Help Where's the crazy battery life everyone has been talking about?

[akronhammer]

First of all, let me just say this, I already read the Batteries and You thread in this forum.

http://androidforums.com/tips-tricks-droid-x/149415-batteries-you-read-before-posting.html

Now I've been visiting this forum for a month or so now, and when the X first came out people were raving about the battery (9-12 hours), so when I picked up my X on the 14th I was expecting a good ten hours of battery time.

But I'm only maxing out at like 6 hours and thats when I'm not doing anything. If I play a game or listen to music, I get around 3.

So can anyone recommend good strategies for getting the most out of the X battery?

P.S. I read good and bad things about task killers, should I try one or not?

 

[xander66]

With regards to using a task killer, there's no harm in trying it. If you like it go for it, its your phone. There are plenty of posts arguing both sides, the debate will probably never end. I personally have noticed better performance and battery life without it.
Now about your battery, there is a good chance you just got a lemon. Not everything is perfect. If you really are so far under the battery ratings you should be able to get a new phone and/or battery.

 

[Vihzel]

You most likely got a lemon. I was in a car ride for 9 hours and was able to listen to music the entire time easily.

 

[mwpeck]

My battery seems to fluctuate. One day I will be down to around 40% by the time I get home (around 4-5PM, off the charger at 8AM), other days I get home and its around 70-80%. Virtually the same usage pattern every day, always quite light, a few texts and emails, maybe a short call or two.

 

[Willyg44]

Use the widget for services, so your GPS/WiFi/Bluetooth are only on when you need them on.

Keep screen brightness to a minimum when you can. ( I usually keep mine at about 15 percent when not watching movies/playing games/etc.

I would D/L advanced task killer. What I do is disable auto kill. That seems to be the feature most complain about. I just have it to end programs running in the background, which can pile up. I have definitely noticed a huge help in battery life from this app.

I also updated my roaming capabilities and in my area specifically it made a huge difference in my service, I was jumping from 0 to 2 bars all the time and stuff. Might not work for you, but worth a try.

I have been lasting a full day of 12-14 hours with decent amounts of texting/some calls/light to medium browsing/a game or two/some searching in the market/etc. I haven't fiddled with the music player, maybe that's a big drain on this phone??

 

[Nightwind Hawk]

I had the same issue as you... but I've also noticed my battery life has been improving over time. I dunno... it seems the biggest thing is the screen and if I turn the brightness down (instead of on auto) it helps a lot.

 

[stevez444]

We had the same problem and it turned out to be the battery charger. Verizon gave us a new one and that fixed it. Take your phone and charger to the Verizon store. If the charger doesn't solve it they will give you a new battery. Good luck.

 

[jreed2560]

OP could you post us a list of the apps you have installed on your phone. An easy way to do this is to download app brain from the market. then sign in to the website. They give you a URL code to post your apps in forums.

 

[draconius]

I have recently ben charging my battery with the phone off and have experienced better battery life. Also I have been getting better life over time as well. My two cents.

 

[Nightwind Hawk]

akron - you can also try JuiceDefender. It's a popular app around here... lots of people seem to love it. It disables/enables your data for when you need it, to save battery life, among other things...

Give it a try and see if you get along with it.

 

[WalmartSecurity]

Download "Spare Parts" and see what is using your battery. Specifically check: Other Usage, Sensor Usage, and CPU usage

 

[Piiman]

With regards to using a task killer, there's no harm in trying it. If you like it go for it, its your phone. There are plenty of posts arguing both sides, the debate will probably never end. I personally have noticed better performance and battery life without it.
Now about your battery, there is a good chance you just got a lemon. Not everything is perfect. If you really are so far under the battery ratings you should be able to get a new phone and/or battery.

You can cause a lot of problems with a task killer if you don't know what you're doing. For example: If you, like many others have, just turn it on and let it kill everything when you turn off the screen you'll cause all sorts of problems.

If you want to try a task killer I would suggest Goggling "Why task Killers are Bad" and read ALL you find first. You can Goggle "Why task killers are good" also just to be balanced. But most of the why they are good are from people talking about the weird problems they had with them and that in the end they got just as good or better life once they un-installed them.

As for your battery

You most likely have something running a muck or maybe you're leaving apps open by just hitting the home key to exit when you need to use the back button.


Lots of times an app may prevent your phone from sleeping. An easy test to see if that is the case is just unplug it at night when you go to sleep and see how much of a drop you have overnight. It's a little ruff on the X to judge because they only gives us reading in 10% increments but mine only drops 10 to 20% in about an 8 hr period. When I first got my Incredible it would drain almost to dead in 5 to 6 hrs. Turns out "Juice defended" was preventing my phone from sleeping .

Turns out JD had a habit of getting corrupt config files and when that happens it would eat your battery alive. (how ironic is that? it's suppose to have battery)

Long story short might have something running a muck.
A task killer may kill it put it'll be killing lots of other stuff that shouldn't be if you don't set them up right and that's not an easy thing to do right.

 

[labeledbass]

Where's the crazy battery life everyone has been talking about?

Right here - 18 Hours minimal use - 12-14 Moderate/Normal use - 7-10 Heavy use.

Heavy = EVERYTHING on, heavy dl/ul, dlna, AGPS, Wifi, Blue tooth, Animations, 4 social nets, 4 weather apps both refreshing every 15 min, 100% brightness, one 2 hour phone call, at least 50 sms sent and received with a few mms including videos.

I mention the above because that's what I did with my X the first 3 charge cycles, until the thing literally didn't have enough battery to reboot. I bought mine on launch day, #40 out of 40 at the store, pre charged @ 70%. After 3 charges with heavy use I toned it down and learned what settings helped/hindered the phone. I plug it in to AC every night, low or not and keep it there until I wake charged or not - the longest I've gone with minimal use is 21 hours, and I honestly did use it quite frequently during that time.

Don't kill all of your services, or radios, just check out whats running, what you really need when you really need it. I just checked my status and I've been unplugged for 7 hours and its only at 70% +/- 5% and I can safely say I've used it moderately today so far.

If you want to know and specs on my settings let me know ~

 

[SgtBaxter]

My phone's been unplugged for 8 hours so far today, battery is at 70%. Up until about 5 minutes ago I wasn't in the office so the phone is all I've been using for email all day so the screen has been on quite a lot (set to dim). Exchange email with my free Touchdown is quite nice on this phone I must say

It'll still be going 7-8 hours from now when I plug it in. So yeah, I think I get pretty good battery life.

 

[darkcyber]

akronhammer,

I too, ask the same question you are asking. The first I got my phone (after a full charge) the battery lasted great, but I didn't use my phone much that day. We just took a day trip this last weekend and I used my phone for some lite talking and a little bit of web surfing while at lunch. Then by around 3:00 pm I used my camera some to take pictures. By about 4:00 pm my battery was showing it was down to a critical level, something like 20%.

So, people that are saying they are getting crazy long battery lives must not use their phones at all. There can't be that many BAD batteries out there

 

[droidSPARX]

u mean this 10hr?

that's with websurfing, pandora, podcast (on auto brightness with smart battery profile)

 

[dB Zac]

after I downloaded the the 2.1 update my battery took a huge plunge in life. I did a hard reset twice and finally after the second time, my battery life came back

 

[mwpeck]

If you want to know and specs on my settings let me know ~

I am interested in what all your settings are and what apps you are using....I have my screen down to a very low brightness (probably around 10-15%) and I have EVERYTHING except data sync disabled.

Been running since 8AM (3:20PM now), so 7 hours, the display has only been on for 40 minutes, the phone has been sleeping except for ~50 minutes of its total time since unplugged (sleep time of roughly 6 hours 10 minutes out of 7 hours), and I am at 70% already.

I have sent a few emails, no texts or calls today, I uninstalled ATK, checked Spare Parts and the default Battery History screen and thats about it (that covers the 40 minutes or so). This is all on Battery Saver mode.

So far, 30% in 7 hours of very light usage, I guess it seems about right compared to your 18 hours of light usage (that would be around 40% at 14 hours, then around 22% at the 18 hour mark), but I know if I run 100% brightness, leave AGPS on, have a 2 hour phone call and send a ton of texts, I dont feel it would last nearly as long as yours.

 

[Zumi]

Only time I have trouble with my battery life is while at work when I'm streaming XM radio all day. I think most people who have battery life issues don't know how to turn off Gtalk auto sign-on and auto updates of such things as weather and other widgets.


Also, how is your 3G connection? Do you consistently have many bars? I know when you keep switching from 3G to 1EX it will cause a pretty quick battery drain. The phone is constantly searching for a better connection. (3G)

 

[theineffablebob]

akron - you can also try JuiceDefender. It's a popular app around here... lots of people seem to love it. It disables/enables your data for when you need it, to save battery life, among other things...

Give it a try and see if you get along with it.

Yeah, this is a good app.

I got 17 hours of battery life yesterday using this.

 

[dB Zac]

my settings are pretty much factory. I have all my social accounts synced, 3 e mail accounts, and my brightness is on the automatic setting

 

[SerialTurd]

I don't know if this applies to the dx but I'm think it applies to all phones in general. My BB storm gets very little reception in the office building I work. If your phone can't find a 3g signal, it will try to search for one thus causing it to lose a lot of battery very fast. On a normal day, I'll unplug my phone (BB Storm) at 5:30 am. By the time it hits 3:00-4:00 pm, the battery is pretty much gone.

Over the weekends when I don't have a signal issue, my phone will last the whole weekend from a fresh charge with moderate/light use.

 

[Dremel]

Mine was working fine and then it started only lasting 4 hours.

I fixed my battery problem. Mine turned out to be the system trying to read a file on my sd card over and over and over. Pegging the CPU usage with the media app

To find your possible problem,
Get on the Market Place. Search for system panel
Then select SystemPanelLite Task by nextapp, inc. FREE version
Install

After install
Go to your programs and start SYSTEM

Select Menu and then Settings
Turn on system processes, system monitor, app cpu monitors, app cpu time
Hit the return button (ie back button)

At the top left chart, is the cpu meter Pegged at 90 or 100 percent ?
If higher than 10 percent
Scroll through the program list and see with one has a high bar on the left of its name.
Note: system panel Lite will have a bar, but there should be another with is why your battery may be draining

Then do a search on this forum or internet about that service.

I found that many were having problems with the media service. I had two movie files on my sd card to use with rock player. But media could not read them and kept trying over and over.
Added a file named .nomedia to the folder and now all is good.

 

[redgtconv]

I also began charging my phone while it was powered down and the battery life has significantly improved. This accomplishes two things. Motorola suggests powering down the phone once per day for maximum performance. So I use the charging time for the power down.

 

[BigBruDa3rd]

Ok ok this is the real measure of battery life. I get 25-20 hours with moderate use and 15-12 with heavy use. Now my heavy use might be considered lite heavy use to some and very heavy use to others. Judge ur battery on how you use your phone and how the battery was on your previous smartphone. Regular, so called dumb phones don't count.

The bottom line is no smartphone battery will ever get 2 days with heavy use. Some might get lucky and their phones might be set up perfect but most of us will have ok battery life.
The question you have to ask urself, does my battery last me till I get home to charge it with everyday use? With my everyday useage does my battery serve my needs? If no then mabye your battery is bad or you use the hell out of your phone and a extra charger should be part of your assessories. If yes then your battery is good. Mine does.

Until batteries catch up with smartphone technologies having your phone last until you get home is win for you. My battery got better over time and I did the full to drain till dead technique about 4 times when I first got my battery.

I have sync, gps, wifi, and social widgets on all the time. Battey smart mode with auto brightness and data timing out 15 minutes.