Battery Life

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Basil3

Inactive Recognized Themer
Apr 4, 2008
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Rather than clogging up other threads with my battery experiences, I thought I'd summarise where I'm at, and see how other people are doing with their battery life.

So I started yesterday on a full charge, and by 2ish the phone was dead. I used it fairly heavily, but wifi was off. I don't think I made any phone calls, and didn't use gps. It was mainly messaging and using the xda app. I had changed my screen brightness to auto the night before, so thought this might have reduced the battery life.

I then left the phone off, and charged through till just before 5pm. At this stage, the phone was up to between 90-100% charge. My intention was to see if I could get through to this afternoon on this charge. Last night I made a phone call for about half an hour, and used gps for about 10 mins driving in the car. Other than that it was a bit of messaging and browsing, but not heavy use by any stretch of the imagination. I had wifi off, facebook sync every 4 hours, and screen brightness set to about 50%.

This morning I woke to less than 10% charge on the battery, so have left the phone at home charging, and I'm back to my hero...at least for the morning.

I must admit, I'm starting to get concerned, because I really don't think I'm using this phone more than my Hero, and I could easily get a day out of it (unless I was going for a long run using some kind of gps app).

What are other people's experiences? I'm surprised I'm not hearing more about this, and I'm hoping mine is just a one off!

**UPDATE**

Today, 12 hours after taking my phone off charge, I have just under 20% charge remaining. The phone is now on it's fourth cycle, and although I haven't used the phone quite as heavily as yesterday, I have still used it quite a bit and have had WiFi on the whole time. This is still not amazing battery life, but it is still much improved. It definitely illustrates that the battery may take a few charge cycles before it optimises itself.
 
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My first full day was yesterday.
WiFi on all the time. Screen brightness set to automatic. Twitter and facebook refreshing every hour. Weather every 4 hours.

Unplugged the phone at 7am, 100% charge.
During the morning I flashed the phone twice (due to the proximity sensor issue) so it probably recieved an extra 10 mins of charge.
Following the flashing, WiFi went straight back on so I could download all the apps again, and resync sense and all the contacts. There was some playing of games, some use of Google Goggles (so camera use there) and some web browsing.
By 13:00 I was down to 90% battery - which was pretty good I thought.
Through the afternoon I didn't get to use the phone much apart from a couple of short gaming sessions.
By 17:00 I was down to 80%. I got home from work and played around on the phone until my wife got home and we went out for a meal. The pub we were in had no signal, and I didn't really play around with the phone.

By the time I got home and went to bed, the phone was probably around 65% full.

So not a heavy day of use, but not far off a standard day for me - so not too bad as far as I'm concerned. Certainly about 30% better than my Touch Pro2 was!
 
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gogol

Senior Member
May 20, 2005
3,735
216
I think we need to define a consistent way to measure battery life for Android.

Something like ACID test for web ... Quadrant for benchmark ...

I don't know, maybe we can agreed on something how to measure it. Or build an app to simulate phone usage which user should run it continuosly and then at the end got the result: Your battery life is rated 4 hours, 10 minutes straight using this test.

Probably not the best measurement, but it should give us a "number" to compare with other devices.

I can only suggest (I am not a developer), but I believe there are a lot of talented coders here in XDA which should be able to build this kind of "standard" app battery measurement pretty easily.
 

eozen81

Senior Member
Oct 4, 2010
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Istanbul
Somebody is recommending 3-4 full charges cycles for battery optimization. Do you think it will really help?

Battery is really deal breaking issue for me.
 

jiidaineko

Member
Oct 18, 2010
7
0

very helpful thread.

as mentioned few post earlier, there really should be a battery benchmark tool.

so was your wifi and/or 3g turned on the whole day?
 

Rixsta

Retired Forum Moderator
Aug 26, 2010
6,662
3,236
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Nottingham
very helpful thread.

as mentioned few post earlier, there really should be a battery benchmark tool.

so was your wifi and/or 3g turned on the whole day?

My friends also lasted over a day with pretty good use, there seems to be better results with the brightness on auto...from what I have picked up on the forum...maybe a test is need to see how much difference there is between full brightness on one battery charge and auto on the other.
 

gogol

Senior Member
May 20, 2005
3,735
216
Yupe, the battery benchmark should not be so complicated.

Start the app with 100% Battery life
Some options in the app (for features that might NOT be in an Android phone or might not be available at the time?):
[ ] Turn on Wifi
[ ] Turn on GPS
[ ] Turn on Bluetooth

Set the app to WAKE all the time, display turned ON all the time of the test
Set Keyguard to OFF (device will not be locked)

Set Brightness to AUTO
Set all speakers to SILENT
Set vibration to OFF

Then loop until battery down to 5%, perform the below tasks in sequence:
* Play movie for 15 minutes [speaker muted]
* Browse to website??? be careful not to overload the website :p
* Doing arithmatic
* Doing 3D
* Play MP3 [speaker muted of course]

As soon as the battery down to 5%, app stop and display result ...


And of course restore all the settings.

The app should use generic API that is supported by Android, not some hacky wacky if you know what I meant.

Please if someone can code this, that would be very nice! Standard XDA Battery Measurement app for Android!

very helpful thread.

as mentioned few post earlier, there really should be a battery benchmark tool.

so was your wifi and/or 3g turned on the whole day?
 
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override182

Senior Member
Jun 30, 2010
1,195
315
Kuala Lumpur
override182.net
Yupe, the battery benchmark should not be so complicated.

Start the app with 100% Battery life
Some options in the app (for features that might NOT be in an Android phone or might not be available at the time?):
[ ] Turn on Wifi
[ ] Turn on GPS
[ ] Turn on Bluetooth

Set the app to WAKE all the time, display turned ON all the time of the test
Set Keyguard to OFF (device will not be locked)

Set Brightness to AUTO
Set all speakers to SILENT
Set vibration to OFF

Then loop until battery down to 5%, perform the below tasks in sequence:
* Play movie for 15 minutes [speaker muted]
* Browse to website??? be careful not to overload the website :p
* Doing arithmatic
* Doing 3D
* Play MP3 [speaker muted of course]

As soon as the battery down to 5%, app stop and display result ...


And of course restore all the settings.

The app should use generic API that is supported by Android, not some hacky wacky if you know what I meant.

Please if someone can code this, that would be very nice! Standard XDA Battery Measurement app for Android!

the app should log the result too.. since some phone is dead by time 5% due to calibration..
 

Basil3

Inactive Recognized Themer
Apr 4, 2008
7,789
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Dublin
@Dazultra2000: I would almost trade the proximity sensor problem for the battery life you're getting!

In any case, I'm gonna leave my phone charging till half an hour after the green light comes on, then I'm gonna try another day of normal usage. I'm going to turn wifi back on, as I usually would, and set screen brightness to auto.

With my Hero I used to go for runs using a GPS app to log the route, I'm not going to bother trying that with this phone until I'm sure I can survive a day.
 

Smigit

Member
Oct 5, 2010
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0
www.smigit.com
I then left the phone off, and charged through till just before 5pm. At this stage, the phone was up to between 90-100% charge. My intention was to see if I could get through to this afternoon on this charge. Last night I made a phone call for about half an hour, and used gps for about 10 mins driving in the car. Other than that it was a bit of messaging and browsing, but not heavy use by any stretch of the imagination. I had wifi off, facebook sync every 4 hours, and screen brightness set to about 50%.

This morning I woke to less than 10% charge on the battery, so have left the phone at home charging, and I'm back to my hero...at least for the morning.
I don't know when you wake up but that could be like 14 - 15 hours that you mentioned which possibly isn't all that bad (plus the extra 10% you had remaining). Personally I want to see what it's like when you unplug it at 8am, not at 5pm the night before since I can't see any good reason not to leave the phone charging over night anyway.

If you then manage to get about 10 to 12 hours or so then there probably isn't much issue. Granted you weren't using it while asleep so the battery shouldn't drain overly quick but I wouldn't want to use your test as an example of a days use.

Thanks for the info but. If I was you I'd just have a car charger too if you like to use GPS...I can't see any reason not to.
 

Basil3

Inactive Recognized Themer
Apr 4, 2008
7,789
13,110
Dublin
I don't know when you wake up but that could be like 14 - 15 hours that you mentioned which possibly isn't all that bad (plus the extra 10% you had remaining). Personally I want to see what it's like when you unplug it at 8am, not at 5pm the night before since I can't see any good reason not to leave the phone charging over night anyway.

If you then manage to get about 10 to 12 hours or so then there probably isn't much issue. Granted you weren't using it while asleep so the battery shouldn't drain overly quick but I wouldn't want to use your test as an example of a days use.

Thanks for the info but. If I was you I'd just have a car charger too if you like to use GPS...I can't see any reason not to.

Yeah, I would normally charge overnight, but since I had given a charge through to 5pm I wanted to see how it lasted....see if I could get through 24 hours. I wake up at 5am, so that was around 12 hours, with only 5-6 of those hours being time when I would've actually been using the phone. This is also bearing in mind that I had started yesterday on a full charge and the phone was dead by 2pm.

The GPS thing in the car was only to do a quick test, literally 10 mins. I need to buy a new car charger with micro USB, but I just made a note that I had done this because I knew it would affect the battery.

Anyway, we'll see what today brings.
 
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Spaky

Member
Sep 22, 2010
31
0
Milan
Hi, just to add my experience with a complete different phone e.g. iPhone 3GS (developing apps on it, now switching to Android :D):
Charge at night till 8 a.m. so 100% then usually in a day:

- Go to office, read/write emails, surf a bit on forums, blogs and so on
- Make call up to 30-60 minutes per day
- Play some games, test our application/games on it (so connect and receive some extra charge)
- Use WiFi at office
- Use Google Maps up to 15 minutes per day
- Back at home at 8 p.m.
- Use again emails and surf on web for 30 minutes

Around 11-12 p.m. it has less than 25% of battery, so 14-15 hours of usage drain battery up to finish it, not to mention that I'm forced to switch off push notification because they drain my battery in 5 hours!!!!
So just to say that, no one is perfect, and this devices today really do a lot of stuff, I think as Smigit suggest 12-14 hours are acceptable.
Have also tested/used iPhone 4, I don't seen any big improvements on that side.
Just my two cents...
 
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GeoMil

Senior Member
Apr 12, 2010
252
5
AK
praying for decent battery, please please please!

My HTC legend is pretty poor really, but I can live with it. If DHD is worse I don't think I can pull the trigger.


There is a thread in th Legend section about 1800mh HTC batteries (from another phone) that fit the Legend. Maybe there will be an option to do something similar with DHD.

I would pay £50 more for a 1500mh battery - why did they put the smallest battery in the largest screen?
 

override182

Senior Member
Jun 30, 2010
1,195
315
Kuala Lumpur
override182.net
praying for decent battery, please please please!

My HTC legend is pretty poor really, but I can live with it. If DHD is worse I don't think I can pull the trigger.


There is a thread in th Legend section about 1800mh HTC batteries (from another phone) that fit the Legend. Maybe there will be an option to do something similar with DHD.

I would pay £50 more for a 1500mh battery - why did they put the smallest battery in the largest screen?

can anyone confirm that the 1800mAh for Droid Incredible (that fits HTC Legend) fits desire HD too???
 

apsis

Senior Member
Mar 21, 2009
354
60
No the battery doesnt fit with the Desire HD, if you watch some pictures of your 1800mah battery and than go and take a closer look at the DHD's battery, you will recognize that the pins of the DHD-battery are on its side. the pins from the Incredible Battery are on the bottom.
 

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    Hey Guys, This has been a busy Thread the last few days and most people are going on about Calibrating the battery when they haven't even checked the usage.

    The usage should be checked esp as there is a bug in the HTC Sense, it keeps the phone in awake mode when it should be sleeping. The screen stays black ect and you can check your phone by:

    Open up the phone dialer:
    type *#*#4636#*#*
    Then select battery history: It should say running 20% or less if it is sleeping ok,
    Note this is since last unplugged, so select since last boot if you just unplugged.

    5% usage is my ultimate goal.

    you then Select "Partial Wake Usage" to see what has been running when awake, and if one has a high amount then that has been keeping your phone awake !!!

    HTC Sense is keeping my phone and other awake and we find that if you goto sync setting and turn off sync for HTC Sense, HTC hub and Facebook for HTC then we get BLOODY GOOD BATTERY LIFE. Now to figure out which bit is causing the drain ??
    1
    This is from the WMLonglife thread and written by Chainfire!

    This was for an WM app, but is still relavant for Android (Juicedefender)

    Regarding G/3G battery usage:

    Is this guaranteed to save battery?
    No, it is not. If it will or will not save battery is dependent on your configuration of WMLongLife, your 'average' network conditions, your radio, and usage. The default WMLongLife configuration will give you (also depending on those other factors) a nice average between least and maximum savings while trying to be not too annoying. Radio firmware is very tricky, and results vary all across the board. It is likely there is a radio thread for your specific device, if you are comfortable with flashing devices, flashing a different radio may give you better (or worse) connectivity and battery life. How your usage effects all this should be obvious: if all you do with your phone is watch YouTube until the battery goes flat, WMLongLife will not help you [at all]. If you pretty much use at as a phone with additional email and some browsing / Google Maps here and there, you may definitely see benefits. It all depends.

    Now let's get to the most interesting part: network conditions. 3G [at least in theory] uses less battery than 2G under ideal conditions. However, these ideal conditions are hardly ever reached. A lot of battery is spent finding a decent/better 3G signal to use instead of 2G - and I mean a lot. If 3G is few-bars or just an unreliable signal in your area, your device will not just use a lot, it will use massive amounts of battery trying to get a [better] 3G signal. Aside from that, if the conditions are less than ideal, 2G may use less power than 3G. As an example, I am personally in an area with excellent 3G coverage (5 out of 5 bars of HSDPA) and my device still lasts nearly twice as long on a single charge with WMLongLife running. Your mileage may vary, of course. While it is completely possible that it may not make a relevant difference in your case, I would say there will be many people who this does make a difference for. This is also the reason you will see many people advising in "battery saving" threads to disable 3G and attesting to how much battery it saves for them, and others will always respond that it doesn't make a difference [for them].

    Having an idle(!) data connection should theoretically not make a difference with power usage, you have the connection anyway, it's just a question about whether you have an IP or not. However, some background applications (inside services mostly) will initiate data transfers if (and only if) a data connection is already up. So if you have an idle data connection, these applications would start using data, while if you did not have a data connection (connected), they would not.
    1
    In my experience the most important factors regarding battery life are:

    *Wait a few cycles for the battery to condition itself! Don't ***** over battery life the first few days.

    *Remember that when you recieve your new toy you'r spending a lot more time on it than a few weeks later. You will get bored of playing Angry Birds!

    *Usage Type: If you're constantly playing games and watching videos don't be surprised your battery doesn't last that long!

    *The ROM:

    The stock ROM with the default settings HTC provides us with is build for Speed and Eyecandy for the best possible first impression! It's all about selling the phone (to you and your friend who has an Iphone) It is not set for maximizing battery life. The data connection is on always on 3G. The Connection is always open. There a million apps and services always syncing, sending background data etc. Fancy animations all over the place. Etc Etc. These things suck the battery dry!

    We will get much better ROMS!

    *The Radio:

    The radio balances things like Cell signal strength/ GPS/ WIFI/battery life!
    Different radios can make a huge difference in battery life and reception.

    We will get other/better radio's!

    *Data Connection On/OFF: See my post above

    *3G/G: idem

    *Screen brightness: MAJOR FACTOR, Especially on our big screens, use automatic brightness! For me the lowest automatic brightness is still to bright in the dark. Using a custom brightness logic in WM (Lumos) saved me lots of battery. Still looking for an app in adroid that performs this function! Anyone?

    *GPS: Uses lots of battery, but only active when using an App that uses GPS (you can check the notification bar for the icon to appear). So you can leave it on! Very nice of Android.

    *Wifi: Uses lots of battery! Have to do some reading on that to be more specific :rolleyes: to be continued!

    If I get really bored during my attempts to learn morse code, I'll try to get some solid data from the battery logs!
    1
    Guys I just 'found' this elsewhere on tinternet:

    "Two things which you can check to see whats using your battery:
    As above in the Battery usage section, identify what is using your battery. I'm still struggling to understand why Cell Standby and Phone Idle use 35-40% each, but my battery tends to last me through the day.
    Secondly, go into the dialer, and type *#*#4636#*#*, and don't press call. The Testing Menu should display. Click Battery History and then change the first drop down to 'Partial Wake Usage'. This will list applications that may be causing the phone to use more battery power than expected when it is meant to be 'sleeping'. See if anything really stands out.
    "
    1
    Since the 2.3 update my battery has been poor. IT shows 30% drain from Android System alone. any ideas?

    If you haven't done a factory reset then you should try that. Solved many a people's issues after updating. If you have done that then it's probably a rouge app. The best way to check is uninstall each app one by one to see if the Android System goes back to normal.