Nexus 5x Battery Life Thread

[teknoali]

thanks for info

 

[achuxtreme]

Anybody notice improvements in battery life later on? Mine last throughout the day with heavy usage..
YouTube, video, camera, Netflix, screen on frequently

 

[bblzd]

First off I totally agree with what you are saying about fixing battery draining abnormalities. However I do disagree with saying that a battery that drains in around 10 hours with 2 hours SoT wouldn't have considerably better battery life with a 50% increase in battery size. Oh course it would. Sure those holes should be fixed but that isn't always an option and when it isn't a large battery you feel the impact much more. Take my example of my Nexus 5 with its wifi drain bug. Since the phone never went to sleep on my work wifi the battery drained pretty fast but if that phone had had a 3,000mAh battery(or bigger) instead of its pathetically tiny 2,300mAh battery it would have taken a while longer to drain.

Of course we need to patch the holes but that doesn't change the fact that putting more water in the bucket would result in it taking longer for the bucket to be empty.

I think you mentioned in an earlier comment that when cores aren't needed they shut down. If the 808 could handle the Phone Arena video test with only 2 A57 cores then do you think the 810 would have to have all 4 of its A57 cores on to run the same test? Maybe but I wouldn't expect that. As far as the more power hungry GPU in the Nexus 6P you have a point but that is mainly due to the fact that the Nexus 6P is rendering 78% more pixels. If everything you have said so far has been correct than even with a little more power used by the SoC and GPU on the Nexus 6P a 28% bigger battery should have lasted longer than the Nexus 5X even if only by 30-60 minutes.

You talk about if battery life is already decent but the fact is that in most cases it isn't decent. The Nexus 5X is entering deep sleep during non-use just fine for most people. It's the usage that takes so much power(as expected). Whether it's the screen, SoC, cell signal, etc. It all takes power. Smartphones are doing more and more and using more and more power but the battery capacity isn't keeping up.

My Nexus 5X today has been doing great on stand by time so it would seem like there are no "holes in my bucket"(at least not large ones). However, after 10 hours off the charger my phone is sitting at 70% with only 45 minutes of SOT on wifi all but 30 minutes(during my commute) and ~20% screen brightness with only some Facebook and browsing(with Chrome) and great cell signal. During the 9 hours 15 minutes my phone hasn't been in use it has been in deep sleep most of the time(unless the "Awake" bar in the battery details screen is wrong). If I were to go by my average sleeping drain rate of about 1/3% per hour and I hadn't turned on the screen once during the day then my phone would be around 97%. That means that 45 minutes of actual usage of things that shouldn't be using an excessive amount of battery(no games, no GPS, almost no mobile data, dim screen, no calls, no Bluetooth activity) has drained the battery 17%. That is a drain rate during usage of about 22% per hour or about 4.5 hours of constant usage if I took it off the charger and used it until it died. That also matches with the battery draining 1% every ~2.5 minutes while browsing.

If browsing for less than 3 minutes on wifi with great cell signal and low brightness(~20%) resulting in a 1% drop of battery meets your definition of decent than we have a very VERY different opinion of what decent battery life means. The fact is that for the hardware of current phones the batteries are just too damn small even if the "bucket" doesn't have any holes.

Last September I went to an all day festival concert with like 25 bands. I had my Nexus 5. I unplugged at 100% at 9am. During the day I used the phone heavily. I was on mobile data the entire time since the concert was in the middle of park. Signal was decent but not great. I was taking pictures, posting on Facebook, used GPS(to get there), played some games(a few bands I didn't care about so I had time to burn), texting, some calls, high brightness in some situations because of the sun, browsing(again, some bands I didn't care for). I didn't get back to an outlet until 1am. That is 16 hours off charger with probably 5 hours of heavy usage. If I hadn't brought my external battery pack(which was annoying as hell to have in my pocket all day) my battery would have been dead by like 4pm. The Nexus 5X might have made it to like 7pm or 8pm. I want a phone that gets me thought that type of day and still have like 20% left(remember, dropping below 20% has a negative impact on the total lifetime of the battery). When a phone is capable of doing that THEN and ONLY then will I call the battery life good.

If your standby time is good and your battery drains quickly with usage, that could mean the apps you're using are draining abnormally. "Holes in your bucket" can represent many things not just idle drain with the screen off. I hear Facebook app is quite the hog but I don't use it so I can't say for sure. Other apps like Snapchat are known to be buggy and drain battery, and there's probably many more lesser known ones seeing as we're using Android 6.0.

When your screen is on, apps you have installed basically say "great, we can use all the SoC we want now since we're not in deep sleep!" and then even if you're doing light browsing you might actually have many holes popping up from these background process requests. These can add up to longer periods of A57 core usage where as normally during browsing they'd be most idle.

Perhaps we should start a battery help thread for those who are seeing abnormal drains. Root access + wakelock detecting apps should be able to pin point any OS level drains that aren't obvious from the basic battery screenshots.

 

[ibilln]

If your standby time is good and your battery drains quickly with usage, that could mean the apps you're using are draining abnormally....Perhaps we should start a battery help thread for those who are seeing abnormal drains. Root access + wakelock detecting apps should be able to pin point any OS level drains that aren't obvious from the basic battery screenshots.

Um, well, this is a battery help thread.

Detecting wakelocks can't hurt/might help of course. However there have been so many reports of very noticeable battery drain from casual use that IMO it's doubtful that a campaign of wakelock detection is very useful. IMO.

NB - Over in the ElementalX thread a fair number of folks are reporting moderate to substantial battery improvement with said kernel. And, it's been shown that using the systemless root with the kernel allows Android Pay, etc, to continue to work (for now).

 

[jimv1983]

If your standby time is good and your battery drains quickly with usage, that could mean the apps you're using are draining abnormally. "Holes in your bucket" can represent many things not just idle drain with the screen off. I hear Facebook app is quite the hog but I don't use it so I can't say for sure. Other apps like Snapchat are known to be buggy and drain battery, and there's probably many more lesser known ones seeing as we're using Android 6.0.

When your screen is on, apps you have installed basically say "great, we can use all the SoC we want now since we're not in deep sleep!" and then even if you're doing light browsing you might actually have many holes popping up from these background process requests. These can add up to longer periods of A57 core usage where as normally during browsing they'd be most idle.

Perhaps we should start a battery help thread for those who are seeing abnormal drains. Root access + wakelock detecting apps should be able to pin point any OS level drains that aren't obvious from the basic battery screenshots.

If your stand by time is good and your battery drains quickly with usage it COULD mean that your apps are draining abnormally or it could mean that using your phone, even with everything behaving as it should, just takes power to run and 2,700mAh just isn't that much. If everything is behaving correctly then a bigger battery would make battery life much better. If there are some "holes in the bucket" then a bigger battery could make those holes less noticeable during a days usage. And what do you do if you discover that some app is misbehaving? Get rid of it? What if it is caused by some OS feature? Turn that feature off? What is the point of having these powerful smartphones if you can't use them for what they can do?

It just seems to me like you are against phone makers including bigger batteries. As of today I have had my Nexus 5X for exactly 3 weeks and it seems to me that there are no major battery drains. It just takes power to use it. It takes power to transfer data over wifi and even more over LTE, it takes power to back light the screen, it takes power to render 124,416,000 pixels a second, the CPU takes power, the camera takes power, the RAM takes power, etc. It all adds up even when behaving correctly. It's pretty clear that if the Nexus 5X had a 3,200-3,500mAh battery the battery life would be MUCH better. Draining 1% of battery for ~2.5 minutes of browsing doesn't even surprise me even without any "holes in the bucket"(which we can't really control ever if there were). 1% is only 27mAh which is nothing.

The only thing that is really going to fix this issue is bigger batteries. Hopefully phone makers will figure out soon that customers care more about great battery life than super thin phones but I'm not optimistic about it.

As far as rooting to figure out what is going on with wake locks that is something we shouldn't have to do and even if we did there is little we can do about it other than just stop using the device which kind of makes it a waste of (a LOT of) money. Plus, as someone who values their warranty and insurance rooting just isn't an option. I didn't spend $530(including Nexus Protect and tax) to possibly turn my phone in to an expensive paper weight or to have my warranty/insurance claim denied if I need it because I "manipulated" the software/firmware on the phone.

 

[JoshHankins]

Why is the Google App draining so much of my battery?

For some reason, the google app is draining the majority of my battery life, using around 800mAh of my total battery capacity with GPS services running for 12 hours!!!!

Everything was running smoothly with the battery life of my new phone, averaging around 3-4 hours of screen on time. Now i am barely getting 2 hours due to such a high drain from the Google App - see images below.

Could this be as a result of the recent software update that may have changed certain settings without my knowing?

Any ideas as to what the cause of this is would be much appreciated!

 

[bblzd]

If your stand by time is good and your battery drains quickly with usage it COULD mean that your apps are draining abnormally...

Hey we're getting somewhere!

I thought I would share Anandtech's thoughts on the 5x battery here for any who may still be convinced that their own personal battery issues are indicative of the larger group.

Based on the results of all our battery tests I don't think battery life will be an issue for any Nexus 5X user. In my experience the battery life has also been very good, and the new Doze feature in Android Marshmallow seems to be doing its job well because there have been instances where I forget to plug the phone in at night and the battery drain during that time has been minuscule. While battery life may have been an issue with older Nexus devices, I think it's safe to say it's no longer a concern with the Nexus 5X.

Anyways there's just about 2 or 3 people in this thread that are repeating their same battery issues over and over and have attempted nothing to resolve their issue. Look at any Reddit thread about battery you will see the majority of results are 3-4 hours SoT. I'm done trying to convince anyone that the sky is blue when they're only interested in confirming their own bias.

Um, well, this is a battery help thread.

Detecting wakelocks can't hurt/might help of course. However there have been so many reports of very noticeable battery drain from casual use that IMO it's doubtful that a campaign of wakelock detection is very useful. IMO.

NB - Over in the ElementalX thread a fair number of folks are reporting moderate to substantial battery improvement with said kernel. And, it's been shown that using the systemless root with the kernel allows Android Pay, etc, to continue to work (for now).

This thread is for sharing results. What battery help is being provided exactly? If this is a battery help thread then the motto must be "I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas!" because no one has suggested or attempted anything. Nothing more is happening here besides sharing results. The helpfulness of seeing others results is minimal at best when most aren't even including basic information such as screen brightness or settings used.

"So many reports" except that every review disagrees, and I can find 10x as many showing great results in every Reddit post related to battery life. More like confirmation bias from a select few who are having battery issues IMO.

 

[ibilln]

Anyways there's just about 2 or 3 people in this thread that are repeating their same battery issues over and over and have attempted nothing to resolve their issue. Look at any Reddit thread about battery you will see the majority of results are 3-4 hours SoT... I'm done trying to convince anyone that the sky is blue ... from a select few who are having battery issues IMO.

• You're done? .
• Reddit - the arbiter of the true way. Gimme break.
• Ah. The Select Few again.

So this, the 2nd most widely replied to and viewed thread in the N5X forum (from what I can tell), is driven by a Select, lazy Few with obviously self-inflicted usage issues. People are driven to view and comment by some mysterious, dark charisma of the evil Select Few . Boggles the mind.

Actually, sorta cool. I think I'll do a Select Few T-Shirt.

 

[F'n Amazing]

Ever since I got the OTA update the other day battery life has improved significantly (however camera is totally borked now), seems the mobile active radio bug has been addressed somewhat. It usually showed up as keeping my phone awake close to 2 hours or more, last couple days under 30 minutes, so still present just not as bad.

 

[C3C076]

Sharing my experience.
All stock. 4G, WiFi always on, location reporting, high accuracy, Google now. Mostly Chrome, Tapatalk, Facebook, some YouTube and music.
Adaptive brightness outside, manual at home.

 

[mcheda]

I'm not a heavy phone user but my old Moto X would only get half a day with my regular use. I carry extra cables everywhere. My new 5X is completely stock and I got two full days:

 

[achuxtreme]

I get one and half day, for normal everyday usage...

 

[km8j]

I get one and half day, for normal everyday usage...

This is close to my usage. Terrible SOT

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[blassster]

According to my battery stats, Doggcatcher is destroying the battery in comparison to everything else. With only 2 hours of keep awake time, Doggcatcher is at the top of the list for battery usage, and apparently eats 25%. This is a daily thing.

The Nexus 5 had a dsp for audio tunneling to offload from the SoC, does the 5X lack this or is it not being used properly? Seems abnormal compared to before, and not getting a lot of SOT because of this.

 

[mgerbasio]

I'm in and out of cell service during the day and find I get about 8 hours with light usage. Haven't done much to see what is eating the battery but that's my only disappointment with the phone. Sitting on my desk, it using about 2%/hour which seems high, in an area where I do have good cell service. I have about five email accounts but not much else installed on the phone.

I also have a Lumia 640 and the battery life on that phone is terrific, far better than any other phone I've used.

 

[lnxcat]

I'm getting horrendous battery life on my 5x. The second my screen is on it drops 1-2% a minute. I flashed the factory image, factory reset etc.. to no avail. I'm also getting weird processes draining my battery but the main offenders are Android system and Android OS. My screen barely used 5% battery but just typing this on my 5X at 0 brightness in a dark room my battery has dropped 3% and that's not exaggerating at all. I called Google to get a RMA which is coming sometime eventually.... I just want my 6P because I can't deal with this battery life

Is anyone else having this severe of an issue? I've never had a phone her such horrible battery life and I've owned ~30 Android phones now. I want to keep this guy stock for now to use Android pay otherwise I would flash a kernel and see what's going on

I have the same problem, with u.
"Android system" and "Android OS" taking more battery than my previous Android phone.

 

[thesoldier]

I have the same problem, with u.
"Android system" and "Android OS" taking more battery than my previous Android phone.

I was having the same problem 3 hours SoT over a day max, something was waking my phone up a ton and I couldn't see what without root. Didn't want to because of Android Pay, but I went with systemless root and Pay works fine. Anyways, I flashed ElementalX and so far those wakelocks appear to be gone. I would definitely recommend a custom kernel.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

[daver68]

According to my battery stats, Doggcatcher is destroying the battery in comparison to everything else. With only 2 hours of keep awake time, Doggcatcher is at the top of the list for battery usage, and apparently eats 25%. This is a daily thing.

The Nexus 5 had a dsp for audio tunneling to offload from the SoC, does the 5X lack this or is it not being used properly? Seems abnormal compared to before, and not getting a lot of SOT because of this.

This is a good question, one that I'll echo, because I am about to buy a 5X and have the same question. I thought all Snapdragon SoCs had some sort of DSP for offloading audio processing?

Could you test playing music for 2 hours through Google Play Music and see if it also keeps the device awake? Maybe Doggcatcher's EQ is causing the keep awake?

 

[bblzd]

According to my battery stats, Doggcatcher is destroying the battery in comparison to everything else. With only 2 hours of keep awake time, Doggcatcher is at the top of the list for battery usage, and apparently eats 25%. This is a daily thing.

The Nexus 5 had a dsp for audio tunneling to offload from the SoC, does the 5X lack this or is it not being used properly? Seems abnormal compared to before, and not getting a lot of SOT because of this.

This is a good question, one that I'll echo, because I am about to buy a 5X and have the same question. I thought all Snapdragon SoCs had some sort of DSP for offloading audio processing?

Could you test playing music for 2 hours through Google Play Music and see if it also keeps the device awake? Maybe Doggcatcher's EQ is causing the keep awake?

By the looks of the WiFi usage of Doggcatcher it is streaming the audio from the internet. DSP tunneling works for locally stored files such as mp3s, otherwise the internet connection is what is remaining active along with the SoC. Even when it's working properly the phone will show as "awake" in the battery graph, it will just use very little CPU time.

I'll help you make those T-Shirts @ibilln we can use a picture I edited from this survey that was done on Reddit.

This was on of my lower SoT results. 50% manual brightness. Locations and bluetooth were off during this time while all other settings remained enabled.

 

[blassster]

By the looks of the WiFi usage of Doggcatcher it is streaming the audio from the internet. DSP tunneling works for locally stored files such as mp3s, otherwise the internet connection is what is remaining active along with the SoC.

Not streaming from the net, it's local files. That's just from downloading episodes. Going to compare how much Play Music uses for 2 hours of local playback tomorrow. This all just seems to be more use than from my N5.