Database Users

Battery life issues.

I know there have been many threads like this but I'm just looking for clarification as this is my first Android phone. At my house I usually get the Rogers H speed with 3/4 bars. When I browse the Internet for just an hour, 15% of the battery has been drained. Is this normal on these speeds?
I plan on leaving an IM client on 24/7 and using GPS/maps daily, so I am a bit worried because this may not last the entire day. I could switch to EDGE when I don't need it but apparently I heard that will disconnect once I start a voice call (and want to keep my IM on always). I checked my battery stats and apparently the cell standby (H) is taking most of the battery.
I am using CyanogenMod 6.1.1 with stock radio from Bell. I'm going to try to see if SetCPU makes a difference. And is there any program that can limit the HSPDA bandwidth so less battery is used? Thanks.

call *#*#4636#*#*

If you are at home or in a Wi-Fi accessible, Turn ON wifi - it uses wayyyyy less battery than the phone radio when it comes to Data....
you could get a extended battery.... Mugen Power has one for 1800 mAH and its the same size as the stock battery so no need of a bigger door.

What is your screen brightness set at? The screen is one of the top battery drain culprits. Try turning off auto-brightness, and turning the brightness down to as low as you find tolerable (depending on personal taste, and the lighting conditions in the places you use the phone the most). I recently just lowered my brightness to 35% (still plenty bright under many conditions) from 45%, and already noticing a significant improvement in batter life. Battery usage of the display dropped from over 70% to 45-50%. I haven't had the brightness set this low long enough to see how it translates to hours/days between charges, but we'll see how it goes . . ..

my battery life is retarded. probably less than yours. i swear i think i lose 1% of battery per minute of web surfing. battery is fine if you do not go on the web and have 2g on all day.

Yeah, it's pretty bad.
But that's the same for most smartphones nowadays I think...
Back to the days of game gear, the battery muncher.
6AA = 5 hours of gameplay.
I just bought some Chinese 1500maH batteries on eBay and I don't know if they're actually 1500maH. If I play with my phone a bit, I get 50% after 8 hours at work. Yikes!

Frostie123 said:
I know there have been many threads like this but I'm just looking for clarification as this is my first Android phone. At my house I usually get the Rogers H speed with 3/4 bars. When I browse the Internet for just an hour, 15% of the battery has been drained. Is this normal on these speeds?
I plan on leaving an IM client on 24/7 and using GPS/maps daily, so I am a bit worried because this may not last the entire day. I could switch to EDGE when I don't need it but apparently I heard that will disconnect once I start a voice call (and want to keep my IM on always). I checked my battery stats and apparently the cell standby (H) is taking most of the battery.
I am using CyanogenMod 6.1.1 with stock radio from Bell. I'm going to try to see if SetCPU makes a difference. And is there any program that can limit the HSPDA bandwidth so less battery is used? Thanks.
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Assuming the screen was on the entire time, 15% drain for an hour of web surfing sounds pretty good to me. The main battery eater while using the phone is the screen, so I doubt messing with your connectivity is going to drastically change your battery consumption in this usage scenario. Changing connectivity to Wifi or EDGE would probably help more during those times when your phone is off but your phone is still connected to the internet.
On a side note, I had terrible idle battery life when I was using CyanogenMod 6.1.1 on my Desire Z. When I was using my phone, battery life seemed normal. But when the phone was on standby, it seemed like my phone was running even when it was supposed to be on standby. I suspect it might have been SetCPU constantly polling in the background. I switched to Virtuous and didn't install SetCPU/didn't do any overclocking and my life improved literally threefold.

Horrible battery life even with extended battery...

The only thing I ha te about this phone is the embarrasing battery life. So I bought an extended battery online with 3000 mAh (double the normal battery) but Im not really noticing a difference, even with a static wallpaper and few widgets and gps turned off, the battery life is still horrible. I get about 8-10 hours worth. Is the a type of power cycle I can do to increase it at all?

hyperbyteX said:
The only thing I ha te about this phone is the embarrasing battery life.
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Lie! Man this phone rocks on battery life. With heavy usage or with medium. With heavy usage it holds on for more then a day. medium gives you atleast 2.
hyperbyteX said:
So I bought an extended battery online with 3000 mAh (double the normal battery) but Im not really noticing a difference, even with a static wallpaper and few widgets and gps turned off, the battery life is still horrible. I get about 8-10 hours worth. Is the a type of power cycle I can do to increase it at all?
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What battery you bought? Are you sure it has the declared 3000mAh ?
And what rom and kernel you are running?

I wouldn't be surprised if your '3000 mah' has minimally more capacity than the stock 1500 mah.
Given that many people post good battery with a wide variety of ROMs/kernels, unless your specific ROM/kernel has a problem I think many of these cases come down to one of two things:
1) usage, the phone will only get 5-7 hours of 'screen-on' usage, period. I was burning through this every day when I first got my shiny new toy, now I use it for about 1-2 hours a day and the battery lasts for 2 days on average. Some 'background' apps can be killer too, for example streaming apps that hit the data and hogs like Tunein radio (which is awesome but actually heats the phone up). In these cases you need to look at your specific usage and adjust usage or expectations.
2) Background crap. Who knows what it is, Facebook, Tango, etc. Last resort is factory reset to get rid of it (although many probably just install the same stuff they had sucking juice before...).
A third reason could be bad reception, especially with always-on data. My phone can idle for many days at my apartment where cell signal is strong and wifi is on. In an area with weak reception and the phone is trying to maintain data connection as well the radio will be sucking up tons of juice. There is no easy solution for this, I don't have much experience with it, perhaps mucking around with modems will help. Juice Defender (data connection manager) may also help it helped my battery life even with good reception but ultimately I don't even need it to go 2 days so I stopped fiddling with it (it has downsides like things are delayed up to 15 min between data connections and also a pause when you unlock phone for data to establish).

[Q] Battery life?

I apologize if this was asked before (I did a search of the forums but nothing really came up), but I'm wondering what others' experience with the battery life of the S4 is? This is my first smart phone and coming from a non-smartphone, I'm not sure if my expectations on battery life are unrealistic.
I got the S4 on 4/29 and brought it through one full charge cycle and several part cycles. Battery life is pretty important to me so I put an all black background (since its AMOLED), keep the brightness to below 10%, turn off all the fancy sensor things, turned on power saver mode, turn off wifi and data unless I really need to use it, turn off all sync so it only happens manually, etc. Yesterday, I charged it to 100% to see how long it would last and the stats I got were:
At 6% battery left, I had a total screen on-time of 2 hours and 58 mins and 1 d 2 hr on battery. Then, when I charged it to 100% and took out the charger, after about 5 minutes of it sleeping/screen off, the battery percentage dropped down to 97% with no data, no wifi, no active apps running.
With my pretty battery-friendly settings on my phone (or at least I think so), is this battery stat normal to others with this phone? Or do you think something might be wrong with the battery?

That sound horrible. There must be some rogue apps running/some wakelocks - try using better battery stats and find out.

chriswongdo said:
I apologize if this was asked before (I did a search of the forums but nothing really came up), but I'm wondering what others' experience with the battery life of the S4 is? This is my first smart phone and coming from a non-smartphone, I'm not sure if my expectations on battery life are unrealistic.
I got the S4 on 4/29 and brought it through one full charge cycle and several part cycles. Battery life is pretty important to me so I put an all black background (since its AMOLED), keep the brightness to below 10%, turn off all the fancy sensor things, turned on power saver mode, turn off wifi and data unless I really need to use it, turn off all sync so it only happens manually, etc. Yesterday, I charged it to 100% to see how long it would last and the stats I got were:
At 6% battery left, I had a total screen on-time of 2 hours and 58 mins and 1 d 2 hr on battery. Then, when I charged it to 100% and took out the charger, after about 5 minutes of it sleeping/screen off, the battery percentage dropped down to 97% with no data, no wifi, no active apps running.
With my pretty battery-friendly settings on my phone (or at least I think so), is this battery stat normal to others with this phone? Or do you think something might be wrong with the battery?
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you gotta give samsung a little time to fix the firmware

Good for me 4g/3g om half day wifi Facebook browsing xda
Sent from my GT-I9505 using xda premium

This is what's draining my battery can't turn it of for some reason Google services
Sent from my GT-I9505 using xda premium

chriswongdo said:
I apologize if this was asked before (I did a search of the forums but nothing really came up), but I'm wondering what others' experience with the battery life of the S4 is? This is my first smart phone and coming from a non-smartphone, I'm not sure if my expectations on battery life are unrealistic.
I got the S4 on 4/29 and brought it through one full charge cycle and several part cycles. Battery life is pretty important to me so I put an all black background (since its AMOLED), keep the brightness to below 10%, turn off all the fancy sensor things, turned on power saver mode, turn off wifi and data unless I really need to use it, turn off all sync so it only happens manually, etc. Yesterday, I charged it to 100% to see how long it would last and the stats I got were:
At 6% battery left, I had a total screen on-time of 2 hours and 58 mins and 1 d 2 hr on battery. Then, when I charged it to 100% and took out the charger, after about 5 minutes of it sleeping/screen off, the battery percentage dropped down to 97% with no data, no wifi, no active apps running.
With my pretty battery-friendly settings on my phone (or at least I think so), is this battery stat normal to others with this phone? Or do you think something might be wrong with the battery?
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Click to collapse
For a smartphone, an 'all-day' battery is fine, and given that the S4 has so many sensors, large screen and a powerful processor, I am happy with the battery lasting for 12-16 hours. I don't turn off any sensors, why get an S4 to run it on power saver mode and turn everything off? It defeats the purpose, in my opinion. I am trying to use as many features as possible on my S4. Of course, there are a few I don't, but just for personal preference. What you are doing is (no offence) in my opinion like getting a BMW M3 and running it on 4 pistons to save fuel.
Anyway, your battery life will improve after about 10-15 charge cycles, I noticed that with my past phones as well. If you need your battery to last longer, I would suggest getting a spare battery and keep it charged at all times for any emergencies. These are some of the reasons I love Samsung, removable batteries and microSD card slot.

thanks for the replies guys. I'll try the betterbatterystats app out. i'll probably take it back to sprint and see if they'll replace the battery for me. the screen accounts for about 50% of the battery usage in the stats and other apps take up the rest. the battery curve is pretty linear in a downward slope too (except when i don't use it at night, it becomes much flatter, albeit still downward).
haha its funny you say that, because i agree completely. the m3 is my dream car and if i could ever afford one, i would probably baby the crap out of it the reason why i got the s4 (and i also compared it to the htc one as a possible candidate) is because of the removable battery, sd card, nd most importantly: camera. that 13 megapixel shooter + hdr is really great for good photos on the go. speaking of which, i use the camera alot. is the physical use of the camera and the screen use a big power hog?

Ausboy 2011 said:
Good for me 4g/3g om half day wifi Facebook browsing xda
Sent from my GT-I9505 using xda premium
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This is what I expect from S4

Google Services may be Google Now.....unless you use it, you can turn it off........

The phone only takes 1h 57 minutes to charge from flat. It's mad how fast thing thing charges from AC so battery life isn't really a problem. (yes I was sad enough to time it)
Sent from my GT-I9505 using xda app-developers app

Battery drained in 12 hrs (screenshots included)

- I tried removing a lot of thumbnails to combat the mediaserver drain
- I removed a clock-app that constantly used around 4% cpu
- I tried removing facebook and google now or whatever their weather/intelligent widget is called
- I tried using greenify on everything i could think of.
Today i woke up to a phone that had a depleted its battery more or less overnight with just 30% screen on time.
I did experience the phone lasting 2½ days without a charge during my holidays and that was with 2 hrs screentime and 35% left. That's the kind of performance I'd wish for. The phone is rooted, and I'm using solo launcher, but hardly any customization that aside.
I took SCREENSHOTS of everything that might be important. Maybe you can tell me whats wrong. Under cpu states it says 1khz and only that. Isn't that a bit odd?
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/srbcydgcrjv9bu1/AABWYUDSjS9ElVbnm0MY1w9ha?dl=0

IMO that's not too bad I have a 7200 mah battery and it last me about that longs with around 4 hours of SOT, but it seems like your phone might be clocking too high, and brightness might be too high for the screen to be the main suspect like that, with only 30 mins of SOT

I think it's linked to the 3g/4g. If I disable that my phone will last significantly longer. I spend roughly 2 hours on transport a day. Conversely during my holidays it stayed in and around a summerhouse for 2½ days on one charge with 3g with long screen time and camera use. That's a hypothesis at least. Also I didn't use google music or any other audio player at that time.
I can get 2 hrs of SoT, but then I have to actively spend all the battery in the first half of the day, because after a full day the battery will be more or less drained regardless of SoT

If you don't ever use your printing features then i would delete those apps also because the printing service are usually turned on by default and searching for something to connect too or make sure its turned off in your ROMs settings so its not constantly searching.

90% of the time that unexplained battery drain occurs it is caused by low signal and the phone constantly trying to lock on or find a better signal. You can try to decrease this drain by using wifi in low signal areas but your phone will still drain your battery if the voice signal is low to. My phone lasts all day and then some when I'm in good signal coverage. When I go to my brother in law's house which is out in the middle of no where my phone will drain the battery in a matter of hours.

What % of your battery is used by cell standby?

Hey guys So even though the battery life on the g5 plus is amazing, I'm not quite getting the battery life other people on here get. So I checked the battery thing and saw that cell standby uses a lot of battery even though I only have 1 sim card installed.
Specifically, cell standby has used 18% of my battery so far and I am at 10% charge right now. It's been 24 hours since my last charge. So I wanted to ask, at 24 hours, how much of your battery is consumed by cell standby?
Or rather, say how many hours it's been since your last full charge and how much % is used by cell standby.

mine is somewhere in that range, but the overall battery percentage is very very low (1% every 2 hours or so on good days).
Keep in mind there are 2 important numbers here.
1) Battery percentage lost (IMPORTANT)
IF your battery loses 10% an hour, this is a big deal. IF you lose 1-2 an hour, you are good!
2) Percentage by service (MUCH LESS IMPORTANT)
This is helpful to diagnose rogue apps or services, but is much less important, unless #1 is very high.
Remember, 25% of a 1% loss over 4 hours (random number here) is still practically nothing.
#2 does not matter at all (generally) if #1 is an acceptable % drop.

Karlinski said:
mine is somewhere in that range, but the overall battery percentage is very very low (1% every 2 hours or so on good days).
Keep in mind there are 2 important numbers here.
1) Battery percentage lost (IMPORTANT)
IF your battery loses 10% an hour, this is a big deal. IF you lose 1-2 an hour, you are good!
2) Percentage by service (MUCH LESS IMPORTANT)
This is helpful to diagnose rogue apps or services, but is much less important, unless #1 is very high.
Remember, 25% of a 1% loss over 4 hours (random number here) is still practically nothing.
#2 does not matter at all (generally) if #1 is an acceptable % drop.
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Thanks for replying. I asked someone for a screenshot of their phone on this and I saw they have a 4% drain over 19 hours. I have an 18% drain over 24 hours.
4%/19 hours = .21 per hour and a little over 1% per 5 hours.
My phone consumes 18%/24= .75% per hour.
So the difference is very significant here and it clearly is a problem. A extra chunk of battery is never a bad thing.

ok. wanted to double check that real quick.
What about coverage? low coverage puts a pretty heavy drain on battery, and I have seen this reflected in Cell Standby. also, are you using Wifi/is it on all the time?

Cell reception plays a huge roll too and whether you're on wifi or not. And if you're constantly turning your screen on. When the phone detects it's in the pocket or just sitting there it'll go into extreme power saving mode (thanks to nougats "Doze" feature). That person who only got 4% drain over 19 hours most likely had their phone just sitting there and never touched it. At that point I would ask the question, why do you even have a phone?

Karlinski said:
ok. wanted to double check that real quick.
What about coverage? low coverage puts a pretty heavy drain on battery, and I have seen this reflected in Cell Standby. also, are you using Wifi/is it on all the time?
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My wifi is always on. I haven't had a problem with cell coverage ever with any of my previous phones. I'm going to try using this app "Gservicesfix" from the store and see if that fixes my problem otherwise I'll do a factory reset.

bvsbutthd101 said:
Cell reception plays a huge roll too and whether you're on wifi or not. And if you're constantly turning your screen on. When the phone detects it's in the pocket or just sitting there it'll go into extreme power saving mode (thanks to nougats "Doze" feature). That person who only got 4% drain over 19 hours most likely had their phone just sitting there and never touched it. At that point I would ask the question, why do you even have a phone?
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My reception is fine.
The person who's screenshot I saw definitely does use his phone a lot. He has like 28% drain from screen.