Root Rooted ROMs and battery life?

[-=Jeff=-]

How much or how little do these rooted roms affect battery life? I am moving from an Eris to Droid and I like the pinch-zoom feature of the Eris and I know there are some Rooted mods for this feature. just curious if my battery life would get alot worse then Stock.

now I honestly don't know if I would OC the Droid, I need to use it for a week or 2 first before I decide if I want to Root it.

 

[vincentp]

The ROMs themselves don't really affect battery life, you may even see improvements. Overclocking, however, can affect it. At 1100mHz my battery life is 30-50% shorter than it was at 800mHz. 800 was about the same, if not better than stock for some reason.

 

[-=Jeff=-]

The ROMs themselves don't really affect battery life, you may even see improvements. Overclocking, however, can affect it. At 1100mHz my battery life is 30-50% shorter than it was at 800mHz. 800 was about the same, if not better than stock for some reason.

Cool. I was looking at the bugless beast set-up I like the improvements done,, but would start out at Stock speed first

 

[stevonyc34]

rooting is definitely the way to go! OC'ed to 1.2 Ghz but everything just runs soo smoothly. i have chargers everywhere so i don't have to worry about my battery dying out on me.

 

[-=Jeff=-]

So how do you pick which ROM to use?

 

[Needsdecaf]

So how do you pick which ROM to use?

User comments, trial and error.

 

[-=Jeff=-]

User comments, trial and error.

ah I figured as much

so do you suggest I run it OEM for a bit or just root when I get it?

 

[vincentp]

I suggest you run it OEM for a while. After you're used to the phone, then you can try rooting. If you root right away, you won't know what you were missing because you really won't see any of the benefits you got from upgrading to a custom ROM.

As far as choosing a ROM, you can't go wrong with Pete's Bugless Beast 1.X versions (the 2.0.1 based mods) or the Droidmod ROM. Others are available as well, but the two big ones are probably the best to start with. You can experiment with others afterwards if you would like. It's personal preference.

 

[-=Jeff=-]

Yeah I figured run it stock for a bit first. I think I will miss the pinch zoom though, that just seems natural to me

 

[vincentp]

Yeah I figured run it stock for a bit first. I think I will miss the pinch zoom though, that just seems natural to me

If you want pinch zoom in the meantime, download Dolphin Browser from the market. It's free and it's very good.

 

[-=Jeff=-]

If you want pinch zoom in the meantime, download Dolphin Browser from the market. It's free and it's very good.

Oh yeah forgot about that.. I will check it out.. Phone will be here tomorrow!!

Woohoo

 

[meekrab]

In addition to Dolphin, the current revisions of google maps and google earth include pinch zoom (earth is really cool, you can rotate and zoom with multitouch). Obviously, these work on the Eris too, but I think it's good to point out that they will work on the droid.

To expand a little on the battery life question, the key to battery life while overclocking is an app called SetCPU (not sure if you've heard of this yet or not). SetCPU is what allows you to set the clock speed and, perhaps more importantly with respect to battery life, enables throttling of the CPU when not in use. So, even at the stock speed of 550 mhz, with a ROM and SetCPU, you can drop the minimum speed down to 250 mhz. This is probably what accounts for improved battery life.

The stock battery life is really quite good, but you will likely see an improvement when you install a ROM, especially if you top the CPU out at 550.

 

[YankeeDudeL]

When I first OCed, there was a dramatic decrease in battery life. Mostly, b/c I couldn't put the phone down, it was so amazingly quick. But now that I'm back to normal and have SetCPU to underclock my Droid when in sleep mode, I actually get better battery life. Going all day isn't an issue.

 

[johnlgalt]

+1 - SetCPU is the OCers best friend.

 

[-=Jeff=-]

Cool. now my only concern, when I get the Phone and use it for a bit, I guess I need to watch for the possible 2.1 OTA, if that happens I should make a decision before allowing the OTA in case I cannot root after correct?

 

[johnlgalt]

To use almost all of the custom ROMs, you need SPRecovery 0.99.2b - and, from what I have learned in this forum, that blocks the OTA update by default (IIRC).

If you get the OTA update before you change out to a custom ROM / root your phone, then yes, you'll need to wait - if you let it update, then you'll lost (at least temporarily) the ability to root and install custom ROMs, as the 2.1 is supposed to close the security hole that was exploited to get root access that is present in 2.0.x.

I say temporarily, b/c eventually the devs should be able to figure out an alternative method to obtain root access and thus allow us to use custom ROMs again - but it may take a while.

 

[-=Jeff=-]

Okay. More I look at the BB 1.1 the more I like it. Since I am coming from an ERIS using Sense, I know I get less of somethings and more of others in OEM form.

So my question is, if i go to a BB ROM (1.1) what (if any) functions do I lose from OEM (other then OTA updates)

Also I have seen the BB screen shots Pete has, there any others elsewhere?

 

[alnova1]

Im running Rom 2.1 Bugless Beast V0.3 and my battery life if MUCH WORSE than any rom I have run so far. I even stopped using Live wallpapers and backed down to 800mhz from 1000 and still not great. I let the house at 6 am and got back at 1 pm and used my phone once and I was down to 60%.

 

[emdmao]

I use DroidMod 1.0 at 1.2 with live wallpapers and after roughly 15 hours off the charger and I get home it is around 20%. I am not on too many phone calls but I text a lot and browse the web for at least 40 mins a day + the market. About 20-30 minutes of streaming music as well.

overclocking and everything has affected my battery life, I used to get 20 hours at least. But as long as I am still making it through the day without worry it's fine with me.