This is after my initial period of hammering on the phone and back to my normal daily usage pattern which is like a blackberry user (some phone calls in and out, lots of email, at least a few every 30 minutes during the day and early evening). What this means for me as a blackberry user is that I can now confidently switch over from blackberry to the Evo as primary phone and get through a normal day (16 hours) without needing a mid-day charge.
Here are settings from my testing experience that I wish I had known when I first got the EVO at Google I/O:
1. Add to home sense screen:
widget: Power Control Android
widget: settings, 4G
widget: settings: Hotspot
2. Install android market apps (free):
Advanced Task Killer
Spare Parts
K-9 Mail
3. Run Advanced Task Killer (some disagree, do what you want. I'll revisit and retest this when 2.2 gets released by HTC for the EVO. I don't need sprint navigation, sprint tv, etc. to ever be running since I will use google navigation. I haven't had time to do another endurance test without using ATK and I'm not planning to do another endurance test)
Deselect things you actually want to keep running in the background, e.g.:
voice dialer
voice search
google voice
calendar
k-9 mail
gmail
....
Kill selected apps
ATK will put a notification up at each boot and remember your selections so it's easy to re-kill off all the sprint and other apps you don't normally want 'running' in the background.
4. Turn off 4G and hotspot on the main page with widgets installed.
Note: I found I don't need to disable gps or bluetooth since with streamlined apps running nothing is using them unless I want it to and I want my bluetooth to automatically pickup when I get in the car.
5. Turn screen brightness to low or medium using widget icon. this disables auto brightness but the lower screen brightness seems fine for me. When outside in the sun just click it up if needed
6. Settings Wireless and Networks, Wi-Fi Settings, <menu button> Advanced, Wi-Fi sleep policy, Never.
It's a bit counterintuitive, but I've tested it out both ways and confirmed the articles that recommend this. The phone uses dramatically less power in this state as opposed to auto sleeping wi-fi which turns on the 3G radio. Dramatic as in without keeping wi-fi alive overnight my battery went from like 70% to almost nothing during earlier tests.
7. <optional> Run the battery from a full charge to completely drained once. I'm not sure if this had an effect or not, just putting it in because I did it once before this current long runtime since charge to make sure the battery was properly profiled. It's easy to do with 4G on and watching HD youtube videos.
8. K-9 versus gmail client. I'm seeing much more cpu usage from gmail client versus K-9. I have work email on a host service that supports imap idle (rackspace). The imap idle push seems to really save on cpu usage and my work email delivers as fast to the Evo as it does to my blackberry. I like the gmail client for my personal mail but may end up switching my gmail.com to deliver via K-9 instead to really save on battery. Needs more exploring but it appears the gmail client 'push' is not as efficient as the imap idle.
9. Summary, when you want to show off your 4G Youtube HD or use the phone as a mobile hotspot, just click on the 4G and away it goes. But normally keep that radio off since you don't actually need it and it's a huge power drain. With the widget installed this becomes an easy habit.
---RD
Last edited by robertdahlgren; May 26th, 2010 at 01:45 PM.
Reason: bolded my goals, added ATK caveat
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Awesome news! That's the type of battery life I was hoping to acheive. Man, even a full day with on and off use would be great compared to the Touch Pro.
I am thinking of a different one, what is the one that comes with the custom roms, man it's been less than a week without my Hero and now I am forgetting shit, come on June 4th.
Great post! I sit at a desk all day so I never really have to worry about battery life but for long trips without being able to charge this is good to know.
This is so awesome. I probably won't get this kind of battery life because I'm big on data use with a phantom 4G network (DC) that hopefully goes live officially by EVO launch. I'm sure this will significantly increase it's alive time after a full charge/use to full drain/full charge.
Android OS & Display @ 4% and 2%? Are you actually using the phone much, or is it just sitting around mostly?
As I wrote, I use it at least every 30 minutes during waking hours.
There are other things at 2% and lower. The reason they have moved to such a low '%' on this test is the 63 hours of uptime.
And remember, my goal was to find settings where I can get 16 hours out of a battery on a normal day. I'm rather surprised and happy to be pulling this much time at the moment too. Mossberg's reviewed had me worried I couldn't move to this phone as a primary phone.
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And remember, my goal was to find settings where I can get 16 hours out of a battery on a normal day. I'm rather surprised and happy to be pulling this much time at the moment too. Mossberg's reviewed had me worried I couldn't move to this phone as a primary phone.
Yep, and I find it to be a valuable exercise, so thank you for posting & sharing!
My reason for pointing out your usage statistics and asking, was to hopefully get a little more in-depth detail & clarification on how you use your phone. We all use our phones differently, so what you may call "moderate usage" might be "light" in my book.
good catch I missed that. And with those both being so low, you should kill your wifi as it's obvious that your not using the phone.
For the trolls in the audience, via the spare parts app (an excellent free app), a quick screen shot of some of the applications which are a much smaller cpu usage time versus the OS and phone level applications.
Let the Argument begin! for all you new Android Users you need to read this article. He may have had great battery life for his phone but he didn't use it. This article will explain why task killers are not good for android and shouldn't be used. This isn't windows OS. I never use one on my android and it works great with no lag on a Hero running 2.1 and Eris running 2.1.
I'm also lucky to have 4G coverage.
But look what happens to that 22% remaining battery when 4G is on for a bit, bam. So that's why it's normally off unless needed. Do you leave your car A/C on all the time in winter just to drive down your gas mileage? My personal preference is to just turn it on when I actually need it for something but get used to leaving it off by default.
nice work. i wasn't too worried about battery life, tbh. i knew it could last a good 16hrs, which is also a normal day for myself. and i won't use it every 30min while at work.
i'm sure we will all have our ways to improve battery life.
__________________
Galaxy Nexus i9250 unlocked and rooted
How many hours are we talking if we just leave 4G on in an area with good signal where it isn't always having to scan and work to stay connected? Any ideas?
I'm in Vancouver, WA which has a really decent clearwire/sprint 4G umbrella.
Yeah exactly. I would prefer just leave 4G on since i have the best coverage rating wherever I might be in Vancouver/Portland. That way an incoming call wont interfere with my daterz, and if I'm on a call I dont want to have to turn on 4G so that I can get online during the call. I just want it to all be ready to at all times.
Phone will be getting returned pretty fast if I have to turn stuff on and off to make it last from 8am to midnight.
My 2 year old iPhone 3G will still do almost 2 days with my usage with BT, WiFi, and 3G w/ Push all running, I never turn anything off.
Where is your location? The reason I ask is because I know that when my phone jumps between 2g/3g alot, I tend to chew up battery (mostly going into and out of labs).
If your area has great 3g coverage, I can expect similar results in my 3g areas.
Yeah exactly. I would prefer just leave 4G on since i have the best coverage rating wherever I might be in Vancouver/Portland. That way an incoming call wont interfere with my daterz, and if I'm on a call I dont want to have to turn on 4G so that I can get online during the call. I just want it to all be ready to at all times.
I guess it really depends on if when you get the EVO, you still get that level of coverage. Time will tell I guess.
Took my Evo off of the charger today at 11:00 am; had pretty minimal data usage as i was at work most of the time. Made 8-9 voice calls lasting about 5 minutes each. Data usage increased later at night as i was periodically checking AF forums and NBA gametime app to check out the lakers/suns game. Its 11:38 pm now, and i have 80% battery left. This is with GPS, 4g, wifi, and bluetooth off; strictly using 3g. Pleasantly surprised
Took my Evo off of the charger today at 11:00 am; had pretty minimal data usage as i was at work most of the time. Made 8-9 voice calls lasting about 5 minutes each. Data usage increased later at night as i was periodically checking AF forums and NBA gametime app to check out the lakers/suns game. Its 11:38 pm now, and i have 80% battery left. This is with GPS, 4g, wifi, and bluetooth off; strictly using 3g. Pleasantly surprised
I'm also lucky to have 4G coverage.
But look what happens to that 22% remaining battery when 4G is on for a bit, bam. So that's why it's normally off unless needed. Do you leave your car A/C on all the time in winter just to drive down your gas mileage? My personal preference is to just turn it on when I actually need it for something but get used to leaving it off by default.
Off topic, but is that one of the live wallpapers that comes with the EVO? 'Tis bitchin!
wow, thanks a lot. i just changed the settings to match yours. hope the battery life is gonna rock it. i was starting to get worried since i've been having to charge atleast every 8-10 hours of up time
wow, thanks a lot. i just changed the settings to match yours. hope the battery life is gonna rock it. i was starting to get worried since i've been having to charge atleast every 8-10 hours of up time
yeah, if you're not having 20+ minute browsing sessions/youtube viewing sessions, and use your phone mostly for voice calls and occasional browsing, then you really should get pretty decent battery life out of your phone. I've been messing around with it a little bit since my first post(downloaded 2 apps, and playing with the spare parts app), and my battery is at 74%.
You pay extra for 4G but you turn it off only to use Wifi...seems counterintuitive to me.
Wimax should be treated like Wifi. It's similar technology and acts like a web of Wifi coverage spanning a whole city. Neither should be left on when not in use but since Sprint seems hell bent on positioning Wimax as a 3G analog that you just leave on and use when available, they will likely end up with some disappointed customers.
If your phone is sitting idle in your pocket, there is no reason to leave all of these radios on. Leave your regular 1x/Ev radio (your regular old cellular radio) on to receive and make calls, texts, emails, etc. and turn on Wifi or Wimax when needed for data intensive apps.
It's not counterintuitive when you consider most open Wifi networks are in your home or office or cafes, etc. but Wimax extends that kind of coverage all over town.
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I'm testing with 4G on and so far so good. I started tracking this morning at 9:00AM with 98% battery level and have been using the device on and off at work, uploading screen shots, web browsing, a few YouTube videos, e-mail, phone calls, downloaded a few apps.
Now it's about 1:45 and I've got a battery reading of 69%. So about 6% usage per hour. At this rate, with 4G on, I should get about 16 hours of use. Plenty for me. I'll post again tonight with further results. Tomorrow, I'll try with 3G only.
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wanna give us a update on how the battery is today?
I wasn't planning to run any more blackberry type usage endurance tests. My goal was to have confidence that I can stop carrying 2 phones and carry just the one and not need a mid-day charge unless I'm using it as a hotspot, a bunch of 4G youtube HD, etc. I put it on the charger every night now and the battery is usually 50% to 20% by the end of the day with decent usage.
Replies to some other comments:
ATK: I like ATK because it doesn't kill off any OS level processes. I simply want to kill off all the Sprint-installed junk each cold reboot since I can't uninstall those without rooting the phone and don't want to spend time finding out what they are doing in the background. I'm not planning to root until someone has tested 2.2 on the evo.
4G: I am in the Seattle area. if I leave 4G enabled while at home, I get 2 to 0 bars. This results in could not load data errors at times so I find it better just to leave it off by default at home until I get a closer antenna. Plus my Verizon FIOS on the wi-fi is faster data when at home anyway. Also, with such a low signal I suspect that was why I had such horrible early battery life results since it's like when you have a very low 3G signal and your battery gets drained. I turn on 4G whenever I want to do something data intensive (NOT email) while out and about. The last 2 times I've wanted to show off the phone I managed to get a 4G connection but at 0 bars it wouldn't route any actual data which makes for a horrible demo when trying to convince people to move to Android....! I'm also disappointed I can't use the 4G as a reliable backup data source at home and will try to get a discount from Sprint when signing up after the free google i/o period of service.
Wallpaper: the live wallpapers (except maps with turns on GPS!) don't chew up as much battery as I had expected. But I went with the built-in paper with the most black but still interesting to save on battery for now until I have time to experiment more with the live ones. What I'd really like is someone to turn that wallpaper into a live one where it's still mostly black but with live moving flames on the X.
I'm still waiting for my Phantom Skinz and Zagg Invisibile Shield full body kits to arrive. I'll post up which one I go with (or a combination of parts) based on the feel of the touchscreen protector. I've been super happy with invisible shield full kits for other devices in the past.
Last edited by robertdahlgren; May 28th, 2010 at 03:49 PM.
When Sprint announced their first ever 4G handset at CTIA in March 2010, they dropped a bombshell on the mobile world. The HTC Evo 4G is a device that introduces a lot of firsts when compared to other North American handsets. This is the first Andr... Read More
Tip-Trick: 61 hours, 24% battery remaining
