGE, inbetween small towns. When I'm on a "static" page (reading an already loaded page), current drain varies between 250 and 350mA.
But while loading a page, it will easily soar to 800mA+. Considering it takes 30-60 seconds to read a page, 20 to load a new one, and repeat... you can quickly see that this kind of usage leads to serious drain... in less than 2 hours the battery would be dead.
So be aware of how much power data connection will use. It's directly proportional to the amount of transferred data, and the worse the reception the more power it uses.
I should try using opera mini again, like I was always doing on my Kaiser. I never noticed excessive drain with it, but opera mini easily divides traffic by a factor of 10...
Just wanted to report that the new version of the superuseful BattClock has now a builtin battery current output, even if it's not really update once per second... seems more like one every 10 seconds.
I get ~240mA playing fullscreen stretched Frasier in lowest backlight (but that's with the keypad leds turned on all the time, I don't know why they don't go off, and I don't have keypadledcontrol installed... so that's a problem), and I get a total 630mA with HTC flashlight at maximum.
Good news! Bye bye Batti
Normal about the refresh time, the sensor only updates every 20 secs or so.
Some new considerations I posted somewhere else but should have put here.
After some time the HD2 seems to have better battery life, but usually it's not your battery lasting longer, it's just you not spending your day playing with the thing anymore.
It's always the same thing, the more a device can do, the more you do with it. On my first 1h train journeys after getting my HD2, I was able to kill 50% battery in 1hr. My first thought was "wow, with my Kaiser I would only use like 15%!!"
But then I took a second thought. I used 50%, but I was browsing the web, in bad reception areas, while listening to music the whole time. With my Kaiser, I'd put music on, check 3 webpages, then put it on the tray with just MSN connected and just pick it up to read/type a message once in a while.
On a next trip, I "forced myself" to do the same with the HD2. Just checked the news for 5 mins, then only listened to music and picked up msn once in a while, plus an unexpected 10min phone call. Guess what? I've only used 20% battery during the trip this time
The "problem" is that browsing with the Kaiser was just painful, so I'd just check the news and put it away. On the HD2 it's so comfortable I forget it and just spend my whole trip browsing heavy pages, which obviously kills battery in no time...
exactly my thoughts and findings
I'm really frustrated because i really used to love the n7 so much I was an early adopter and bought another one after I dropped my first and then went on to buy my girlfriend one. But after being plagued with this issue and stuck on 4.1 its just not the same anymore since I cant flash custom roms all day :/
I've been having a charging issue with android 4.2.1 since it came out (both stock and all the roms I tried) but I noticed that whenever I reverted to 4.1.2 the issue went away completely. So I've been waiting for 4.2.2 to come out for a while now to see if it fixed the issue and after flashing the update tonight it seems to have the same problem.
I've tried searching for months now and haven't found any answers.
So this is the issue with both 4.2.1 and 4.2.2:
The battery charges at an insanely slow pace to the point that it ruins the tablet completely. I'll plug it in over night for 8+ hours and it will not gain more then 40% battery life in that time.
Its to the point that when I was just using it right now on the charger with brightness turned all the way down and nothing on other then sync and WiFi that light web browsing for 10 mins caused it to discharge a percent after being plugged in for 19 minutes.
Notes:
Its a c70 16gb
I tried 3 different stock N7 chargers with stock cables as well as trying them with other cables.
I'm not plugged into any kind of extension cords and I've tried multiple wall sockets at different locations.
My girlfriends nexus 7 32g charges fine on 4.2.1 and I have not updated her to 4.2.2 to test yet.
I haven't checked the battery connection because like I said whenever I revert to stock 4.1.2 or any 4.1.2 rom it charges in 4 hours flat or 6 hours with heavy usage while charging.
So anyone have any ideas? If not I guess I have to rma.
Do both, yours and your girlfriend's devices take that long to charge?
sl4y3r88 said:
Do both, yours and your girlfriend's devices take that long to charge?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope her nexus 7 charges fine. ( a little slower on 4.2 then 4.1 but nothing like mine)
Her nexus does have issues with turning on sometimes on 4.2.1 like a lot of other users but its nothing holding the power button for 10 seconds doesn't fix.
It also just noticed it seems to discharge at an extremely fast pace. (still on 4.2.2)
It just dropped from 55% to 51% in the time I've typed these responses with brightness all the way down.
So anyone want to try and help me figure this out before I send it in friday? I called it in to Google play device support to try and report the software bug and they said its the first they heard of it and they would pass it on but I felt like the rep didnt want to help as I bought it from a third party. I'm willing to do any tests suggested and hop between software versions to try and figure out this bug.
Why do you think it is a "software bug" when millions of people running the "same software" don't experience the same behavior?
I realize that software can exhibit data-dependent behaviors, and thus exhibit low occurrence rates... but there is no "software" involved in charging the battery.
Do you think a booted Linux kernel is needed to charge a battery? How would the battery get charged when the device is turned off in that case? C'mon!
Send it back and tell them the battery (or charge contoller CIRCUIT) is defective.
If it's out of warranty, PAY them to replace it.
bftb0 said:
Why do you think it is a "software bug" when millions of people running the "same software" don't experience the same behavior?
I realize that software can exhibit data-dependent behaviors, and thus exhibit low occurrence rates... but there is no "software" involved in charging the battery.
Do you think a booted Linux kernel is needed to charge a battery? How would the battery get charged when the device is turned off in that case? C'mon!
Send it back and tell them the battery (or charge contoller CIRCUIT) is defective.
If it's out of warranty, PAY them to replace it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Then how do you explain that if right now I flash back to 4.1.2 it will work fine? If you want I'll provide screenshots.
I just flashed back to 4.1.2 this morning and it worked perfectly. Just now I flashed codefires 4.2.2 build and the problems back.
Please explain how that is hardware related.
I may of jumped the gun assuming it was a charging issue. It seems like it might be a battery drain issue. Here's a couple screenshots from a fresh install of codefirex 4.2.2 build.
Sent from my Nexus 7 using XDA Premium HD app
All I was trying to say is that when the OS is booted, at most all it does is monitor battery voltage and current - it doesn't get actively involved in control of charging circuitry.
At most this historical data can be used to *predict* when the battery will run out of juice, and this number is what is shown to the user as a % charge number. Hopefully that allows the prediction to be sort of correct as the battery ages and it's characteristics change.
This "calibration data" is only used for prediction - it does absolutely nothing to alter the rate at which current is drawn from the battery by the motherboard, nor for attempting to alter the behavior of a battery charge controller.
Li-Ion and Li-Polymer batteries are indeed complicated enough that they should not be charged by extremely simple circuits if a long operating lifetime is desired. For this purpose though, monolithic battery charge controllers chips are used - they do not need any assistance of a micro-controller or advanced CPU running a modern OS. That's why they are able to charge batteries rapidly and appropriately when the motherboard is in a "powered down" state.
Relative to a big multi-core CPU chip, which might have hundreds of millions of transistors, battery charge controllers are extremely small circuits - they are sold by the billions and cost in the ballpark of one to several pennies. They don't need the support of a CPU or even a microcontroller to operate correctly.
Good luck with your tab; I hope you enjoy it.
bftb0 said:
All I was trying to say is that when the OS is booted, at most all it does is monitor battery voltage and current - it doesn't get actively involved in control of charging circuitry.
At most this historical data can be used to *predict* when the battery will run out of juice, and this number is what is shown to the user as a % charge number. Hopefully that allows the prediction to be sort of correct as the battery ages and it's characteristics change.
This "calibration data" is only used for prediction - it does absolutely nothing to alter the rate at which current is drawn from the battery by the motherboard, nor for attempting to alter the behavior of a battery charge controller.
Li-Ion and Li-Polymer batteries are indeed complicated enough that they should not be charged by extremely simple circuits if a long operating lifetime is desired. For this purpose though, monolithic battery charge controllers chips are used - they do not need any assistance of a micro-controller or advanced CPU running a modern OS. That's why they are able to charge batteries rapidly and appropriately when the motherboard is in a "powered down" state.
Relative to a big multi-core CPU chip, which might have hundreds of millions of transistors, battery charge controllers are extremely small circuits - they are sold by the billions and cost in the ballpark of one to several pennies. They don't need the support of a CPU or even a microcontroller to operate correctly.
Good luck with your tab; I hope you enjoy it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for taking the time to write out this detailed explanation. I read it over a couple times and that all makes a lot of sense and now I have a little better understanding of how things work charging wise.
But I still can't wrap my head around how the problem DISAPPEARS COMPLETELY on any 4.1 based build...
I'm not trying to contradict you in anyway it seems like you are way more knowledgeable then me on the subject.
It just doesn't make any sense and I was hoping you could make more of it for me.
Maybe it isn't the charging but a battery drain issue something on 4.2 based builds is draining more current then the charger can dish out.
But while i was doing research I read that chargers up the current they dish out if the device is in use. Is that correct?
I've looked into the media server bug but as I just did a fresh install of stock 4.2.1 and haven't changed or added anything to the file structure that wasn't included in the factory image, I also went through and turned off the keyboard press sound and all other sounds like explained in some of the threads I have read. I also read that the problem is supposed to be fixed in 4.2.2. I also haven't installed any apps from the market.
I guess all I'm looking for is the answer to this question:
Could there really be a hardware related problem of any sort (not just charging and battery problems but anything) that causes problems with 4.2 based builds specifically but doesn't cause problems with 4.1?
If the answer is yes then I don't have to feel bad about sending it in but if its software based issues I'll be upset that I wasn't able to fix it and gave up.
Have you let the battery drain all the way or do you just plug it in at a certain point? if not let it get to the point were it will turn itself off. if the battery with the cross in it stays for more than it would take for 1% to drain then it just might be your battery stats file. even if its not let it drain and then charge it while its off. you can check the battery by pushing the power button quick. i know i have had this problem with other devices that were fixed by doing this. and my N7 did it last night were i updated and plugged it in, it was at 60% and when i woke up it was at 46%.
projectzro said:
Have you let the battery drain all the way or do you just plug it in at a certain point? if not let it get to the point were it will turn itself off. if the battery with the cross in it stays for more than it would take for 1% to drain then it just might be your battery stats file. even if its not let it drain and then charge it while its off. you can check the battery by pushing the power button quick. i know i have had this problem with other devices that were fixed by doing this. and my N7 did it last night were i updated and plugged it in, it was at 60% and when i woke up it was at 46%.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll give this a try right now then post results, the battery is already pretty low so It shouldn't take very long. Thanks for the response.
projectzro said:
Have you let the battery drain all the way or do you just plug it in at a certain point? if not let it get to the point were it will turn itself off. if the battery with the cross in it stays for more than it would take for 1% to drain then it just might be your battery stats file. even if its not let it drain and then charge it while its off. you can check the battery by pushing the power button quick. i know i have had this problem with other devices that were fixed by doing this. and my N7 did it last night were i updated and plugged it in, it was at 60% and when i woke up it was at 46%.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So I let it run dry and am getting some weird behavior...
The dead battery symbol did not pop at all. It actually booted played the low battery sound half way through the nexus logo loaded into the OS and immediately was greeted by the battery to low logo powering down message and then it returned off. It did this cycle all the way through three times in a row before holding the power button did nothing. I let it sit for a minute before trying again and I got another boot out of it all the way to the OS again. But I've yet to be greeted by the battery with the cross symbol. Holding the power button will do the cycle described above or do nothing at all.
krisserapin said:
But while i was doing research I read that chargers up the current they dish out if the device is in use. Is that correct?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, the 120v->5v converter certainly can be providing more current @5v because the device is active, but that's only because the motherboard is drawing current in parallel with the battery charging circuit. It doesn't mean the battery charge rate is higher.
krisserapin said:
Could there really be a hardware related problem of any sort (not just charging and battery problems but anything) that causes problems with 4.2 based builds specifically but doesn't cause problems with 4.1?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I suppose so.
I would do a few things to determine whether that is a reasonable hypotheses, though.
1) See how fast the battery charges with the tablet turned off. Should be close to 40%/hour for a new battery. You know there is no "software" running with the tablet turned off, so if you don't see some reasonable number here (say > 20%/hr) then a bad battery or charge controller circuit in the tab are the most likely culprits. Also, if the temperature rise of the tablet while doing this seems higher than the gf's unit, that would implicate the battery, not the charging circuit.
2) There's software, and then there's software. (Preinstalled vs. User installed) Run the battery down a ways, and then observe the battery charging rate with the device on but screen off (sleeping), but on a stock 4.2 install with ZERO user apps installed. Then, install/restore all your favorite apps, reboot, maybe use a couple of your fave apps, and repeat the same charge rate trial (screen off/sleeping). Are there large differences between the two cases? If so, that would implicate one of your apps in causing either lots of additional compute operations or preventing entry into the LP0 state (perhaps because of wakelocks?)
The thing is, the N7 battery is rated at 4325 mAh; that is sort of the same thing as 4.325 amps of current for 1 hour. (Voltage range of roughly 4v to 3.5v).
So, if a "good battery" can be charged in 2.5hrs, that is sort of like stuffing 1.73 amps into the battery for that time (1.73 x 2.5 = 4.325 A-h or 4325 mA-h). That's pretty near to the max capacity of the AC charger (2A)
Now, some users have reported discharging their tabs in 4 hours under heavy continuous use; that would be about 1.08 amps for 4 hours.
Since the wall charger is rated to produce 2A, this suggests that very heavy usage simultaneous with charging would indeed cause battery charging to slow down significantly - let's suppose it drops from 1.73a to 0.65a. Now it takes the battery 6.6hrs to charge ... but that is still just over 15%/hr ... with the tab in active use.
But that's not what you were noticing - you were seeing much worse charge rates than this when the tablet was supposed to be more or less idle!
Finally I should point out that I previously mentioned that the % charge number is a prediction, not a measurement! If for some reason this number were screwed up, then the "charge rate" observations could be completely screwed up. (Think of this as being analogous to trying to partially fill a gas tank in a car or estimate fuel mileage with a broken gas gauge) The only way to be sure that you are not falling victim to something like this is to record battery voltages - the 100% level should be up around 4v, and the 10% values down around 3.5v.
You can observe this value at /sys/devices/platform/tegra-i2c.4/i2c-4/4-0055/power_supply/battery/voltage_now
(note value is reported in uV)
Whew - long post. It doesn't directly answer your question about "why was 4.1 so different?" - but gives you an idea about why I was skeptical when you saw charging rates as low as you did.
I dunno, maybe the % charge prediction value numbers are screwy on your tab for some strange reason in 4.2, perhaps because of a minor hardware difference. I can't rule it out - I once saw a bug expression in a hardware/software combination that required three independent conditions (from three separate vendors!) to have precise configurations before the bug would show itself.
I hope this post gives you some ideas to try; it certainly doesn't give a solution.
Good luck - if you feel like spending more time investigating, go for it; just don't let the clock run out on the warranty period if you have one left.
bftb0 said:
Well, the 120v->5v converter certainly can be providing more current @5v because the device is active, but that's only because the motherboard is drawing current in parallel with the battery charging circuit. It doesn't mean the battery charge rate is higher.
I suppose so.
I would do a few things to determine whether that is a reasonable hypotheses, though.
1) See how fast the battery charges with the tablet turned off. Should be close to 40%/hour for a new battery. You know there is no "software" running with the tablet turned off, so if you don't see some reasonable number here (say > 20%/hr) then a bad battery or charge controller circuit in the tab are the most likely culprits. Also, if the temperature rise of the tablet while doing this seems higher than the gf's unit, that would implicate the battery, not the charging circuit.
2) There's software, and then there's software. (Preinstalled vs. User installed) Run the battery down a ways, and then observe the battery charging rate with the device on but screen off (sleeping), but on a stock 4.2 install with ZERO user apps installed. Then, install/restore all your favorite apps, reboot, maybe use a couple of your fave apps, and repeat the same charge rate trial (screen off/sleeping). Are there large differences between the two cases? If so, that would implicate one of your apps in causing either lots of additional compute operations or preventing entry into the LP0 state (perhaps because of wakelocks?)
The thing is, the N7 battery is rated at 4325 mAh; that is sort of the same thing as 4.325 amps of current for 1 hour. (Voltage range of roughly 4v to 3.5v).
So, if a "good battery" can be charged in 2.5hrs, that is sort of like stuffing 1.73 amps into the battery for that time (1.73 x 2.5 = 4.325 A-h or 4325 mA-h). That's pretty near to the max capacity of the AC charger (2A)
Now, some users have reported discharging their tabs in 4 hours under heavy continuous use; that would be about 1.08 amps for 4 hours.
Since the wall charger is rated to produce 2A, this suggests that very heavy usage simultaneous with charging would indeed cause battery charging to slow down significantly - let's suppose it drops from 1.73a to 0.65a. Now it takes the battery 6.6hrs to charge ... but that is still just over 15%/hr ... with the tab in active use.
But that's not what you were noticing - you were seeing much worse charge rates than this when the tablet was supposed to be more or less idle!
Finally I should point out that I previously mentioned that the % charge number is a prediction, not a measurement! If for some reason this number were screwed up, then the "charge rate" observations could be completely screwed up. (Think of this as being analogous to trying to partially fill a gas tank in a car or estimate fuel mileage with a broken gas gauge) The only way to be sure that you are not falling victim to something like this is to record battery voltages - the 100% level should be up around 4v, and the 10% values down around 3.5v.
You can observe this value at /sys/devices/platform/tegra-i2c.4/i2c-4/4-0055/power_supply/battery/voltage_now
(note value is reported in uV)
Whew - long post. It doesn't directly answer your question about "why was 4.1 so different?" - but gives you an idea about why I was skeptical when you saw charging rates as low as you did.
I dunno, maybe the % charge prediction value numbers are screwy on your tab for some strange reason in 4.2, perhaps because of a minor hardware difference. I can't rule it out - I once saw a bug expression in a hardware/software combination that required three independent conditions (from three separate vendors!) to have precise configurations before the bug would show itself.
I hope this post gives you some ideas to try; it certainly doesn't give a solution.
Good luck - if you feel like spending more time investigating, go for it; just don't let the clock run out on the warranty period if you have one left.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wow thank you so much for the help. I'll play around with this tonight and see what happens. If I can't figure it out by the morning I think I'll be able to RMA it without feeling like I just rolled over and let my n7 get the best of me.
So after charging it on stock 4.2.1 with the power completely off it only charged 3% in a little over a hour and voltages read 3.6. I'm gonna leave it on the charger over night turned on starting from 3% with only two extra battery monitoring apps installed and report back in the morning with screenshots of the results. After that ill probably revert to 4.1.2 drain the battery fully, charge it off for an hour report the values then let it charge fully with the battery apps on for reference take a few more screenshots then lock the bootloader install the ota and ship it off to good old ASUS since it sounds like its hardware from whats been explained.
FWIW, I drained my N7 last night (LOL, typing novels into XDA threads) - when I finished I was at 6% charge - that was 3.66v. In the morning @ 100%, the battery voltage was 4.1-something.
Sounds to me like you've definitely got a hardware problem.
Good luck with the RMA.
Canyou help me?
Since I flashed 4.2.2 my 240V-USB charger only cahrges thes battery about 5% in one hour.
Before (with 4.2.1) It was definitely faster. It charged more tha 5% per hour (maybe 20-25%).
I double checked the plug in the socket. checked the correct fit of the USB cable on the docking station.
Everything fits tight. No wiggle.
It must be software related, since it started after flashing the OTA zip from 4.2.1 to 4.2.2
Polarfuchs said:
Canyou help me?
Since I flashed 4.2.2 my 240V-USB charger only cahrges thes battery about 5% in one hour.
Before (with 4.2.1) It was definitely faster. It charged more tha 5% per hour (maybe 20-25%).
I double checked the plug in the socket. checked the correct fit of the USB cable on the docking station.
Everything fits tight. No wiggle.
It must be software related, since it started after flashing the OTA zip from 4.2.1 to 4.2.2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From a partially charged state, say below 50%, turn the device off, (NOT sleeping, but powered OFF) and put it on the charger for one hour.
It should charge at around 30-40%/hr.
As I pointed out above, how is it possible that software would be affecting the charging with the device turned OFF?
I believe you are seeing exactly what you report; my best guess is that a hardware problem occurred just about coincidentally with your upgrade. Just coincidence - not causation.
You also should inspect the battery voltage (see above for path in /sys) in case something crazy is happening with the %charge *prediction* (it is not a measurement) - because the total charging range is from about 3.65v-4.15v, a normal charge rate should be roughly 150 to 200 mV/hr
good luck
This is a guide I put together to help you guys identify all the battery draining features and settings that exist on your Note 2014 that rob you of that precious time with your tablets. Many of these features are enabled out of the box by Samsung and this causes people to not get the most out of their batteries. It can be confusing, because many of these settings don't have any explanations and others are just hidden from plain sight. This guide exists to enable you to get the most out of your investment and maintain a long life for your device.
Under the Connections Tab:
Wi-Fi: All you see here is the Wifi connections you have and that the tablet can see. However, hidden under this is an advanced section. Press the Menu button (On the bezel to the left of your home button), then tap "Advanced"
Keep Wi-Fi on during sleep: Make sure this is set to "Always". If this is changed then every time you wake the screen up it will go through the very slow process of connecting to your access point. It's been shown to save a lot of battery to keep this on "Always", not to mention it makes all your internet related activities quicker because you don't have to wait for it to connect. This should be set to "Always" out of the box.
Always allow scanning: Uncheck this. If left checked, then apps and location services will constantly scan and use nearby access points to determine your location. This is done even when your Wifi is off.
Bluetooth: Keep Bluetooth off, unless you're using it. It only takes a quick slide and tap to turn it on from the notification bar, when it's needed. Remember to turn it off when you're done using it.
Location Services:
Access to my location: Turn it off. If and when location services are needed by an app, such as Maps, you will be prompted to turn it on and conveniently taken to the correct settings page to enable this feature. A simple press of the back button will return you to your app, without disturbing anything. It can also be quickly engaged and disengaged in the notification bar. Aside from the fact that advertisers (Yes, Google is an ad company) use this information to track your every move, it's a major drain on battery all for the purpose of selling your location habits to advertisers.
My places: This can be be used to set a place for your "Home" or "Office" so apps and widgets such as your helpful weather app can use this information to show you relevant information, without having to access your GPS. This can also been done through the apps themselves, so check the settings of that individual app if you're not getting the desired effect.
Nearby Devices: Keep this feature off until you want to connect to another device to transfer files or share other content.
Screen Mirroring: Turn screen mirroring off. Screen mirroring is helpful when you want to use your tablet as a second screen, but during the 99% of the time that you're not using it, it's constantly scanning for a device to mirror. (Strangely, this feature once turned off, will turn back on when you leave this portion of the settings. This is possibly a glitch on Samsung's part that may need to be fixed)
Under the Device Tab:
Sound:
Vibration Intensity: The "Vibration Intensity" is used to control the strength of the vibration for haptic feedback or for rarer instances when vibration is needed. Play with this and put it on the lowest setting that you find satisfactory.
Haptic Feedback & Key-tap Vibration: Haptic Feedback & Key-tap Vibration is the small vibration you sense when you touch certain parts of the screen. Most of the time it's used when touching each key on the keyboard as you type. Turning haptic feedback off will increase the longevity of your battery, but it's a satisfying feature to have and won't cause too much drain on your battery. Of course, that all depends on how much you type. If you use your tablet like a type writer, consider turning this feature off.
Under the Controls Tab:
S-Pen:
Turn off pen detection: Check this. This feature exists to accept the use of a secondary stylus. It leaves the WACOM digitizer active and ready to accept inputs from another pen, while your original one is docked. If you have no intention of using a secondary stylus, then make sure this is turned off.
Motions: Used to control the contents of the screen through the gyroscopic sensors of your device. Tilt or pan the device to browse through a series of images or zoom in. Considered to be a gimmicky feature by many, it's also a major drain on battery life. Turn it off and use your tablet with your fingers like the rest of the population.
Palm Motion: Wave your hand in front of the screen and you can do a screen capture or mute/pause the video. Or you can just move your waving hand a few inches closer to the screen and just pause/mute by touching the device! This feature is achieved by activating a sensor on the front of your device that constantly watches for your actions and it's a major drain on battery life. Turn it off!
Smart Screen:
Smart stay: This feature will keep the screen on as long as you're staring at it. Great way to avoid tapping the screen every minute so it doesn't lock itself. But the cost at which it accomplishes this is considerable and doesn't always work right. I recommend you turn it off
Smart Rotation: Uses the mega draining sensor to watch the orientation of your face and adjusts the rotation of the screen. Like the other features it doesn't do it's job all that well at the expense of a lot of battery. Turn it off
Smart Pause: Similar to "Smart stay" but instead it watches your entire head to make sure you're facing the screen. Turn away and it pauses the video you're looking at. Battery drain galore. Off.
Smart Scroll: Watches the tilt of your head to predict when it should scroll up or down. Give me a break. Turn it off.
Under the General Tab:
Accounts: This is a doozy. Your device, if you don't change anything, will constantly, throughout the day, sync your information to the "Cloud." Even when your screen is off and you're not using it, 24/7. Aside from the privacy implications, because anything in the cloud ceases to belong to you under the law. This bleeds your battery on a whole different level because it's always working, at least once an hour, even when your not using your tablet. It's important to note though, that it also enables a considerable amount of convenience, so I will go through each bit of information it syncs and describe it to you so you can pick and choose what's important to you. Just uncheck whatever you don't need.
Google: You may have more than just Google under this section of the settings, but the one thing everyone has is a Google account under here. So tap on "Google" under "My accounts", then tap on your Gmail address, under "Accounts" and let's begin....
Sync App Data: The information you input into your various apps, the changes in each app's settings, or the progress you make can be backed up to Google's servers so when you switch devices and put that app on the another device you will be able to continue from where you left off.
Sync Calender: If you use Google Calender for appointments, reminders, scheduling or just organizing your life then you're going to want everything to stay up to date across all your devices and PC. Add an appointment to your calender while on your way to work, then make sure it appears on your PC and tablet as well. If you don't use Google Calender, then you do not need this.
Sync Contact: Turn this off. You're not on a phone. You're on a tablet. Unnecessary to say the least. However, if you were on a phone this would sync your contacts list and the changes you make to it so when the time comes to upgrade your Nexus 5 to the Nexus 6 your contacts will happily jump ship with you.
Sync Gmail: Uploads and downloads changes to your Gmail account. If you receive an email, it will alert you on your device and that email will be available to view in your Gmail app. If you compose an email on your tablet and save it as a draft it, will appear on your Gmail account when you login on your computer. In other words, it makes sure the things that happen and the changes you make in your Gmail account and Gmail app are synchronized.
Sync Google Photos: Backs up your Google photos to the cloud so you can have them on all your android devices, even future ones. Also, so you can view and have these photos on any device that has access to Google, like a PC.
Sync Play Books: Syncs information such as highlights, annotations, bookmarks and progress from your e-books so you can have those changes across all your devices. Stopped reading Catcher in the Rye on your phone? Just pick up where you left off on your tablet. (This won't effect purchases. Google will be fully aware of what books you have bought and they will be available on all your devices that use this same Google account. This goes for Play Magazines, Play Movies & TV, and Play Music)
Sync Google Play Magazines: Same as the sync for Play Books, except you can continue viewing Miss January's "assets" from another device without interruption.
Sync Google Play Movies & TV: Saves your progress in films and TV shows so you can continue on another device from the exact same spot.
Sync Google Play Music: Favorites & playlists created on your device will be viewable on other devices tied to your Google account.
Sync People details: Kinda confusing isn't it? Especially with Sync Contacts already an option. "People details" is a new sync service related to Google Play Games. It will be used to carry your username across all your games from a centralized location. So you can go and compare high scores and get achievements all from this service. Think of Google Play Games like PSN, Xbox Live or Game Center for your android devices, "Sync People details" will sync your progress, high scores, and achievements so they stay up to date everywhere else.
Sync Picasa Web albums: Picasa is used to organize, edit and share images. This will synchronize the changes you make to your Picasa images.
(I personally only have one of these checked and that's Gmail sync. Everything else is turned off.)
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Practicing Good Recharging Habits
In this short section, I want to share with you good recharging habits to extend the life of your batteries. A common technology most portable modern electronics share is Li-Ion batteries. Li-Ion batteries replaced the older Ni-Cad batteries and did away with a lot of the annoying disadvantages of that older technology, but it's not free of it's own annoyances.
Charge Cycles: Your battery, like everything on this planet, has a life span. For batteries it's measured in charge cycles, or how many times you can fully charge a battery before it can no longer hold a charge. Except, it doesn't just go from holding a full charge one day to being incapable of charging the next, it slowly degrades. The chart below shows you what you can roughly expect:
300 to 500 full charges before your battery can only hold 75% of it's original capacity
1,200 to 1,500 full charges before your battery is down to 50% of it's original capacity
2,000 to 2,500 full charges before your battery is down to 25% of it's original capacity
3,750 to 4,700 full charges before your battery can only hold 10% of it's original capacity.
If your battery lasted 10 hours when you first purchased your device, then 1,200 full charges later it will only be able to last 5. Now, it's important to note that the longevity of you battery depends on more than just charge cycles, heat also plays a role in degrading it. The cooler you battery stays the longer it'll live. Also, I want to clarify that if you were to charge your device from 50% to full, then that doesn't count as a full charge, but only half of one. In other words, if you charge it 10% every single time you plug in your device, then it will take 3,000 - 5,000 of your incremental charges before you're down to 75% of it's original capacity.
Leaving it Plugged In: You have two common ways of hurting the life span of your battery, aside from heat and charge cycles. One of which is to leave it on the charger once it has already hit the 100% mark. Li-Ion batteries don't do well with this. I can understand how difficult it is to remember to unplug your device once it's full, especially if you charge it at night, but leaving it on there isn't good. Take it off whenever you're able to!
Complete Discharge The second most common way of damaging your Li-Ion battery is to let it drain down to 0. Certain safety guards are in place to never allow the battery to actually be fully discharged, even though your tablet won't turn on and it read 0 before it turned off, because if it were to actually be completely discharged then your battery would never be of use to you again. Safety guards in place or not, DON'T let your battery level get too low before plugging it in. This will lower the life span, so make it a habit to charge your device before it gets lower than 30% or so.
The Exception There is, however, an exception to the No Discharge Rule. It is recommended, most famously by Apple, to allow your battery to fully discharge once a month. The reason behind this confusing bit of advice is that your battery has a smart sensor in it that relays the level of charge to your device. By allowing it to discharge completely once a month, it calibrates that sensor to ensure you're getting an accurate reading in your notification bar. I personally think once a month is too often and suspect that this advice may have an ulterior motive behind it, after all replacing batteries outside of warranty is big business for these companies, so I only let it do a full discharge once every 2 or 3 months.
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There you have it. Your Note 2014 guide to longer periods of enjoyment and shorter periods of charging. I hope you guys get a lot out of your device.
Feel free to share your experiences and expertise regarding everything I've written about in here. I'm all ears and look forward to shaping, editing and clarifying this guide to better serve us.
The description of the S-Pen detection is wrong, this has nothing to do with forgetting the S-Pen, the detdction cares shere the S-Pen is in its slot or not. If it is in his slot and the detection is rnabled, the digitizer is disabled thus saving battery. The detection needs to be switched off and thus digitizer always on if a second pen is used while the original is in its slot.
Erstellt mit meinem Note 10.1 2014 LTE
akxak said:
The description of the S-Pen detection is wrong, this has nothing to do with forgetting the S-Pen, the detdction cares shere the S-Pen is in its slot or not. If it is in his slot and the detection is rnabled, the digitizer is disabled thus saving battery. The detection needs to be switched off and thus digitizer always on if a second pen is used while the original is in its slot.
Erstellt mit meinem Note 10.1 2014 LTE
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I just looked into this again and you're absolutely correct. I fixed that portion. I had it confused with the "Pen Keeper" feature from the Note 2 and 3. Thanks akxak.
Thanks for this! Already noticed a significant difference. Should easily last two days with regular mixed use.
Thanks a lot mate. Good tips.
I didn't know it was bad to leave the charger attached once the battery is charged. I assumed the battery electronics would ensure the battery didn't get overcharged.
I leave my laptop plugged most of the time.... Is this bad too then?
Great tips and tweaks. Thanks for the time care and knowledge sharing for us fellow owners. I used most of these.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk
jack880 said:
Thanks a lot mate. Good tips.
I didn't know it was bad to leave the charger attached once the battery is charged. I assumed the battery electronics would ensure the battery didn't get overcharged.
I leave my laptop plugged most of the time.... Is this bad too then?
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Yeah they dont overcharge but a battery needs to disharge. I still do leave my laptop on charge all the time and tbh in the last 6 years i have had to replace my battery twice considering I use it a lot atleast 6hours a day i dont think its that bad. At a mere £30 battery replacements from ebay am happy to keep my laptop on charge all the time....however with a tablet i will deffo be careful.
Geordie Affy said:
Yeah they dont overcharge but a battery needs to disharge. I still do leave my laptop on charge all the time and tbh in the last 6 years i have had to replace my battery twice considering I use it a lot atleast 6hours a day i dont think its that bad. At a mere £30 battery replacements from ebay am happy to keep my laptop on charge all the time....however with a tablet i will deffo be careful.
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My laptop has a sealed battery unfortunately. Could probably get it replaced though once the warranty has expired anyway...
Thing is if I keep discharging and charging it all day, a) it'll use up the limited number of charge cycles and b) chances are when I need to take it away somewhere the battery won't be fully charged... It's a samsung and it does have the option to never charge the battery above 80% to prolong its life - maybe I should switch that on...
Wonder why the tablets don't have that option?
jack880 said:
My laptop has a sealed battery unfortunately. Could probably get it replaced though once the warranty has expired anyway...
Thing is if I keep discharging and charging it all day, a) it'll use up the limited number of charge cycles and b) chances are when I need to take it away somewhere the battery won't be fully charged... It's a samsung and it does have the option to never charge the battery above 80% to prolong its life - maybe I should switch that on...
Wonder why the tablets don't have that option?
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Yeah that is unfortunate, these days people use laptops like desktops so battery should never be sealed.
Although surely if the tablet had a 80% charge limit and the plug was left in surely that wouldnt be good for it either. To be honest I think theres soo much factors when it comes to battery life that sometimes I think its too much hardwork haha.
How does the S-pen alarm thing work? I didn't know there was a setting for that. I tested it with leaving the pen in my room and walking out with the note but there was no notification at all.
I have that s-pen detection setting unchecked and it seems like it doesn't even work.
You guys are all welcome. It was my pleasure.
Also, start posting pictures of your battery life and let's compare, see if we can't come up with more minor tweaks. Here's mine from my first rundown with those exact setting applied from my OP. I used it heavily for internet browsing that day.
C2Q said:
How does the S-pen alarm thing work? I didn't know there was a setting for that. I tested it with leaving the pen in my room and walking out with the note but there was no notification at all.
I have that s-pen detection setting unchecked and it seems like it doesn't even work.
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To be honest, I didn't see this feature on the Note 2014. I know my Note II has it and I know the Note III has it. I could be wrong as I'm not near my tablet, so someone else can confirm whether or not this feature is missing. The feature is called Pen Keeper on my Note II.
vdc530 said:
You guys are all welcome. It was my pleasure.
Also, start posting pictures of your battery life and let's compare, see if we can't come up with more minor tweaks. Here's mine from my first rundown with those exact setting applied from my OP. I used it heavily for internet browsing that day.
To be honest, I didn't see this feature on the Note 2014. I know my Note II has it and I know the Note III has it. I could be wrong as I'm not near my tablet, so someone else can confirm whether or not this feature is missing. The feature is called Pen Keeper on my Note II.
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And screen on?
Sent from my SM-P600 using Tapatalk
BooBoo_el_Locco said:
And screen on?
Sent from my SM-P600 using Tapatalk
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Unfortunately, like an idiot, it didn't occur to me take that shot. But, it felt no different than my 4th generation iPad. I'm very happy with this tablet's battery life. Aside from my note 2, this probably has the strongest battery life of any android device I've ever used. Probably twice as strong as the nexus 10.
Yeah, the max i got was 6h screen on
Sent from my SM-P600 using Tapatalk
BooBoo_el_Locco said:
Yeah, the max i got was 6h screen on
Sent from my SM-P600 using Tapatalk
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The maximum you got with these settings was 6 hours? Maximum? I don't know if your exaggerating with your use of the word maximum or have a defective unit? Some people on here and on Android central have these quick draining, slow charging defective units. That screen shot was from my first day with the device I did nothing but use it all day.
Here's my display on time from today from 100% down to 20%.
I'm telling you dude, there's something wrong with yours.
i've been getting about the same (9hrs+) without some of the things mentioned in OP but i keep my screen under 20% for the majority. i've seen some posts where they say to set it at 40 to make it useable, but damn 40% is just too bright for me in normal lighting!
Maybe i need to do a factory reset =/
Sent from my SM-P600 using Tapatalk
---------- Post added at 08:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:39 PM ----------
You get that screen on if you play alot plants vs zombies?
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Yeah I dunno, I thought the battery life was pretty good even without these tweaks. I was playing Trials for an hour or so the other day and it only drained like 3-4%. I've gone about 36 hours without charging it so far and its at around 45% - this is with moderate use and a lot of standby time. I will charge it when it dips below 30% as suggested in the post.
C2Q said:
Yeah I dunno, I thought the battery life was pretty good even without these tweaks. I was playing Trials for an hour or so the other day and it only drained like 3-4%. I've gone about 36 hours without charging it so far and its at around 45% - this is with moderate use and a lot of standby time. I will charge it when it dips below 30% as suggested in the post.
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Can you post some screnshots from your usage?
Sent from my SM-P600 using Tapatalk
I've had a couple road trips now, using my phone with AA, using Waze for navigation, and it's worked pretty well, BUT...
I've notice the phone is
a) warmer than expected afterwards - particularly for a phone in a cool protected cubby, screen-off, out of direct s unlight
b) does not recharge / may be losing charge even though it has a USB based power connection
When I pulled up GSAM I found that "DeX Home" was "fingered" as using most of the power, which is curious because I don't have DeX in use when using AA (!) and I have never used DeX ever with this device.
This is the only time that in the weeks that I have had the phone, that DeX Home has shown up in the listings, but it's happened twice.
I've used Package Disabler to 'disable' DeX Home after the first time, but the power consumption pattern occurred again the second time I used AA (abbreviated screen shot attached).
Any theories? I'm stumped.
Thanks for reading.
Same here as well, I believe gsam is reporting it wrongly instead of android os, tapping the Dex on top reveals almost all the apps that comes under android os
Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk
My device(s) are always very warm when running AA. However, if you have your device connected to your car's entertainment system, and are using the display on the car, then your phone should charge, not deplete. On the other hand, if you are running AA on your phone screen, then I'm not surprised that some car chargers can't keep up with the power consumption.
Thanks for the feedback, was hoping the behavior wasn't unique to my device.
I can see the package list depth, agreed that it looks like the OS report, will keep a monitor on it.
When running AA through the head unit, the phone display is completely off.
I can't quantify it now, but it *seems* like the GS7e ran cooler and charged faster when running Waze under AA than the GS8+ does ... but sadly at this point it's only anecdotal as I turned the GS7e in for significant tradein value.
Of course, the GS8+ runs AA / Waze noticeably smoother than the GS7e, so there's that. ;^)