Help Battery life and battery management

[Skullbussa]

Have there been any reports about battery life published for this phone yet?

Easily the Achilles heel of its predecessor, Sprint/HTC marketing needs to go into overdrive to help reassure people that this phone won't fail in the same way as the old phone did if they hope to lure many of us back.

Handicapping the phone by disabling features or bump charging is not an acceptable answer to the problem. I really hope the battery upsize and dual-core processor gives us a little more time.

I returned my Evo after 27 days of frustration. I was forced to go to the iPhone 4, the only viable alternative last summer, and consequently having to deal with AT&T's ridiculous data caps. I'm anxious to come back to Sprint but I'll not give up the completely hassle-free and adequate battery life I've enjoyed with the iPhone. For my use patterns (heavy texting, moderate web use, light phone use) I'd say the iPhone gives me at least 2x-3x as much juice as the Evo ever did, and that was with GPS/4G and all that other crap turned off.

 

[RiverOfIce]

You went to the iphone 4 for battery? LOL. I don't think you can be helped. The iphone 4 has the worst battery life of any leading market phone. We have about 6 iphone 4's in the office and they are the first to start complaining about battery, usually less then 5 hours.

If I used an iphone the same way I use my htc evo, it lasts about 4 hours. The htc evo, with task killer, I can get about 14-20 hours.

The current android phones double the iphone 4 battery, easily. If you want to go back to android and still worried about battery, get a charger and extra battery. It cost about 50 bucks and will take care of your battery problems.

I hammer on my phone, hammer, and never get below a 14 hours of battery life. Some times, over the weekend, I can get about 30-48 hours of battery.

All you really need to do is use a task killer wisely or root your phone.

 

[deltatko]

If you want to go back to android and still worried about battery, get a charger and extra battery. It cost about 50 bucks and will take care of your battery problems.

It's not even that much, I got 2 spares plus the charger for $15 off of amazon and I'm never worried about running out of juice.

 

[Skullbussa]

You went to the iphone 4 for battery? LOL. I don't think you can be helped. The iphone 4 has the worst battery life of any leading market phone. We have about 6 iphone 4's in the office and they are the first to start complaining about battery, usually less then 5 hours.

If I used an iphone the same way I use my htc evo, it lasts about 4 hours. The htc evo, with task killer, I can get about 14-20 hours.

The current android phones double the iphone 4 battery, easily. If you want to go back to android and still worried about battery, get a charger and extra battery. It cost about 50 bucks and will take care of your battery problems.

I hammer on my phone, hammer, and never get below a 14 hours of battery life. Some times, over the weekend, I can get about 30-48 hours of battery.

All you really need to do is use a task killer wisely or root your phone.

Without rooting, without disabling background data 4G/Wifi/etc....stock, straight out of the box? 14-20 hours of battery life? I don't think you'll find many people who share your kind of experience.

 

[Skullbussa]

It's not even that much, I got 2 spares plus the charger for $15 off of amazon and I'm never worried about running out of juice.

Do you think carrying extra batteries and an extra charger around with you is a good answer? I'm sorry, I do not.

I spend a good chunk of time in airports, on planes, at customer sites. I do not want to carry all that crap around with me. I want one phone, one battery, and I need it to last from 6am until 6pm without excuses.

Have software updates allowed the Evo 4G to do that? Because both of my brothers kept their Evo's and both tell me they have to constantly charge their phones at the office.

 

[Sketchr]

Do you think carrying extra batteries and an extra charger around with you is a good answer? I'm sorry, I do not.

I spend a good chunk of time in airports, on planes, at customer sites. I do not want to carry all that crap around with me. I want one phone, one battery, and I need it to last from 6am until 6pm without excuses.

Have software updates allowed the Evo 4G to do that? Because both of my brothers kept their Evo's and both tell me they have to constantly charge their phones at the office.

There is no smartphone on the market with all of the features of the current and future EVO that will last from 6am-6pm with heavy usage.

 

[Skullbussa]

There is no smartphone on the market with all of the features of the current and future EVO that will last from 6am-6pm with heavy usage.

Well, let's define heavy usage. This is my average daily usage in that time frame. Perhaps this is more "medium" usage than heavy?

~30 minutes of web browsing
~30 minute phone call
20 texts sent/20 texts received
40-50 minutes of internet radio streaming

Because I do this every day with my iPhone and when I get home @ 5:30pm I still usually have between 40-45% battery life remaining.

 

[drexappeal]

Without rooting, without disabling background data 4G/Wifi/etc....stock, straight out of the box? 14-20 hours of battery life? I don't think you'll find many people who share your kind of experience.

There may not be many, but I got that much battery life when I first got the phone. That was also prior to downloading certain apps that work in the background. I'm down to about 12 hours on average instead.

 

[novox77]

Have there been any reports about battery life published for this phone yet?

None yet.

Handicapping the phone by disabling features or bump charging is not an acceptable answer to the problem.

Agreed to the bump charging. Disabling features that you never plan to use much is fair game to me, and doesn't count as handicapping the phone.

I have a toggle to disable/enable 3G. At home and work, I have wifi, which is a battery sipper. 3G is a big drain for me (as it is with any other phone), so I toggle it off unless I need to check email or surf outside of the home or office. That alone improves battery life a TON. Because let's say your phone is poorly configured, and crap you don't need are still syncing... they can't sync if 3G is off. And on wifi, the sync happens with much greater power efficiency.

Stuff like facebook, friendstream widget, news and stocks, Gtalk app, etc are all enabled out of the box. I use none of them, so I turned them all off. I keep things signed off unless I need them.

Without root, my phone battery would drain about 1% an hour on standby after I disabled stuff I didn't want. No task killing. After rooting and some more configuration, I get 0.25% drain every hour on standby.

Battery life can be excellent on the Evo. You just need to do a little homework.

my use patterns (heavy texting, moderate web use, light phone use)

Texting doesn't use 3G or wifi, so you can disable both of those radios when you're primarily texting. Huge battery saver. For phone use, you're at the mercy of your signal strength, and this battery drain is pretty phone-independent. Poor reception will drain the battery of any phone. Moderate web surfing... turn on 3G when you need to surf; turn it off when you're done. Try to use wifi hotspots as much as possible.

Based on your usage pattern, most of your battery drain will come from radio use, not CPU. So with a little radio management, you can get awesome battery life. This is true for any phone.

 

[sikclown]

Well, let's define heavy usage. This is my average daily usage in that time frame. Perhaps this is more "medium" usage than heavy?

~30 minutes of web browsing
~30 minute phone call
20 texts sent/20 texts received
40-50 minutes of internet radio streaming

Because I do this every day with my iPhone and when I get home @ 5:30pm I still usually have between 40-45% battery life remaining.

I use about 2 hours of phone calls per day if not more, maybe 60-100 texts (total on send and receive), random web browsing, market downloads, google searches (maybe about an hour all told). Then after work random phone calls and texts. I unplug at 7:30 AM and I generally plug in around midnight with anywhere from 30%to 10% battery left depending. I keep GPS disabled and always on internet unchecked. Whenever I am at home or the office I am on WiFi. We have unofficial 4g here in downtown New Orleans and most days I will use about an hour of that at the gym watching a movie streamed from my house using PlayOn. Somedays I do eat through my battery like it is nothing and I would bet you could do the same with the iPhone 4 (which all my friends complain has terrible battery life and very few tweaks to make it any better) but for the most part my phone gives me enough juice to last as long as I do in a day (from waking up to sleeping). I am not rooted and do not use task killers (pointless for any 2.0 and above Androids regardless of what any proponents say).

 

[RiverOfIce]

I can get about 12-14 hours of "on" time with a fully charged battery with the htc evo. But it does not matter because you iphone 4 is harder on your battery then any phone on the market. So if you clearly did not select the phone for battery. Which means you should just stick with the iphone 4 and get the iphone 5 when it comes out. If you are happy with what you got, why change?

As for the rest of comments, yea you can easily get 12 hours of "on" time with one charge, you just need to make sure you do it right.

 

[jerofld]

I think the 3D stuff will kill the battery. If that's not in use and inactive, I think it'll last a good bit considering the 1750 mAh battery.

 

[cyaiphone]

Have there been any reports about battery life published for this phone yet?

Easily the Achilles heel of its predecessor, Sprint/HTC marketing needs to go into overdrive to help reassure people that this phone won't fail in the same way as the old phone did if they hope to lure many of us back.

Handicapping the phone by disabling features or bump charging is not an acceptable answer to the problem. I really hope the battery upsize and dual-core processor gives us a little more time.

I returned my Evo after 27 days of frustration. I was forced to go to the iPhone 4, the only viable alternative last summer, and consequently having to deal with AT&T's ridiculous data caps. I'm anxious to come back to Sprint but I'll not give up the completely hassle-free and adequate battery life I've enjoyed with the iPhone. For my use patterns (heavy texting, moderate web use, light phone use) I'd say the iPhone gives me at least 2x-3x as much juice as the Evo ever did, and that was with GPS/4G and all that other crap turned off.

sorry but i have to laugh at this. You left a whole phone and a carrier over a battery issue LMAO! Alot of use don't experience battery problems even without root. Some people just don't know how to manage their phones. It's like giving a teenager a ferrari and expectin him to obey all speed limits.

plus.......

Evo has interchangable batteries. You can buy chargers and batterries on ebay for $5. I've gotten two batteries and an external charger for $10 on ebay. I don't have the slightes problem with battery. There's no need to, I just swap out my battery if I need to. Android isn't dummied down so If you need a phone that will do nothing then stick to iphone.

 

[JCampbell]

Even if all else is tossed aside (the ability to turn off 3g/4g, wifi, gps, 3d, etc), I wouldn't say battery life will be a huge issue. I have two reasons for this.
1. The battery is huge. Just saying, you won't find a much larger stock battery anywhere.
2. It's not too much of a pain to plug in. Look at where you spend most of your time. For me, it's in class or at home. Regardless, I'm always pretty close to a wall outlet. You may think it's too much of a pain to carry around a charger, but don't kid yourself, because if you have a laptop, you probably plug in whenever possible. Yes, I would like this phone's battery to last longer than that of a laptop, but it DOES have some sick specs on the inside that'll suck the juice. I would have no problem keeping a charger with me all the time.

 

[themuffinman75]

Advances in battery technology has basically been at a stand still over the last several years while these phones are advancing faster than we can blink. I mean seriously the phones that are coming out now has more processing power as high end laptops from a few years ago all in a little device that easily fit in anyone's pocket. Personally as capable and flexible as these devices have become a solid 12hrs is acceptable IMO.

Now as far as the evo 3d, I would definitely expect it to have better battery life than the evo for the most part, if its the same then that fine as well.

 

[deltatko]

Another thing, if you leave 4G on it's going to get significantly less time out of your charge, it chews through it pretty good, but I still can last 5 or 6 hrs with pretty good usage in a strong signal area with it on.

Turn off the 4G, and I can go from 6:30 am to 10 pm and end up with around 10-15% battery left.

And I always have that extra battery in my pocket, which I can't even tell is there, just in case, but I very very rarely ever need it, maybe once every couple weeks.

 

[cyaiphone]

Another thing, if you leave 4G on it's going to get significantly less time out of your charge, it chews through it pretty good, but I still can last 5 or 6 hrs with pretty good usage in a strong signal area with it on.

Turn off the 4G, and I can go from 6:30 am to 10 pm and end up with around 10-15% battery left.

And I always have that extra battery in my pocket, which I can't even tell is there, just in case, but I very very rarely ever need it, maybe once every couple weeks.

the user said he's always at airports. Ok don't you think he'd have a bag he can carry a charger or a battery in? You would think so right? I think he's just finding something to bitch about. Battery problems on an evo are easily fixed by adjusting your settings or carrying an extra battery/charger. Unlike the iphone YOU MUST HAVE A CHARGER ON YOU AT ALL TIMES BECAUSE CHANGING A BATTERY IS NOT AN OPTION. The iphone 3gs/4 battery is crap and it doesn't do half the things and Android does.

 

[novox77]

the user said he's always at airports. Ok don't you think he'd have a bag he can carry a charger or a battery in? You would think so right? I think he's just finding something to bitch about. Battery problems on an evo are easily fixed by adjusting your settings or carrying an extra battery/charger. Unlike the iphone YOU MUST HAVE A CHARGER ON YOU AT ALL TIMES BECAUSE CHANGING A BATTERY IS NOT AN OPTION. The iphone 3gs/4 battery is crap and it doesn't do half the things and Android does.

Can we soften the tone a bit? No need to attack the OP for announcing his preferences.

 

[themuffinman75]

the user said he's always at airports. Ok don't you think he'd have a bag he can carry a charger or a battery in? You would think so right? I think he's just finding something to bitch about. Battery problems on an evo are easily fixed by adjusting your settings or carrying an extra battery/charger. Unlike the iphone YOU MUST HAVE A CHARGER ON YOU AT ALL TIMES BECAUSE CHANGING A BATTERY IS NOT AN OPTION. The iphone 3gs/4 battery is crap and it doesn't do half the things and Android does.

A little harsh don't you think? Anyway as for me, I travel about 50,000 miles a year so I am traveling some where at least twice a month and I always travel with my energizer 8000 mah usb charger and being that I do have a bag with me walking with it isn't to much of a hassle. But once I am out in the field, I don't want to be trying to charge my phone or wasting time trying to change batteries etc....

 

[Skullbussa]

I can get about 12-14 hours of "on" time with a fully charged battery with the htc evo. But it does not matter because you iphone 4 is harder on your battery then any phone on the market. So if you clearly did not select the phone for battery. Which means you should just stick with the iphone 4 and get the iphone 5 when it comes out. If you are happy with what you got, why change?

As for the rest of comments, yea you can easily get 12 hours of "on" time with one charge, you just need to make sure you do it right.

Without using the phone *at all*, my Evo would be at around 80% by lunchtime. This is with GPS/WiFi enabled but 4G disabled. Stock phone, no task-killers, no modifications to default settings.

I haven't used my iPhone today for anything other than send 4 text messages. I'm at 94% battery life and it's 4pm.

I simply cannot conceive how one could possibly compare the battery management. It's night and day difference. But if you all are having this much good luck with rooted Evos, maybe I should look into going that route if I get the Evo 3D.

 

[novox77]

I simply cannot conceive how one could possibly compare the battery management. It's night and day difference. But if you all are having this much good luck with rooted Evos, maybe I should look into going that route if I get the Evo 3D.

Just keep in mind that by definition, rooting means more hands-on maintenance of your phone. It's like the manual transmission vs auto-transmission analogy. If the appeal of iPhone's "let us take care of everything for you" approach suits you, I can't honestly recommend taking the root method.

For hardcore Android users, rooting is extremely liberating because we can now tweak stuff at a really low level. One of the mods around here (EarlyMon) always stresses TANSTAAFL: there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Everything that the phone does requires power. A battery sipping phone is a phone not doing much. It's as simple as that. Because Android gives you so much freedom and doesn't assume anything about the user's ability, it's very easy to misconfigure the phone to be a total power hog. The teen with a Ferrari analogy mentioned above is a valid one... except I don't think you can hypermile a Ferarri like you can with the Evo

 

[Skullbussa]

sorry but i have to laugh at this. You left a whole phone and a carrier over a battery issue LMAO! Alot of use don't experience battery problems even without root. Some people just don't know how to manage their phones. It's like giving a teenager a ferrari and expectin him to obey all speed limits.

plus.......

Evo has interchangable batteries. You can buy chargers and batterries on ebay for $5. I've gotten two batteries and an external charger for $10 on ebay. I don't have the slightes problem with battery. There's no need to, I just swap out my battery if I need to. Android isn't dummied down so If you need a phone that will do nothing then stick to iphone.

I'm not a Mac person, I don't like Apple products because I don't like to be "controlled". I'm a hardcore PC person, I am about performance over gloss.

My battery issue was such that I'd wake up, get in my car, go work and before I know it, my battery was 20-30% less without me even using it. Now I know at least 4 people with this phone and I am not alone in this criticism. (It doesn't mean it's not a great phone)

I'm not here to argue about the merits of the phone, I'm simply saying that I am someone who is constantly on the go and I really don't think carrying around extra batteries and hassling with chargers all the time is a realistic solution for people like me. I need a rugged, dependable tool that will *get the job done* and not require babying.

 

[Skullbussa]

Just keep in mind that by definition, rooting means more hands-on maintenance of your phone. It's like the manual transmission vs auto-transmission analogy. If the appeal of iPhone's "let us take care of everything for you" approach suits you, I can't honestly recommend taking the root method.

For hardcore Android users, rooting is extremely liberating because we can now tweak stuff at a really low level. One of the mods around here (EarlyMon) always stresses TANSTAAFL: there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Everything that the phone does requires power. A battery sipping phone is a phone not doing much. It's as simple as that. Because Android gives you so much freedom and doesn't assume anything about the user's ability, it's very easy to misconfigure the phone to be a total power hog. The teen with a Ferrari analogy mentioned above is a valid one... except I don't think you can hypermile a Ferarri like you can with the Evo

This is great advice. If/When I get an Evo 3D, I look forward to rooting it so I can get some extra life out of that battery.

I'd like to stay connected with either WiFi or 3G, but I definitely don't need immediate and constant Facebook updates through that App.

 

[themuffinman75]

Without using the phone *at all*, my Evo would be at around 80% by lunchtime. This is with GPS/WiFi enabled but 4G disabled. Stock phone, no task-killers, no modifications to default settings.

I haven't used my iPhone today for anything other than send 4 text messages. I'm at 94% battery life and it's 4pm.

I simply cannot conceive how one could possibly compare the battery management. It's night and day difference. But if you all are having this much good luck with rooted Evos, maybe I should look into going that route if I get the Evo 3D.

There are so many factors in determining battery life so really and truly results can very by quite a bit. Most of my immediate family have iphones and it seems like my oldest brother phone will last all day with no issues but at the same time my sisters wont last half the day no matter what she is doing. Me personally my phone is rooted with a custom kernel and with moderate use(150 texts/mms, 10 emails, 1.5hrs in calls, 30minutes web browsing) I can easily get 12 hours and still have 30% left. I do use a task killer but I actually set to ignore just about everything except a few specific apps. On the other hand my girlfriend also has an evo but its fully stock with no task killer at all and using her phone in a similar way she gets similar results as I do. So like I said there are way to many factors.

 

[novox77]

If you end up getting the Evo 3D, just hang out around these forums. A lot of us will be around to help you get the phone working nicely. I didn't mean to imply that battery life is a ongoing process lasting the entire lifetime of the phone.... actually, once you get it configured to your needs, rooted or not, you're all set. No more tweaking necessary. We all reach a steady-state... except for the hardcore people who want to try every ROM possible..