Help Terrible battery life - am I doing something wrong?

[ninethirty]

Hey Everyone,

Just switched over to a Nexus One from my iPhone 3GS (been an iPhone faithful since they came out, but wanted to see what was happening with Android).

I love my Nexus One, but the battery life is horrible. From a full charge, hours later, I'll be at 75% having barely used the phone at all. If I leave it for a day, it's almost dead entirely. I've gone through settings, turned off the automatic syncs, don't have push turned on, brightness is down, location is off, wifi is off... can't figure out what's going on.

Sometimes when I pick the phone up after leaving it for a while, it feels warm, as if it's doing something. I've re-started many times, I have a task manager, and I kill every task often.. still, awful battery.

For what it's worth, the phone takes forever to charge as well. It charges about 10% every hour. Seems like something is wrong, no?

 

[Karganeth]

My phone randomly used to feel very warm. Stopped doing it recently. Never found out the cause.

 

[daffyduck]

Hey Everyone,

Just switched over to a Nexus One from my iPhone 3GS (been an iPhone faithful since they came out, but wanted to see what was happening with Android).

I love my Nexus One, but the battery life is horrible. From a full charge, hours later, I'll be at 75% having barely used the phone at all. If I leave it for a day, it's almost dead entirely. I've gone through settings, turned off the automatic syncs, don't have push turned on, brightness is down, location is off, wifi is off... can't figure out what's going on.

Sometimes when I pick the phone up after leaving it for a while, it feels warm, as if it's doing something. I've re-started many times, I have a task manager, and I kill every task often.. still, awful battery.

For what it's worth, the phone takes forever to charge as well. It charges about 10% every hour. Seems like something is wrong, no?

There are various things you can do - to be honest, my phone on the original factory build would run out of charge between 8 and 12 hours later, depending on use.

The phone will be warm, especially if it is actively doing stuff. My advice, dump the task manager as it does really need it (the occasional force close if an app is misbehaving, thats it - I use Astro File Manager, which also has this functionality......well recommended).

If your phone is charging on the USB, it will take forever....don't bother & use the mains.

Now, I am not advocating rooting, but since running Cyanogen plus also installing SetCPU app (rooting is needed), I am probably heading for a battery charge every 32 hours or so.

Certain apps that you download can also burn more battery, depending on how efficiently they have been coded to run.

Trial and error my friend. Change one or two things then monitor and adapt.

For the record, I have everything synchronising, including email, weather every 30 mins, Facebook & Twitter updates every hour or so, and an RSS news reader app every hour as well.

Hope this helps you......

 

[chris_h]

I'm running the standard OS, but am rooted. Before I rooted I just used Screebl Pro and Locale (both paid apps) to turn GPS, WiFi and Bluetooth off when the phone is locked or flat. Now I also use SetCPU to control CPU usage, but you need root for this. Turn off live wallpaper as well.
I get a good 25 hours of use now between charges and I use it a lot.

 

[sycamore714]

Hey Everyone,

Just switched over to a Nexus One from my iPhone 3GS (been an iPhone faithful since they came out, but wanted to see what was happening with Android).

I love my Nexus One, but the battery life is horrible. From a full charge, hours later, I'll be at 75% having barely used the phone at all. If I leave it for a day, it's almost dead entirely. I've gone through settings, turned off the automatic syncs, don't have push turned on, brightness is down, location is off, wifi is off... can't figure out what's going on.

Sometimes when I pick the phone up after leaving it for a while, it feels warm, as if it's doing something. I've re-started many times, I have a task manager, and I kill every task often.. still, awful battery.

For what it's worth, the phone takes forever to charge as well. It charges about 10% every hour. Seems like something is wrong, no?

I feel your pain. Same story here. I had all the versions of the phone and was very happy with my iphone 3gs. The battery used to by around 65% before I call it a day with about 1 hour web usage , 2 hours music and about 30 mins of phone calls everyday.

But the tech nerd inside me made me switch to the nexus one.

The point however is that for the first 2 weeks I did not take a data connection and was using it only on a wifi and had a horrible battery life.

For some reason when i got the data plan with tmobile and starting using that the battery improved significantly.

Somehow makes me think something is wrong with the wifi module.

Try to turn of wifi and see if it has a positive impact.

 

[sergey]

Hey Everyone,

Just switched over to a Nexus One from my iPhone 3GS (been an iPhone faithful since they came out, but wanted to see what was happening with Android).

I love my Nexus One, but the battery life is horrible. From a full charge, hours later, I'll be at 75% having barely used the phone at all. If I leave it for a day, it's almost dead entirely. I've gone through settings, turned off the automatic syncs, don't have push turned on, brightness is down, location is off, wifi is off... can't figure out what's going on.

Sometimes when I pick the phone up after leaving it for a while, it feels warm, as if it's doing something. I've re-started many times, I have a task manager, and I kill every task often.. still, awful battery.

For what it's worth, the phone takes forever to charge as well. It charges about 10% every hour. Seems like something is wrong, no?

What apps do you have? I've heard that killing off app by app has helped people find a rogue app causing troubles.

An hour for 10% is not good...

 

[cyberbob25]

I feel your pain. Same story here. I had all the versions of the phone and was very happy with my iphone 3gs. The battery used to by around 65% before I call it a day with about 1 hour web usage , 2 hours music and about 30 mins of phone calls everyday.

But the tech nerd inside me made me switch to the nexus one.

The point however is that for the first 2 weeks I did not take a data connection and was using it only on a wifi and had a horrible battery life.

For some reason when i got the data plan with tmobile and starting using that the battery improved significantly.

Somehow makes me think something is wrong with the wifi module.

Try to turn of wifi and see if it has a positive impact.

That is quite strange. I've discovered, both from research and usage, that WiFi uses significantly LESS battery than 3G. I work from home, so my phone is connected to my WiFi nearly all day, and my battery is usually at 70% when I go to bed.

 

[daffyduck]

That is quite strange. I've discovered, both from research and usage, that WiFi uses significantly LESS battery than 3G. I work from home, so my phone is connected to my WiFi nearly all day, and my battery is usually at 70% when I go to bed.

Agree, Wifi uses less power than the phone's radio for downloading data.

 

[SnotF]

Been browsing/tweeting/fbing pandoraing on wifi- and make a 20min phone call otw to work every morning. with flickering edge/3g service at work daily now for some time. Usually average about 3-4hrs before I have to charge... but I have a taskiller and a powermanager to dim the screen and kill all apps not on my set list every 10min... I'm thinking ill underclock and undervolt the gpu by about half as well.

Just some food for thought.

 

[macprv]

For what it's worth, the phone takes forever to charge as well. It charges about 10% every hour. Seems like something is wrong, no?

something is wrong, my phone doesnt take that much, i get a full charge in about 1:30 or maybe less

 

[mi_canuck]

poor battery life is a fact of life on the Nexus... any sort of "power" usage, or long calls, drains the battery down like no tomorrow... I even have the 1600 mAh Seidio battery and it's still not that great... Sure, it will last a whole day, but barely... not much buffer, and if you make a lot of calls, or happen to be in a poor signal area, the battery will drain that much quicker... possibly not even lasting a full day (15hrs - 7am to 10pm)...

 

[brokeoutangel]

OP I assume by Location being off you meant GPS, if not even when not running a GPS app it drains my bat like mad.
my specs

wifi off
gps off
screen auto
live paper on
40 min of calls
between 1.5 and 2 hrs browsing 3G
texting alot and using the FB widget
I get from 6:30 am to 10:30 pm before dead 14 hours or so

Just for comparison information.

 

[kaotix]

I'm on Cyanogens latest ROM cooked on Modaco to remove various apps.
I also run task killer to close any apps from running in the background after I've used them. It's ok saying the N1 will close apps as and when it needs to but this is only for memory usage and doesn't take into account the battery usage these idle apps could be using.

I would also recommend using logcat to see what your device is doing when it's idle. There can be plenty of information about what your device is doing when its just sat on your desk with the screen off. Mine literally does nothing, doesn't sync with anything, doesn't update anything and I get around 48+ hours on the stock battery after wifi, 3g usage, phone calls, txt messages and music throughout the day.

 

[Fatal Exception]

I get 48 hours on the stock ROM with lots of calls / texts and mild browser usage each day.

When on Holiday (Data roaming disabled, so no data access at all) I was down to 70% after 48 hours.

 

[mi_canuck]

I get 48 hours on the stock ROM with lots of calls / texts and mild browser usage each day.

When on Holiday (Data roaming disabled, so no data access at all) I was down to 70% after 48 hours.

sorry - but i don't believe this... are you using edge only? if you make any amount of calls on 3G... the battery sucks down FAST

 

[macprv]

sorry - but i don't believe this... are you using edge only? if you make any amount of calls on 3G... the battery sucks down FAST

read again, he said no data at all bro

 

[mi_canuck]

read again, he said no data at all bro

you read again... he said "mild browser usage each day"

 

[macprv]

you read again... he said "mild browser usage each day"

you read again, he said:

"When on Holiday (Data roaming disabled, so no data access at all) I was down to 70% after 48 hours"

 

[mi_canuck]

i wasn't referring to that statement at all... only the first part... a nexus one lasting 48hrs with lots of phone calls and mild browsing is BS, or a completely freak of technology

 

[Viralmind]

My phone randomly used to feel very warm. Stopped doing it recently. Never found out the cause.

mine gets warm while charging and using gps.