my short battery life situation, with detailed battery charts!!

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*this is the 3G version



hi guys, first time posting here. Did the search, wasn't quite satisfied with the search results though, especially now that i have some graphs to show, I hope you guys can help me answer my questions more specifically.

I'm also a first time smartphone user, so please don't be too harsh on me


see, i can see how smartphones have worse battery lives with the fancy screens, fast processors and such you know, but this :





is why I decided to spend some time to make these photos and have you pros take a look at them.

That was from waking up from sleep, then playing about 3 hours of texas poker.

I didn't like that chart, and I hope you understand why.

As I said I'm a first time smartphone user, and I've been telling myself not to get TOO picky on things, but this is.....well.....let's just say not very satisfactory.

So I did some tests on how my phone does in different levels of usage.



Trial 1 : Light usage

let's say within the 19.7 hours, its around 9 hours of sleep, 7 hours of occasionally checking for notifications, 1.5 hours(most of that screen time) for whatsapp and games with light web browsing



I get 2 hours before it dies. It might not look bad because I slept during that period, but hey, what if I didn't? That extra battery used in standby mode could easily be used up in 10 mins of screen time, so its still 2hours 10mins only.



Trial 2 : Light - medium usage

No sleep in between this time, about the same amount of usage except I browsed web for a bit more it seems. This is likely the situation of a full day of work. (NOT COUNTING the transportation periods)



This seems to prove my judgement on trial 1.



Trial 3 : Extreme usage

This one is easy. Basically just leave screen on the whole time and do something with the phone during most of that time, I actually wrote down what I did with it.

- 40mins of 720p youtube videos
- 1~1.5 hrs of whatsapp
- 10~15 mins of texas poker
- 20~25 mins of words with friends

the above add up to be 2.5~3hrs, remaining screen time is from random scrolling through homescreens



Result is almost the same as the first pic shown on this thread.



Useful info :

The calling time during these test trials are insignificant to none

Version : pure ICS restored to factory settings, no additional tweaks
Brightness : Auto
Screen-on time before standby : 1 minute
Sync : both number and google mail account
Location services : I ticked the first one, letting apps track my location, and none of the other 2

I have about 5 apps and 10 games on the phone, no widgets are being used on homescreens.



So finally my questions are :

1) is this kind of battery life normal at all? (keep in mind that I'm using 3G version, none of that LTE battery killer crap)

2) what settings can I turn off to save some power? (the sync options? what are the negatives of turning those off?)

3) I read in some of my search results that there's a file related to battery stats and if I kill it I might get better battery life out of the phone? (or are there other similar tweaks I can do on the file-manipulation level?)

4) efficient way / app to help save battery without rooting? Read about a few on this site already, but it always seem like you guys still have debates on whether they are effective or not


Thanks for reading and thanks for helping!!

Hey, I fell asleep reading all this! Joke

I was disgusted with my battery when I first got my nexus and although this is not a solution of any kind I just think unless you are prepared to root and use modified kernels you are wasting your time trying to save battery with the stock ones.

I use an apex kernel now along with some power saving features like turning off data and wifi when I turn my screen off (AOKP) rom. I use quick profiles to change my screen brightness as well and my battery performs pretty well.

Anyway just thought I would share. I hope whatever you do you get sorted but do consider rooting!

So finally my questions are :

1) is this kind of battery life normal at all? (keep in mind that I'm using 3G version, none of that LTE battery killer crap)
Your battery life does not look that bad for a smartphone profile. Your screen is going to kill the most battery with LTE being turned off

2) what settings can I turn off to save some power? (the sync options? what are the negatives of turning those off?)
turn off bluetooth/GPS if not using. Use WIFI for DATA as that uses less battery then 3G. Turn down screen brightness. turn off syncing on facebook/twitter/social apps/google reader. you can manually sync them when you enter the apps. Also disable syncing on stock weather/news app.

3) I read in some of my search results that there's a file related to battery stats and if I kill it I might get better battery life out of the phone? (or are there other similar tweaks I can do on the file-manipulation level?)
You dont need to reset the battery stats to get better battery life. those posts have to do with repeated ROM flashing

4) efficient way / app to help save battery without rooting? Read about a few on this site already, but it always seem like you guys still have debates on whether they are effective or not
Without rooting, the saving battery methods above are your best bet.

Haig

You will get around three hours of screen on time from your battery on 3G. Almost always. To the person who said use modified kernels always, that's not true. The stock 4.0.3 kernel gives excellent battery life for the GSM version.

The battery stats file makes a really negligible difference.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium

your battery is basically normal. there's not much else you can do really, we all get about the same screen time and standby time.

thank you all 3 of you

from your replies, I take it that this is actually normal?

well that sure is.....surprising.....negatively......lol

I mean, I'm fine with the extreme usage part, if im really looking at it for 4 hours straight even I get tired myself, but by dragging the battery to 9 hours, which is essentially just a bit more double of 4 hours, I only get bit more than half of the screen time(2 hours) ?

I'm sorry but its just hard not to feel disappointed, switching from a nokia, and not the good ol' bricks too, that little guy got a 2.8" or 3" screen, color was great on that thing and it can play 4-6 hrs of music and still manage 1.5-2 full days.

Judging from what you guys said, it seems like my best bet is actually an extended battery.....


Also, reason I didn't want to root the phone is because....well, isn't the "pure ICS" one of the major selling point of the nexus? what's the point of buying it if I root it? Might as well went for the SGS II?

I actually waited 2 full months for the release of this phone since I made the decision of a phone switch. It was such a tough wait, everyday went by with me knowing that I was probably waiting for a phone inferior to the SGS II, at least hardware wise.

that said, i might try rooting later on, maybe half a year later once I'm more familiar with android execution. I'm still learning most of the stuff, and my homescreens make my phone looks like the I_____ 4 with nothing but app icons :P