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Help Battery Life Concerns

rkcastor

Lurker
Sep 14, 2010
5
1
I have used the DX since it arrived. I am a techie and wouldn't consider myself any more picky than any other techie, but is the general consensus *really* that battery life on the DX is good, or very good, or great?! This is most definitely not my own reality.

I can't go a full 24-hr day without putting it back on charge. I leave the screen as dim as feasible, which is mostly at user=25% or Minimum. I have 6 email addy's polling every 30 minutes and I have data push disabled (neither of which is ideal but a sacrifice to gain add'l battery life). I have Battery Manager set to Battery Saver Mode. I also leave Bluetooth disabled always and only activate GPS if using the navigation and/or G-Maps. I am running only 2 screens with 4 widgets total.

I know most devices these days drain power in a somewhat similar fashion but my iPhone 3G was not this bad. I find it quite inconvenient and a serious hassle to have a charger available everywhere: at work, in both vehicles, and at home b/c invariably, I will likely have to use two or more of those cables at least once each day. And this is without playing a single movie, audio file, or streaming anything. I don't particularly talk an awful lot either, but calls tend to be the most battery-consuming. The breakdown on this particular day happened to fall like this:

Voice calls: 56%
Cell standby: 25%
Display: 13%
Phone idle: 8%

*Note: those actuaries in the audience were quick to realize this is actually 102%... go figure.

So, any comments, suggestions on how I can improve this? I am considering giving the wife the DX and getting the Fascinate but I fear this will not improve. This can't be as good as it gets, can it?
 
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I will tell you that you have an app the is continuning to run and counting against your voice calls. I had that happen to me and it was a single app. It takes some digging to find out which one. It took me 3 days writting down what I opened and when and monitored my battery use to be sure. I had it figured out I thought the first day and I was right. Once you figure out what it is you will be in good shape. And I know what I figured it was, was not really the problem it was not playing nice with something else.
As it stands I have had my phone since release day and today 30% at 16 hours and with 2:30 hours of screen time.
 
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I can't go a full 24-hr day without putting it back on charge...

I find it quite inconvenient and a serious hassle to have a charger available everywhere:

Here's the problem... when you say can't go through a 24 hour day, what exactly do you mean? You make it sound like you're plugging the phone in every other hour.

I leave at 6 a.m., and by the time I get home at night and put the phone back on charge it's usually about 40%. That's with what looks to be similar usage to you, except I've got a few email accounts using push email. So, that's about 16 hours then I charge the phone again. I can't really ask for more, it goes through the day and has plenty of reserve. There's no reason not to plug the phone in and charge it every night.

I find it a difficult concept to grasp that people complain their phone won't go for 2-3 days on a charge, I suppose especially since I came from a Samsung phone that barely did 8 hours on a charge.

The biggest thing that will eat your battery is being in a place with low or no signal. When I go out fishing on the reservoirs I turn the phone to airplane mode. There is zero signal in most of the places I fish, and the (ANY) phone will die in an hour or two constantly looking for signal.

FWIW last night I went to a concert, and charged the phone beforehand so I'd have 100% battery. I shot maybe 3 hours of video (ran out of memory just as it ended!), and was taking and uploading pictures throughout. When got home I still had 70% left on the battery meter.
 
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FYI, Push actually reduces battery consumption. Contrary to popular belief, it is harder on your battery to have 6 email addresses polling every 30 minutes than it is to just let the servers push emails as they are available.

I get about a full day (that is, from the time I first get up in the morning until the time I get into bed at night) out of my battery, plus a bit - usually when I plug it in the battery is at 20%, sometimes 30%. This was almost exactly the same battery life that I used to get out of my 3GS, and I just think it's the reality of big-screened smartphones. My usage gets about a day.

I have two email addresses getting pushed, Google Voice getting pushed, the Pure Messenger widget polling Facebook and Twitter every 30 minutes, a sports widget polling every hour, the screen set on auto brightness, GPS, Bluetooth and Wifi always set to on (GPS drains nothing by just being on, Bluetooth is a pretty minimal consumer when not in use, Wifi is variable but I increased the time between Wifi polls, and turned off the Wifi network notifications).

Widgets are Pure Messenger on one screen, a calendar on another screen, a task list on a third screen, and a sports widget on my 4th screen.

I use my phone as I need it without concern for battery preservation, which means very few phone calls, some emails, the occasional text message, a lot of internet browsing (especially at night - I usually have at least an hour+ of solid browsing at night), reading Facebook/Twitter/whatever, and occasional light gaming (typically puzzle games).
 
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I can only get 4-5 hours from my Droid X - not using apps, maybe 1 or 2 phone calls - virtually no use...

I use advanced killer and all apps except widget locker, voice commands, emergency Alert, WR & Clock widget, and finally Advanced Task Killer.

Background sync off; bluetooth off; gps off; Wifi off; airplane mode off.

Any help would be appreciated... Thanks Dan

Today I found a new screen - Settings>Applications>Running Services... in here there are a boat-load of stuff running... the list is:

ExtDispService
SocialWidgetProvider
FeedReceiverService
Backup Assistance - AuthenticationService
NewsWidgetProvider
StatusWidgetProvider
NewsRetrievalService
GpsToggle$UpdateService
CacheService
QuickContractService
WeatherService
UpdateService
WeatherWidgetProvider
MessageWidgetProvider
DataManagerService
GTalkService
WidgetAidService
PhotoWidgetAppProvider
BlurPhotoDownloadService
SyncEngineService
ScheduleService
CalendarWidgetProvider
CalendarSyncAdapterService
UsbService
Power Profile Service
SyncService
Skype mobile
globalUnplugService
Swype
BatteryMonitor
ClockService
LockerService


think that comes to 26 background services. Which of these can I shut down? Will this
help my battery life?

What is running on your stock Droid X?

Dan
 
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When I first got my phone and 'trained' my battery, I could go 2-3 day without a charge unless I used it excessively, meaning hours of talking, lots of texting and e-mail and game playing. Since my phone got the upgrade to 2.2 my battery won't last through the day! If I send a text or check an e-mail it's done by 3pm. What gives???

When I check battery usage the display is usually around 80%, today I made a few phone calls and that is at 75% and display is at 7%.
 
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RE: SgtBaxter ... Thanks for the feedback. I seriously can't imagine having as positive an experience like you just described. Granted I have not specifically tried to shoot video (particularly for that long), but I have yet to witness my phone holding up as long and under a workload similar to your description.

I didn't mean to imply that I must charge every other hour. I generally do charge at night and the phone is ready for the next day; however, before the end of an 8hr work day, I may be hitting the "red" zone and receiving the "Charge phone" warning. Could be as low as 15% or less. Thus the need to have a charger -everywhere- as I don't know where I will be when it dies.

I agree w/ your assessment about service/location; however, this should not be a factor for me in my home city of Indy.

As for the inconvenience... perhaps I am the exception here, but I think it is just ridiculous that anyone should have to charge everyday, let alone more than once a day. I suppose I could be relatively happy if they would last at least a couple of days. This is what my former BlackBerry WE was capable of... This frequency of [re]charging ultimately causes you to purchase new batteries, perhaps prematurely. I understand LION are well ahead of NiCD and NiMH technologies, but they do wear out as well. I have had some phones whose battery lasted barely 1/2 of a 2 yr. contract. We pay top dollar in some cases for these devices and I just find this particular issue quite annoying. Not a hater... was just hoping for and expecting a better experience in this regard.
 
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FYI, Push actually reduces battery consumption. Contrary to popular belief, it is harder on your battery to have 6 email addresses polling every 30 minutes than it is to just let the servers push emails as they are available.

I get about a full day (that is, from the time I first get up in the morning until the time I get into bed at night) out of my battery, plus a bit - usually when I plug it in the battery is at 20%, sometimes 30%. This was almost exactly the same battery life that I used to get out of my 3GS, and I just think it's the reality of big-screened smartphones. My usage gets about a day.

I have two email addresses getting pushed, Google Voice getting pushed, the Pure Messenger widget polling Facebook and Twitter every 30 minutes, a sports widget polling every hour, the screen set on auto brightness, GPS, Bluetooth and Wifi always set to on (GPS drains nothing by just being on, Bluetooth is a pretty minimal consumer when not in use, Wifi is variable but I increased the time between Wifi polls, and turned off the Wifi network notifications).

Widgets are Pure Messenger on one screen, a calendar on another screen, a task list on a third screen, and a sports widget on my 4th screen.

I use my phone as I need it without concern for battery preservation, which means very few phone calls, some emails, the occasional text message, a lot of internet browsing (especially at night - I usually have at least an hour+ of solid browsing at night), reading Facebook/Twitter/whatever, and occasional light gaming (typically puzzle games).

Your usage sounds pretty typical of mine actually, although I don't utilize social networking on this device. Perhaps I am not paying close enough attention to how much I am actually in phone calls so I will monitor that more closely. I will also try the push settings and a few of the other suggestions made thus far and see where that gets me. Thanks for the suggestion(s).
 
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I can only get 4-5 hours from my Droid X - not using apps, maybe 1 or 2 phone calls - virtually no use...

I use advanced killer and all apps except widget locker, voice commands, emergency Alert, WR & Clock widget, and finally Advanced Task Killer.

Background sync off; bluetooth off; gps off; Wifi off; airplane mode off.

Any help would be appreciated... Thanks Dan

Dan

... And this is part of my point... you seem to have practically crippled your device by turning off so many features - which I have also resorted to doing; that completely defeats the purpose of this type of device! I am perplexed at such a broad difference in user experiences. At least I get more than 4-5 hours with phone calls and email/txt... You could have a bad cell in your batt.
 
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When I first got my phone and 'trained' my battery, I could go 2-3 day without a charge unless I used it excessively, meaning hours of talking, lots of texting and e-mail and game playing. Since my phone got the upgrade to 2.2 my battery won't last through the day! If I send a text or check an e-mail it's done by 3pm. What gives???

When I check battery usage the display is usually around 80%, today I made a few phone calls and that is at 75% and display is at 7%.

Just as I am doing myself, review your usage habits closely. I have my screen brightness on "Minimum" for as long as I am indoors. I don't have any issues with that but I must bump up to "Auto" or "Max" if outdoors and it's sunny. I generally just try to avoid using the device in direct sunlight so I don't have to crank up the screen. Does your screen sit on and "idle" or do you have it dark/sleeping when idle? These screens do use a lot of energy. And I thought Froyo was suppose to improve battery consumption...
 
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... And this is part of my point... you seem to have practically crippled your device by turning off so many features - which I have also resorted to doing; that completely defeats the purpose of this type of device!

I agree with that - I find many of the usual recommendations to be ridiculous. Why would I own a 4.3" touchscreen phone with permanent internet access and wireless capabilities only to shut off all of those features, turn my screen brightness down to nothing, and fret about my usage every minute?

Frankly, if I had even an inkling of that experience with the Droid X, I would have returned it already and gone back to my iPhone, or maybe tried another Android device.

As I said, I use my cellphones without anything other than the most basic consideration for battery preservation. The only thing I do to preserve battery is take care to turn the screen off when I'm not using it, and I try to exit apps that I believe have a high risk of consuming resources in the background (especially the web browser, I am always concerned that some webpage will be refreshing advertisement banners or something - though to be honest, I don't know if those fears have any foundation). Other than that, I use it every time I want to use it.
 
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SouthGirl - could you point me to the info of how to "train" my battery - this could be part of my problem. Dan

You do not have to train your battery.

A single full discharge/recharge cycle will calibrate your battery meter. There is no evidence as far as I know that anything other than an occasional discharge/recharge cycle to calibrate your battery meter is necessary.
 
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