Help Droid 2 Battery Life Issues

[NightGriffin]

Good evening all,

I am a new android user, and got my Droid 2 the morning they came out at the Verizon store. Now the guy that was helping me at the store told me that the battery life would be bad because of the high resolution screen but I didn't expect it to be this bad. I have been having really bad battery issues and I don't even use it constantly. I have it on around 20% brightness during the day, and I really only send text messages, and some web browsing but not a huge amount. My battery will be drained after 6 hours or so, and will need a charge again. When checking on battery manager it does say that most of my energy is going to my screen, but like I said I don't even have it close to the full brightness. I have been using an appkiller program to try to maintain that also, but I did read somewhere that it can actually hurt your battery more, from closing and opening apps.

Just wanted to hear some feedback from other users since we a couple days after launch. Everything else has been great with this phone, and I am REALLY enjoying the android OS after switching from a Blackberry.

Take it easy all,

NightGriffin

 

[JasonU]

So far, it's taking a bit more battery life than my Droid 1, but it still makes it through the day just fine. The battery manager I'm using indicates the phone has been off the charger for 15 hours, and I'm still at 40%, and I've used it quite a lot today.

Are you sure maybe you're not using it more than you think? Even turning the screen on & off to check notifications? I've found that makes an impact on battery life.

That, or perhaps the signal is iffy in your area, and the phone is struggling to compensate?

Just a couple of ideas. I do notice it's sucking down battery faster than my D1 - it would still be over 50% this time of day. In fact, it was so good I'd charge it about every other day.

 

[NightGriffin]

So far, it's taking a bit more battery life than my Droid 1, but it still makes it through the day just fine. The battery manager I'm using indicates the phone has been off the charger for 15 hours, and I'm still at 40%, and I've used it quite a lot today.

Are you sure maybe you're not using it more than you think? Even turning the screen on & off to check notifications? I've found that makes an impact on battery life.

That, or perhaps the signal is iffy in your area, and the phone is struggling to compensate?

Just a couple of ideas. I do notice it's sucking down battery faster than my D1 - it would still be over 50% this time of day. In fact, it was so good I'd charge it about every other day.

Hey man,

I am probaly using it more then I think, I have not made it a full day without chargering it once. I do have a girlfriend so I text her pretty much all day and I am sure turning the screen on an off does have an impact, ha. I also am not in a good signal area, visiting the Grandparents so maybe tomorrow when I am home it could work it's self out. I did read over on another Android forum that people were saying the battery life will get battery after a couple days, so we will see what happens.

There is no way in hell I could get 15 hours with no charge, I know that for sure. What brightness do you usually have yours on? Do you have a lot of widgets? And are you on WiFi mostly or 3G?

Take it easy,

- NG

 

[JasonU]

I just run it at the stock brightness setting out of the box. I run wifi at home and shut it off when I'm traveling.

I agree, I think a few days of charge/discharge may help too.

I know it seems counter intuitive, but I could swear when I've run the battery down pretty well (like to the point where the phone shuts down), and then recharged overnight, that I get better battery life.

 

[Ketto]

Funny you post this, I was going to post the exact same question. I'm attributing it to maybe just having to wear the battery in a bit...because on the first two days I had my droid 2, I had to recharge it twice in a 11 hour period because the battery drained so fast.

The thing that is weird, is that it only took about 50 minutes to charge the battery from 15% to 100%. Strikes me as very odd, makes me wonder if the battery just isn't operating at full capacity. The hours given by Motorola says this thing should last 9.5 hours under constant use of phone calls, so I think it should last longer than 7 hours just being used for text messaging. If not, then I have to say I'm pretty disappointed by the phone. It's great, but that battery life is just unacceptable, particularly when I'm running brightness on the screen at the lowest it'll go (mainly to experiment/see if it'd last longer, which it didn't really)

 

[mister880]

i have my brightness set at the lowest possible, but then im out in the sun, i set it to auto bright.
i had the ATK and juice defender installed, but i uninstalled them. with the droid 2, i read the ATK is not neccessary and juice defender just slowed the phone way down.

 

[NightGriffin]

Thanks for the responses guys, I had a horrible battery run today. I woke up at around 8:30 and unplugged my phone and it had been fully charged, I had the brightness set to 0% and after 7 hours of being unplugged it died. That is battery manager said, my screen was only around 25% of it, and it said the screen had been on for around 50 minutes, also I think the Android OS was around 23%. And the horrible thing is that at around 50% charge, I put my phone in my pocket because I had to drive the last leg of the trip, and I didn't turn it on once while driving, it was in idle the whole time and it went from 50% to dead from being on idle. I have like NO widgets updating or anything, no news, new facebook, nothing, the only thing is weather and time. I made sure I didn't have a lot of programs running, so this is becoming an annoying problem and I hope something gets resolved. I know my battery isn't at full capacity because I BARELY used the phone and after 7 hours it was dead, like I said most used was screen and Android OS according to battery manager. Text and web browsing percentages were under 10%.

I need to find a way to take a screen shot of my Battery Manager percentages so we can all compare.

Other then the battery issue I really haven't been having any bugs. One minor bug is that my phone hasn't been vibrating when receiving text messages even though it is set to vibrate all the time. My device also has been getting somewhat hot, I do have it in a snap on rubber type case bought from Verizon, so I took that off and plan to use it without the case for a little bit to see if that has any effect.

EDIT: I also noticed something today.. when trying to charge my phone using my computer and charge only mode it wasn't charging it. It was not letting it die, and wasn't draining the battery but it wasn't charging the phone for some reason. Just got stuck at 15%. I then plugged it into the wall with the charger it came with and it seems to be charging it now. Anyone else notice this problem?
Take it easy all,

- NG

 

[mister880]

same thing here. my phone was unplugged around 1030 this morning, by 6pm today the battery was at 15% life left...

 

[crazzbaby]

I am having the same issues.. in < 6hrs and mine goes from full to dead.. this is my first "smartphone" as my old phone the Env touch battery lasted DAYS and I am always texting.. I had the X first but traded it in for the D2 as it was more practical and didn't need such a large phone that didnt fit in my pocket.. that phone lasted me about 10 hrs!! but not this phone!! any ideas on how to "stop" apps without the ATK.. since it doesnt work..bc it looks like everything is running and to look at whats running i dont have a clue as to what to click off and what to leave running.. please help!! I pretty much text and the occasional FB update via Blurr.. PLEASE HELP!!
thanks
Kris

 

[redpanda]

My battery improved after the first couple days. Today I had it off the charger for about 8 hours under pretty heavy use and it was still at about 50 percent. On Friday, It died on my way home from work.

I'm also having issues where if I plug it in at night, it's not fully charged in the morning. It seems like it stops charging after after it recognizes itself as being fully charged. This is an issue because I don't get good signal in my building and cell standby can take out a good 30 percent of my battery by the time I wake up. So those of you who are having extreme issues, check to make sure you're at 100 percent when you pick it up in the morning. If not, there's probably a software solution.

There's also always the possibility that you have a bad battery and can just get it replaced.

 

[Ketto]

My battery is getting better too. It lasted all day today without any problems, and is currently at 40%. Not too bad. One thing I didn't do today was run ATK at all....makes me wonder if that's somehow draining a lot of battery.

 

[JasonU]

Wow...totally not having this experience at all. Took a 12 hr drive yesterday, used the phone quite a bit. Used voice search, navigation/maps (just to check position, not continuous), text, etc, and used it for an hour or so of talk time after arriving, and finally put it on the charger after 17 hours with 30% remaining.

I have to think some of you have either a defective phone, or defective battery (hopefully just the latter).

 

[NightGriffin]

I am having the same issues.. in < 6hrs and mine goes from full to dead.. this is my first "smartphone" as my old phone the Env touch battery lasted DAYS and I am always texting.. I had the X first but traded it in for the D2 as it was more practical and didn't need such a large phone that didnt fit in my pocket.. that phone lasted me about 10 hrs!! but not this phone!! any ideas on how to "stop" apps without the ATK.. since it doesnt work..bc it looks like everything is running and to look at whats running i dont have a clue as to what to click off and what to leave running.. please help!! I pretty much text and the occasional FB update via Blurr.. PLEASE HELP!!
thanks
Kris

Hey Kris,

What I use instead of ATK because I know exactly what you mean about not know which programs are open. I have created a shortcut widget on my desktop, by clicking Shortcut>Settings> Running Services. You can also get to this by going through settings but its faster if you put a shortcut on your home pages. You can look in there and it will show you everything that is running and you can cancel tasks. That is what I use at least.

Good luck

Wow...totally not having this experience at all. Took a 12 hr drive yesterday, used the phone quite a bit. Used voice search, navigation/maps (just to check position, not continuous), text, etc, and used it for an hour or so of talk time after arriving, and finally put it on the charger after 17 hours with 30% remaining.

I have to think some of you have either a defective phone, or defective battery (hopefully just the latter).

Haha your battery seems to be working fine. Like I said I was also on a car ride the other day and like I said I went the phone in my pocket at around 50% charge and when I was home it was day, and I looked at it was around 7 hours unplugged and I barely used it. Last night I was at my friends and we were heavy using our phones downloading apps and I was in an IRC program and my phone was at 50% charge after two hours.

Glad to know that there is people with good battery life because I think I have a defective battery, I have got to. I just took my phone off the charge.. 36m and it's already at 90% after barely using it. I had 1m 10s voice call, and my display has been on 5m 27s. I am going to give it a couple more days and then maybe make a call to Verizon.

 

[mister880]

we will see how mine does.
i took it off charge at 6am, it's 8am now it's still at full charge.

although i have not texted anyone or even used the phone. it went off the charger and straight to my holster.

 

[mister880]

im hoping all it takes is coniditioning the battery as mentioned. a few charges from dead to 100%.

 

[NightGriffin]

Ok Mister, I will be awaiting the results.

Here is a picture of mine already burning away the battery with pretty much no use. It's been off charger for a little and is already down to 90%. My brightness is around 10-15%.

Photo on 2010-08-16 at 10.43.jpg

 

[NightGriffin]

So after my phone was dying after 4 hours of barely using it I finally was pissed off enough to call up Verizon and see what they had to say. The guy really didn't have much to say but try to chill on apps, and give it a factory reset to see if that might fix a software bug or whatever. So I have done a factory reset, and will see what happens. So far it doesn't seem to be helping because my battery is already gone down to 90% after being unplugged for 17 minutes, with the display on for 15 of those minutes with the brightness set at 0%. He said that if that doesn't work then go on into the Verizon Store that I got the phone at and return it and they will give me a brand new one since it hasn't been 30 days.

 

[mister880]

Ok Mister, I will be awaiting the results.

Here is a picture of mine already burning away the battery with pretty much no use. It's been off charger for a little and is already down to 90%. My brightness is around 10-15%.

Photo on 2010-08-16 at 10.43.jpg

sorry it took me so long to reply. didn't get on the net much after work all day yesterday.

by the time i left work yesterday i was about 20% battery life left, so 9 hours and i did alot of texting yesterday afternoon.

today, it's going alot better i think. although i've only sent/recieved about 15 texts, no phone calls and i went on facebook once.

i unplugged the phone at 3am when i woke up.

i'm at 90% battery life left.

phone idle is using 37%
cell standby 29%
display 20%
android system 7%
text messaging 3%
android os 3%


if i get back online tonight i'll let you know how it is.

i have my droid set at maximum battery saver, the screen is as dim as it can get and when im in sunlight i set it to auto.

also, if you use facebook through the social networking. remove that account. i found that your contacts and facebook are syncing alot and will cause battery drain.

i removed my facebook from social networking and just use the facebook app. it's not a big deal to me that i can't see my contacts statuses and pictures when i go in my contact list. if i want to see there status messages/pictures ill visit there profile.

 

[NightGriffin]

Good to hear your battery is doing better Mister. I can HAPPILY say that after a factory reset my battery is doing 100x better then before. I have been sending a couple days this morning here and there, and a short phone call but nothing big. My brightness has been on auto, and I don't really have any updating widgets, I have been trying to keep it as simple as I can. I'm GLAD to say that after 5h 18m of being unplugged I am still at 90% battery.

Cell standby: 29%
Display: 25%
Phone idle: 19%
Voice calls: 12%
Android System: 6%
Texting Messaging: 4%


So I am very happy, the factory reset did wonders.. I'll keep checking in of course and seeing how other people are doing.

- NG

 

[NightGriffin]

8 hours with 80% charge. Yay!

 

[joshtb86]

my battery is terrible. how do you perform a factory reset?

 

[mister880]

wow! that is great to hear! i may do the same if you got 8 hours with 80% charge! will i lose all my ringtones and such?

i did last up until about about 7:30 last night i had 30% battery life left. i threw it on charge for about 15 minutes so i could have enough time to make a 30 minute phone call last night.

and that is after texting pretty much all day. so it's not to bad.


josh, when did you get your D2, all i've done was condition my battery. (when the phones battery is dead, charge it to full.

if you're like me and your phone is on 24/7, when you get up in the morning, turn the phone off and turn it back on. just like a computer, reboot it once a day.

 

[ndonnine]

If you turn off "data enabled" until you need it.. THe battery life goes up 10 fold.

 

[SioConnellan]

I can't say to enough THANK YOUs to the posters here (especially NightGriffin)!!!! I was in battery hell (if it lasted 4 hours it was a miracle and that was with low-moderate use). Last night I did the factory reset (after taking pictures with my webcam of the various screens I had customized). Allelujah! After resetting 13.5 hours ago, I unplugged my phone, spent 1-2 hours setting up all my apps and screens again, and the battery is still reading at 60%! It's a whole new world! Thanks everyone for your help!

 

[redpanda]

My phone died on me yesterday after being off the charger for about 8 hours. Granted, I was using it pretty heavily for about an hour and a half while I was waiting to meet with someone. But I still want it to perform better if that's possible.

Those of you who are getting really good battery life (12+ hours), how long does it take to charge your phone. Someone mentioned before that they thought it was weird that their phone takes less than an hour to charge, and I'm wondering if the phone just isn't accurately reading the battery level and cuts off the charger before its fully charged.