Battery life on this phone is horrid

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kristovaher

Senior Member
Jul 29, 2010
949
218
Tallinn
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I have used the phone regularly, every day, for more than six months. What I have learned is that if you have 3G on 24/7, then you cannot expect the phone to last longer than ~14 hours with 3 hours of screen time.

I don't know what battery life you (or others) are expecting, but I get that 3/14 combination with the following:

  • Brightness - During summer my brightness is 100% when outside, thus my battery life sometimes dips below 3h, but not too much. Otherwise I keep my brightness what is most comfortable me. I don't use auto-brightness, since that too may affect battery life.
  • Sync - I don't sync any application or account where I do not need sync. That is, applications that sync anyway when started (like Facebook) do not need to be synced.
  • Background / Push notifications - These can always stay on, since they don't take more battery. Push notifications are part of Google's own cloud, which means that if you have background sync on and use even a single Google service, then you can turn on all push notifications since they don't affect your battery life.
  • Apps - Pay attention to apps that run services in the background. Take a look at Settings -> Apps -> Running and see if you have some application there that should not be. There are some badly developed apps that do 'notifications' with background services and not through Google Cloud and Push notifications. Might be a good idea to disable or uninstall those apps or tweak their settings. Also make sure that you don't leave apps, like Music or Radio apps, running while not using them.
  • WiFi - Tweak your WiFi settings not to 'scan' for hotspots all the time. In fact, turn WiFi off entirely when you do not actually use WiFi.
  • Battery Management - For the love of god, do NOT use battery management applications. These can cause glitches and whatnot, Android is able to maintain it's battery usage itself as long as you are not too careless.
  • Settings - I don't use vibrate, haptic feedback and sound feedback on keyboards and don't use vibrate on most notifications. But these settings should not affect battery life all that much.
  • Widgets - Some widgets can effectively become apps that keep running, which can quickly drain battery life. Make sure to only run widgets you actually need and use.
  • Google Now - If you use Google Now, then turn off all the cards that you do not need, especially the ones with location-based notifications. Locations and GPS can quickly drain your battery.

I am a 'power user' in that I tweak things in my phone for optimal performance, but doing the above has been very easy. I am still getting maximum out of my phone with respectable battery life.
 

95Z28

Senior Member
Apr 29, 2011
798
252
Just got mine yesterday. Updated, unlocked bootloader, rooted, flashed cwm, flashed trinity kernel, charged phone fully, decided not to OC/UV yet and stick with stock ROM for a while. I'm satisfied with my first days battery life. Wifi on when available, 4g rest of the time, screen on auto with autosync (don't use facebook app). Heavier than normal use (just don't want to put it down). :victory:
 
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Carlos_Manuel

Senior Member
Apr 28, 2011
4,092
5,368
26
Kuressaare
I have good battery life on my Galaxy Nexus, I'm using Jelly Bean ROM with Jelly Bean's own radio baseband and stock kernel..

I had battery draining issues on my Galaxy Nexus with IMM76I "YAKJU", and battery was somehow ok but not so good on ICL53F.I9250XWKL2 "YAKJUXW"..

on Jelly Bean my Battery life is really good and I'm using Facebook app what does not even eat battery so much as you many here think..I'm listening music from my Galaxy Nexus every night and morning at least 2 hours and battery is only something 48% left of 100% when I listen music 2 hours and when I read the news...

for those who have bad battery life:
use stock kernel on stock ROM
test many baseband Radio's..

if those does not fix the problem then go to phone service and show the problem to them or buy new battery...

My Nexus was in phone service once and they changed battery and flashed ROM again, I had only little bit better battery life..


62% - Discharging

8h 41m 40s on battery
screen: 53% 1h 1min 19s
Music (CM9): 15%
Phone Idle: 8%
etc.

Isn't that good battery life?

by testing other radio's (right radio baseband) it can make your battery life much better, and if using stock kernel it may give much better life on Stock ROM than the custom kernels (I never use any custom kernels), battery can be damaged so if going to phone service then they can try that is the battery damaged... if battery id damaged then it's not weird if battery drains too fast..

:D
 

tigajr

Senior Member
Dec 28, 2011
139
39
XDA - this is the place for REAL android users and lovers

Seriously, XDA is a fantastic place! Even when the OPs give all signs that we are dealing with trolls, there are people trying to help them. :good:
 
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duglas

Senior Member
Mar 29, 2007
204
16
My battery life is sucking also.. I have used the phone to answer email for maybe 10 minutes total, screen is on AUTO, and 27% left after 6 hours..
 

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cchant

Senior Member
May 11, 2010
1,037
161
Use your phone like a phone.



Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app
 

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Mach3.2

Senior Member
May 1, 2012
2,038
446
Singapore
7459780b-5668-c589.jpg
Mine is good. Plugged in to sync, battery percentage did not go up, so I guess you could - off a few minutes from my timing, but it's still good.

Pressed from my Maguro
 

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Nighthawk243

Member
Jan 10, 2011
16
3
Pittsburgh
My battery life is wonderful compared to the Tilt 2 I had (Tilt 2 would be near death at the end of my shift at work due to low reception. My Nexus is only at 75% after a full shift.) I usually kill off any apps that I'm not currently using; which helps a ton.

Oh, and keep your screen set to automatic.
 
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Mylenthes

Senior Member
Aug 6, 2010
981
45
Works like this for me. As long as I don't use the phone, it doesn't lose charge.
bed574d9-5a89-4ecd.jpg

It loses like 1% an hour if I don't use it. So if your in the middle of nowhere lost and I have 30% charge. As long as I don't use it. I got roughly 30 hours to make a call.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda app-developers app
 

unknown00

Senior Member
Jul 28, 2007
284
33
i have both a galaxy nexus and iphone 4s and galaxy nexus is crap compared to iphone. i have extended battery and custom kernel and everything but it's just pure garbage next to iphone 4s
 
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team56th

Member
Jan 22, 2012
28
2
Seoul
Performance-centric Roms are real batter hog though. I used my Gnex about 2 and a half hours with Liquid 2.0 installed, and it went straight from 100 to 30.
 
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