Help How long does your Ally battery last?

[jinwons]

Maybe this was talked about long while ago. But it doesn't look like a common complain here, which is good.

I use my Ally mainly as phone/email device and do just about 10 mins of browsing web a day. Under this kind of usage, battery level goes to about 50% after 12hrs from unplugging the charger. With some more browsing, it can get down to 33% easily in 12 hours. I guess it will be dead by 18 hours this way. I wonder how you guys batteries are doing compared to mine. I wish it lasts a bit longer than this.

 

[blay]

Search forums or google for 50% bug... Ally is notorious for battery issues.

 

[flyinjoe13]

My battery typically lasts me 2-3 days depending on how often I have to use the GPS and Navigation app.

 

[jinwons]

Yeah, I read about that bug too. So I tried putting it into airplane mode and rebooting couple of times. But I don't see much difference, maybe slightly better... I wonder if that high cell standby percentage is just display error or not, because I am normally in good cell signal reception area.

 

[jinwons]

My battery typically lasts me 2-3 days depending on how often I have to use the GPS and Navigation app.

That's incredibly long life for any smartphone! How do you use it other than navigation? Do you have any special settings on it?

 

[flyinjoe13]

I have to admit that I don't live on it so-to-speak. I use it mainly for phone calls, some light texting and web browsing throughout the day, the occasional game of solitaire at night to kill time and the Navigation app to get me to customer's houses (but not all the time or every day).

The only special settings I use are to turn the screen brightness down to minimum. No haptic feedback. I have autosync off because I don't use gmail, facebook, twitter, etc. I keep GPS and wifi off until I actually need them. I turn my phone off at night. And lastly, when I turn it on in the morning, the first thing I do is throw it into airplane mode while I shower and turn it back off when i'm done. That eliminates the 50% bug problem for the rest of the day.

 

[jinwons]

Wow, you are doing almost everything conceivable to save batter life. I didn't go that far as I feel like that defeats the purpose of smartphone. But I set brightness to 10%, keep GPS off when not in use, removed the weather, youtube widgets from screen. Removing the weather, youtube widgets from screen brought noticeable increase in battery life, about 25% more.

Also I keep the auto-sync on for emails, facebook and WiFi too. I tried putting WiFi off, but didn't notice much difference. Then I realized that WiFi is set to sleep when the screen turns off. So maybe that's why WiFi doesn't impact battery life much.

So I did some setting tweaks to save battery while preserving the most of smart-phone features. But even with all this and quite moderate usage, my Ally drains about 50% of power in 12 hours. I wish it goes a little longer than this. I wonder if anyone tried AutoKiller memory optimizer app and if it really helps.

 

[Gride250]

I have the overclocked rom on my ALLY. I leave it at overclocked to 787mhz and then i underclock it to 280mhz at screen off. I am a heavy texter and use my phone a TON! I easily get through the whole day and night. when i plug it in to charge for the night (around 1am or 2am) i have about 20% left or so.

 

[flyinjoe13]

Wow, you are doing almost everything conceivable to save batter life. I didn't go that far as I feel like that defeats the purpose of smartphone.

Not sure why you feel doing what I do defeats the purpose of a smartphone. I still use plenty of the features and apps that regular phones don't have. About the only thing I don't do is gmail, facebook, twitter. but I don't do those things on my PC either. Twitter and facebook are a giant wastes of time, IMO and the only reason I have a gmail account is I needed one for this phone. But I still use the GPS and Wifi features, but not all the time so why leave them on. I set the brightness down because inside the screen is plenty bright enough so why waste battery life by making it brighter.

 

[jinwons]

Not sure why you feel doing what I do defeats the purpose of a smartphone. I still use plenty of the features and apps that regular phones don't have. About the only thing I don't do is gmail, facebook, twitter. but I don't do those things on my PC either. Twitter and facebook are a giant wastes of time, IMO and the only reason I have a gmail account is I needed one for this phone. But I still use the GPS and Wifi features, but not all the time so why leave them on. I set the brightness down because inside the screen is plenty bright enough so why waste battery life by making it brighter.

I didn't mean to offend you. If that way fits to your use of smartphone, that's fine. I'm not that heavy user either, but I need to check emails, facebook messages often so I don't want to turn off auto-sync.

But I'm surprised that you also turn off your Ally during night time. Then you must be rebooting the phone every morning. I wonder when you take time to recharge it then. I would rather recharge it overnight even if it has some battery juice left in it.

 

[flyinjoe13]

I recharge it when it gets below 10%. Since my battery lasts me a long time, I'm never too concerned about running out during the day.

 

[gutted]

I'm not sure if you meant to beat the deadhorse or if it was by accident... but it's pretty well agreed upon that your battery life will vary greatly with how you use your phone.

I've had it last over 2 days on a charge when in that time frame I check a few emails and send a few texts. Other days when I'm texting a lot or doing other stuff, it will last me 12 hours. It all depends.

I keep the auto sync on and that's it. Wifi and GPS only when I need it. I never use Bluetooth. I keep the screen dim except when I'll be outside. I use a task killer upon start up, but not during the course of the day.

 

[jinwons]

I wonder if keeping WiFi off really helps. My Ally was set to let WiFi sleep when screen is off, but don't know if that's factory default or not. I didn't measure it accurately, but couldn't see much difference.

Also did anyone try AutoKiller memory optimizer app? That one requires rooting to fully use its features. I shortly tried it yesterday. But it keeps annoying me with popup window saying you need rooting to use all its features, and it didn't allow me to change preset memory setting. So I removed it after only couple of hours of messing with.

 

[bjones6416]

My battery life has definitely gotten better over time. I started out using a task killer, but found it was making me obsess over my battery so I removed it.

I do use Juice Defender, the free version, and just leave it set to the defaults. I usually leave gps off unless I need it. I sometimes leave the bluetooth off unless I'm doing a lot of driving that day. Then I'll just leave it on all day.

And finally, I downloaded my favorite app, Lightning Bug, so I would have pleasant sounds to go to sleep by at night. It also serves as my alarm clock, so I usually just plug it in at night anyway -- it's propped in a little wire rack beside my bed so I can see it. There is no problem at all having enough battery life to get through each day, and since I'm charging at night anyway I just don't sweat it.

 

[flyinjoe13]

To give some idea of how well my battery lasts, I took the phone off the charger this morning at 7:30am so it had a 100% charge. I would say today was a somewhat typical usage day for me, maybe a little less than normal. I made and received a lot of phone calls from customers which happens everyday. Texting was lighter than normal. I guess my friends didn't have as much stupid stuff to send me like normal so I was below average on texting. I used the internet more than usual because I was checking this forum often waiting for a couple of replies from some PM's I sent. I didn't have to use the GPS today because I knew where every customer lived. I did do one ROM backup before I downloaded a few market apps and then moved them from internal storage space to the /system/app folder via terminal. Lastly, I played a few games of solitaire before finally shutting the phone off just before posting this at 9:15pm. That means the phone was on for just under 14 hours.

When I shut it off, I checked my battery percentage and had 75% battery life left. So I lost 25% in about 14 hours, which is close to typical. Usually I lose closer to 30% on a normal day. Don't know why I get such great battery life and I always wonder how much other people are using their phone when they talk about the charge not lasting a whole day. How I can only lose 25% in 14 hours and someone else lose an entire 100% in roughly the same time frame goes beyond my comprehension, but i'm just glad I don't have that problem. I'd be pretty frustrated as well if I did.

 

[jinwons]

You are having really good batter life with your Ally. That's very impressive for smart-phone. Your daily usage seems similar to mine or a little more. Normally I need to worry a little about battery after 4pm and try not to use the phone too much, especially web browsing. And I don't use any live wall paper, weather updating widgets and things like that. I should give a try to turning off WiFi, auto-sync to see if I can get close to your result.

 

[flyinjoe13]

Yeah, I avoid the live wallpapers as well (in fact I removed them all together after rooting the phone), but i've read they really have no impact on battery. Still though, I don't like them so I don't use them and it has nothing to do with saving battery. I do use FancyWidgets for a clock\weather widget, but it only updates every two hours. I really don't even need it because I can look out my window and see what the weather is doing, but I have to admit that I like the way my phone looks with it on. It's a rip off of HTC's Sense clock\weather widget.

With regards to auto-sync, if you don't want to turn it off, try increasing the amount of time before it checks for updates. That might help.

 

[jinwons]

With regards to auto-sync, if you don't want to turn it off, try increasing the amount of time before it checks for updates. That might help.

I would do so if possible. But both gmail and exchange email is push type email. So there is no setting for refresh interval. Only option for them is to turn sync off completely. Facebook allows setting for refresh interval though. So I set it to one hour.

 

[DoctorZaius68]

I don't get a good 3G sinal in my home, so I drop down to 1x and get a signal. This really seems to help (especially on weekends) with my battery life. I use Wifi at home so browsing is not a problem.

 

[bjones6416]

My phone has been off the charger now for about 16 1/2 hours. I've got 64% battery left. I've talked on the phone a fair amount today, both direct and with bluetooth. (Bluetooth has been on all day.) I browsed for a while, checked e-mail several times, and texted quite a bit. I also used Google Sky Map outside tonight, and took notes on and off all day with ColorNotes. I really do think my battery life has improved over what I experienced the first few weeks.

 

[arcticXpanda]

i downloaded the paid version of juice defender and surprisingly it actually works. its easily over doubled my battery life. now i get through a day and still have about 60-70 percent left on the battery with texting on and off all day, moderate phone calls and browsing the web occasionally

 

[jinwons]

i downloaded the paid version of juice defender and surprisingly it actually works. its easily over doubled my battery life. now i get through a day and still have about 60-70 percent left on the battery with texting on and off all day, moderate phone calls and browsing the web occasionally

That's nice to hear. Doesn't it cause any issues with push email, SNS programs syncing automatically or receiving phone call, voice message? I read such complains on the other forums.

 

[Vmanisme]

I can't even get 9 hours on medium use out of my phone so for those of you getting 12 hours with browsing and stuff you guys are simply lucky

 

[arcticXpanda]

That's nice to hear. Doesn't it cause any issues with push email, SNS programs syncing automatically or receiving phone call, voice message? I read such complains on the other forums.

Not for me. I have it set where it keeps data on for 2 mins out of every 30, its automatically on once i unlock the phone and prefers wifi.
You can set program exceptions, and i have my gmail, phone and messaging set as exceptions just in case. I havent had a problem yet tho

 

[jinwons]

I can't even get 9 hours on medium use out of my phone so for those of you getting 12 hours with browsing and stuff you guys are simply lucky

I don't think I'm simply lucky as I see plenty of folks getting more than 12 hours out of Ally easily. It's more like normal than lucky. Usually I still have 50~60% of battery after 12 hours of low to medium usage without using any battery saving app.

There must be something wrong if you can't get over 9 hours on medium usage. It could be either defective battery or settings, apps that allow too much wireless data access than necessary. Also how much do you use it? Medium usage can vary greatly between persons.