some help for better battery life inside..

[K33VRN DHD]

ok so we all know the battery isnt great on the HD...what can you expect from a smartphone with such a huge display with so much going on inside...

i have had my handset for a week now, and the first 2 days i will admit the handset was TERRIBLE for battery. it lasted from 9am untill 7pm when it went dead.
It also on the second day was being really laggy after installing a couple apps..these being...

-angry birds (what a suprise)
-ebay
-shazam

the lag was nasty and that bad it was making me regret purchasing along with the battery. BUT this laggyness caused me to go as far as a factory re-set and POW...the handset was back to how it was when i first got it out of the box, nice and fast and doing what i told it too.

the battery only gets better! so give it a chance, its strange how it just gets better and better.

upon doing the factory reset the batterylife doubled! its now 7pm and i
still have over half the battery life left...it would be near dead by now.

a few things i have found to help the battery life....

-system re-store (found to help alot!)
-screen is set to 38%
-i dont have all pages carrying widgets, infact im struggling to find any more than 2 that i would find useful enough to contemplate using the battery for.
-de-bugging on (in testing)
-power saver set at 30%
-first week let the battery hit red then charge untill full only.

DO NOT install killer app. its fine for anything prior 2.2 android, but its found that killing the apps and re-opening all the time will use alot more than just letting them run in the background.

im trying to find what uses the battery the most, but it seems to be widgets on the main pages that do it..so if you dont need it...dont use on a main page!

lastly, no smartphone will last more than 24 hours with normal use. all will need charging at least every night for full capabilities the following day.

so have fun, use, abuse, get some insurace...lol and enjoy what i believe to be the best handset out on the market! iphone probs on par though lol. nothing to diss on that other than the sig probs and over pricing.

any other tips then add them below! let me know if any of my tips have helped!

thanks

 

[K33VRN DHD]

NOTE: with all this my battery has changed from 10 hours like too being on from 9am to just changing to the red at 3pm the following day! thats a significant change. and one thats made me love the handset again!

 

[RED_]

One thing to note since you mentioned it, DO NOT install a task killer app, they are completely pointless with android 2.2, i've seen a lot of people mention that they it installed. They do nothing with Froyo. The OS just restarts the app as soon as you kill the app. Froyo has an inbuilt task killer and will close apps by itself when not in use as other things are opened. I don't use one and i use a lot of apps and when i use what my battery is being used up by only the last app i used is open, the rest have all been killed by the OS.

 

[sonesh]

I never though about the widgets, but you make a good point. I've removed my favourites widget, messages widget and friend stream, because even though I kept meaning to use them, I have icons for each app anyway and always use the app instead of the widget.

Kept the Clock with weather and the calculator though, and the power widget.

Will update to see how the battery improves tomorrow

 

[sonesh]

No improvement sadly.

no smartphone will last more than 24 hours with normal use. all will need charging at least every night for full capabilities the following day.

This whole battery topic didn't bother me too much at first, but it is getting increasingly frustrating that some people are getting 24-48 hours out of the phone by doing things I've already tried.

Everyday, my phone comes off charge at 8am, and is dead at midnight. Not normally a problem...

...HOWEVER, I went out last weekend, and had to make so many arrangements to ensure my phone battery didn't die part way through our night out, and that I would have battery for the trip home the following day (AC charging wasn't an option).

No phone should be expected to only last 24 hours (if you're one of the lucky ones to get 24 hours) with normal use.

I've never been, but how would you cope on a camping trip. Or maybe an international flight (where you have to leave the house a few hours early to get to the airport, arrive 3 hours before checkin, then sit on the plane for 10 hours, and then make your way through luggage claim, then to your hotel, etc...), or maybe you just left your charger at work one day

 

[strachs123]

i'm thinking about doing a system reset to see if this will help with my battery life.. do you know if i can just install my paid for apps and will my music downloaded from amazon store still be available to download again... =/ thanks

 

[Xannetic]

i'm thinking about doing a system reset to see if this will help with my battery life.. do you know if i can just install my paid for apps and will my music downloaded from amazon store still be available to download again... =/ thanks

would be advisable to move all downloaded appz, especially paid ones to SD card before system restore

 

[Yukimori]

would be advisable to move all downloaded appz, especially paid ones to SD card before system restore

all downloaded appz on SD are erased as well

 

[sonesh]

As long as you sign into the Market with the same google account, they should still be available (not sure where though). Can't speak for Amazon, but it may be a 30 day thing at worst, if its not forever

 

[shiny_winey]

Must try some of this. Left my DHD on charge last night and it was dead at 16.00. No phone calls, maybe 5 minutes 3G browsing, about 5 SMS. Wifi off, autosync settings on, only syncing weather and friend stream once a day, mail more often. Calendar sync off.

It usually lasts about 12 hours with much heavier use - why only 8 hours today when I've actually turned stuff down :-o?

 

[K33VRN DHD]

all downloaded appz on SD are erased as well

i didnt when i dont it...it only erases phone bits, all my pics, music, apps, where still there are restoring.

 

[Pothers]

As long as you sign into the Market with the same google account, they should still be available (not sure where though).

I did a full reset a few of weeks ago and once set up with my google account all my apps automatically downloaded

 

[sonesh]

I couldn't work out why my battery would drain so much quicker on weekdays compared to weekends. Was is because my girlfriend sends me 50 texts an hour when I'm work, or maybe I can't help but keep picking up the phone because I'm so bored?

Turns out it was neither (well, both happen, but aren't the cause). My desk seems to be located right between good 2g signal and terrible 3g signal, and the phone spends the entire day flickering between both.

I turned off 3g (GSM mode only) and the following evening when I expected the battery to be completely dead, I had 46% of the battery remaining.

Yes it means my mobile internet will be very slow but I'm telling myself that either I won't use the internet anyway, or Wireless will be available whenever I want it. At the moment, I'd rather have a battery that lasts an entire day.

Not sure what using Google Maps will be like yet

 

[ArthurIhde]

I just removed most downloaded apps

 

[slynn]

Initially my battery would not even last me 6 hours, I'd leave the house for work with 100% charge and it'd die on me by lunch time. My friend uses the same phone and we swapped batteries for a few days to determine whether if it was my phone or battery that was faulty, since hers lasted her a day and a half.

However my phone still goes flat and turns out my phone doesn't sleep (Android system/OS takes up 70-80%); when I wake up and check the Awake time under Battery use it's clocking at 17+ hours and after much research and trial & error, I had to remove a few third party apps (Astrid to do list app was a major culprit) as they actually never stopped running despite me killing/force stopping the apps hence the major battery drain overnight as my phone could not 'sleep'. Some apps restart themselves even after force stopping them. I had the Advanced Task Killer but was pretty useless and uninstalling it actually helped.

Also turned off most functions unless needed (wifi, gps, bluetooth, auto-sync, emails sync once a day), enabled usb debugging, display is actually on 10% most of the time (the Power Control widget lets me turn it up when I need it) and now the highest Battery use function is the display, which is not alarming and my battery lasts about a day and a half now with normal usage (calls, texts, surfing, emails). Also switched off eBay notifications.

Not sure if calibrating the battery contributed to all of this but I attempted it before I moved on to removing apps.

Pretty happy with the phone now

 

[Biker Bob]

Hi all, one more question, does a factory reset erase contacts?
Bob

 

[K33VRN DHD]

yes but save them to sim...will be fine.

 

[Lymbo]

I would love to try a full factory reset, but my homescreens took quite a while to set up to my liking. Without going into detail, it's not easy for me to set it all up again.
Is there any kind of backup system that will save all my settings to set the phone back to the way i currently have it?
I never thought i would be saying this, but my old Nokia N97 had this function, and it was very useful! (but mainly cos i had to reset it so often! )

 

[Biker Bob]

K33VRN DHD, thanks for the info dude.
Couldn't find the thank-you thing.
Bob


Now I found it

 

[sonesh]

I'm just going to say this again because it has made a HUGE difference for me.

Turn off 3g.

Battery with 3g = 16 hours
Battery with 2g only = 36 hours

 

[jtwonk]

I emailed HTC complaining of the poor battery. Below is their response

We have investigated your issue and have come up with a few suggestions:

If you type into your keypad :*#*#4636#*#* this will tell you what applications are using you battery life.

To help improve the battery life of your android handset, you can try the following:

Turn of Auto-sync

This will stop applications from automatically synching their data in the background, even when they are not being used. This can not only use a lot of data depending on the application, but also uses the internet which can use power.

If you do not want to disable auto sync completely, lower the frequency of connections in any application that automatically updates, such as:

Facebook
Email
Twitter
Stocks sync
Weather
Facebook for htc sense
Any third party applications installed which access the internet



Turn services off when you are not using them

From the Home screen, press Menu.
Tap Add to Home.
Tap Widget.
Tap Settings.
Tap Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS or Mobile Network.

With these switches on the home screen, you can disable and enable the services quickly and easily.


Turn the screen brightness down and use a shorter screen timeout setting

From the Home screen
Tap on brightness.
Un tick automatic and turn the brightness down. around 35% seems a good Balance for most occasions apart from direct sunlight
Then tap on screen timeout and set it to a lower time, 15 to 30 seconds is quite a good compromise




While Live wallpapers are nice and look good, they do need many continue running and drawing in the background, even when the Home screen is not displayed. This is a waste of power as the processor is continually running to generate the wallpaper. Use a static wallpaper, or one that stops when Home screen is not displayed.

 

[sonesh]

Relating to Wireless, I found a hidden menu which turns the Wifi off automatically after 15 minutes of inactivity, then turns on again when you turn the phone on again.

Settings -> Wireless & Networks -> Wi-Fi Settings -> Press Menu -> Advanced -> Wi-Fi sleep policy

 

[RooDee]

Hi all...i bought my Desire HD last saturday (12/18). The first impression about the battery is so sad. I fully charged it in the morning and the red light is appeared around 4pm (almost 8 hours).

I stumble to this forum and did the hard reset suggested by k33vrn dhd. Finally, i love this phone again. I fully charged to 100% this morning and as for now, the battery is still at 50%! what i did to my DHD is:

1. Hard reset the phone.
2. Set the brightness to 13%.
3. I manually sync every 2 hours for all my account (Gmail, twitter, Facebook, foursquare etc.)
4. I installed 2G-3G On-Off widget from Market. All the time i set my network to 2G. I only connect to WiFi when available. 3G is the last resort.
5. I also install Battery Widget to monitor my battery and Quick Settings app for fast setting of power related.

As for widgets on my home screen, I put:
1. Power Control widget
2. Weather+clock widget
3. Twitter n FB widget
4. Sync all widget
5. Camera shortcut
6. 2G-3G widget
7. Quick Setting shortcut

I hope this will help.

 

[gabbyevs]

my battery life seems to be a bit better now after 2 months of use i have

wifi-off
3g-off
all sync off

brightness-auto off

practically everything off when not in use seems to be the only thing that makes it last longer than a day

messaging seems to use up more than anything else some days i will do 50 texts some days i only do about ten

not really happy with battery life but i guess the phone has alot to do so cant complain too much if i do use it

 

[RussWWFC]

Does 3G make a huge difference or a small one. I'd rather have it on all the time TBH unless I can get it to switch on automatically when I open an internet or radio app