New to Thread and Nexus

[jscott96]

New to the Nexus thread as of today when I received it as a replacement for the Bionic.

This phone is just awesome!!!

If anyone has any must do tips and when getting started with the Nexus, I would love to hear them.

 

[trophynuts]

buy an extended battery

 

[Tim K]

What I tell people is that they need to know what the big battery drains are, and minimize them if needed - but at a minimum, understand what they are and decide if the tradeoffs are worth it for you.

Screen - its big and beautiful but you pay the price in battery. Keep brightness as low as you are comfortable with to maximize battery life. I set a custom widget with widgetsoid at 10% - 30% - 70% and toggle as needed. Most of the time I am good with 30% and only bump to 70% in sunlight.

4G - its awesome and fast but a battery killer. You need to decide if the tradeoff of speed is worth it for you. The best advice is to use WiFi as much as possible. It is the least power intensive data transfer. 4G > 3G > WiFi.

Sync - Turn off every sync you don't really need. I only sync Browser, gmail, gtalk, contacts and calendar. Everything else is off. Facebook is a known data hog as is Google+. I strongly suggest turning off sync for both. Let the app refresh when you open it... you don't really need constant updates from Facebook do you???

Talk Time - most people forget that a phone was originally used for talking! But in reality few people do much talking on their phones. But talk time uses a lot of battery, so just keep it in mind.

Streaming - this kind of goes along with the 4G/WiFi subject, but streaming is hugely power intensive, and when done over 4G is a double whammy. Keep this in mind. I love Google Music but streaming from the cloud for a few hours will drain the battery quickly even over WiFi, so I tend to "pin" my current playlist to my phone so that it stores those tracks locally and cuts out streaming. You can always change playlists or pin multiple playlists to your device... there's plenty of room.

GPS - GPS is a HUGE power hog. While receiving GPS signals alone doesn't take much power, note that Google Maps/Nav has to be connected to data to work. So it will maintain a constant connection to identify your location and track you on the map....even if your screen is off. I think with the newer versions of Maps you could theoretically cache your route and the maps offline and run without data . GPS Navigation is a HUGE power drain especially if you have the screen on. Many users report that their car charger cannot even maintain a steady charge while using GPS. This is not unique to the Galaxy Nexus but is a 'feature' of the way Google Maps/Navigation works. This won't change so long as Google Nav works online.

 

[Deleted User]

What I tell people is that they need to know what the big battery drains are, and minimize them if needed - but at a minimum, understand what they are and decide if the tradeoffs are worth it for you.

Screen - its big and beautiful but you pay the price in battery. Keep brightness as low as you are comfortable with to maximize battery life. I set a custom widget with widgetsoid at 10% - 30% - 70% and toggle as needed. Most of the time I am good with 30% and only bump to 70% in sunlight.

4G - its awesome and fast but a battery killer. You need to decide if the tradeoff of speed is worth it for you. The best advice is to use WiFi as much as possible. It is the least power intensive data transfer. 4G > 3G > WiFi.

Sync - Turn off every sync you don't really need. I only sync Browser, gmail, gtalk, contacts and calendar. Everything else is off. Facebook is a known data hog as is Google+. I strongly suggest turning off sync for both. Let the app refresh when you open it... you don't really need constant updates from Facebook do you???

Talk Time - most people forget that a phone was originally used for talking! But in reality few people do much talking on their phones. But talk time uses a lot of battery, so just keep it in mind.

Streaming - this kind of goes along with the 4G/WiFi subject, but streaming is hugely power intensive, and when done over 4G is a double whammy. Keep this in mind. I love Google Music but streaming from the cloud for a few hours will drain the battery quickly even over WiFi, so I tend to "pin" my current playlist to my phone so that it stores those tracks locally and cuts out streaming. You can always change playlists or pin multiple playlists to your device... there's plenty of room.

GPS - GPS is a HUGE power hog. While receiving GPS signals alone doesn't take much power, note that Google Maps/Nav has to be connected to data to work. So it will maintain a constant connection to identify your location and track you on the map....even if your screen is off. I think with the newer versions of Maps you could theoretically cache your route and the maps offline and run without data . GPS Navigation is a HUGE power drain especially if you have the screen on. Many users report that their car charger cannot even maintain a steady charge while using GPS. This is not unique to the Galaxy Nexus but is a 'feature' of the way Google Maps/Navigation works. This won't change so long as Google Nav works online.

I was combing through the Nexus forum to look at possibly picking up a GN for my wife.... I can pick one up on craigslist for about $200 locally. The first two comments about battery life is discouraging.

I currently have the Rezound for myself and the battery life is easily the best on the 4 android devices I've had up to this point. I generally use the phone heavily each day (which I know varies by user) and never charge. It usually hovers around the 50% range at the end of the day, which usually includes GPS, light music streaming, and countless emails and text messages.

Anyway, I am looking for a phone for similar type battery life for my wife's phone. I've been looking to get rid of our home phone for quite some time, but before my wife will let me cut the cord, she must have a phone that rings overnight in an emergency without all of the data or text messages waking me up. I am told there is a "Profile" setting in Jelly Bean that will allow this. Basically telling the phone to only ring on phone calls when it is being charged and ignore sounds on any text or data related sounds (without having to do it manually each day). I had this setting on my Blackberry years ago, but am surprised it hasn't carried over yet. They called it "phone calls only" on a ring setting.

I know someone will mention that you can just shut off data, but knowing my wife, that will happen about 20% of the time. I have yet to find an app that will do the same thing. Anyway, is the battery life really that bad?

 

[metal571]

There's no need for an extended battery. You just need to be very smart about how you manage your battery life. For starters, turn off all location services to nearly double your battery life unless you absolutely need them.

I highly recommend you look into the developer section for information on how to root and install custom ROMs. The Galaxy Nexus is a developer's phone designed specifically for developers. It is very easy to heavily modify the software at great benefit to the end user, and the community is huge. Welcome and enjoy.

 

[Stuart P]

For starters, turn off all location services to nearly double your battery life unless you absolutely need them.

settings > location services and untick all 3 there? or are there more to untick elsewhere?

 

[Tim K]

I was combing through the Nexus forum to look at possibly picking up a GN for my wife.... I can pick one up on craigslist for about $200 locally. The first two comments about battery life is discouraging.

I currently have the Rezound for myself and the battery life is easily the best on the 4 android devices I've had up to this point. I generally use the phone heavily each day (which I know varies by user) and never charge. It usually hovers around the 50% range at the end of the day, which usually includes GPS, light music streaming, and countless emails and text messages.

Anyway, I am looking for a phone for similar type battery life for my wife's phone. I've been looking to get rid of our home phone for quite some time, but before my wife will let me cut the cord, she must have a phone that rings overnight in an emergency without all of the data or text messages waking me up. I am told there is a "Profile" setting in Jelly Bean that will allow this. Basically telling the phone to only ring on phone calls when it is being charged and ignore sounds on any text or data related sounds (without having to do it manually each day). I had this setting on my Blackberry years ago, but am surprised it hasn't carried over yet. They called it "phone calls only" on a ring setting.

I know someone will mention that you can just shut off data, but knowing my wife, that will happen about 20% of the time. I have yet to find an app that will do the same thing. Anyway, is the battery life really that bad?

Are you in a 3G or 4G town?
How many hours of "screen on" time do you normally have?
How much GPS/Nav do you use?

 

[metal571]

settings > location services and untick all 3 there? or are there more to untick elsewhere?

Yeah, correct.

 

[Deleted User]

Are you in a 3G or 4G town?
How many hours of "screen on" time do you normally have?
How much GPS/Nav do you use?

4G City

I'll check tomorrow. I forgot to charge my phone last night, and charged it after lunch at work today, so it reset and is currently sitting at 19 minutes... I am guessing on an average day it will be an hour?

I ride my mountain bike 4 days a week and use the GPS in conjunction with the Mapmyride app for 1 to 1.5 hours each time.

 

[jscott96]

Thanks for the reply's, I got the extended battery and I am going to keep it un-rooted for now.

Very happy this phone. I had the Bionic, Thunderbolt, Eris, and the OG Droid in the past. This is by far the best phone I have had!

 

[Tim K]

If you think that you may ever want to root it, you should at least unlock it now. Unlocking requires a full wipe of the phone and its better to do it now than after you've setup the whole thing with your customizations. Sure, you could save everything with a backup like Titanium, but its easier to just unlock from the start.

 

[metal571]

Rooting is quite easy. Let me personally help you with my video (this is for the GSM version, but should work for "toro" just as well)

Samsung Galaxy Nexus GSM Unlocked - How to Root - YouTube

You can also use the Toolkit over at XDA Developers.

Enjoy the phone

 

[AntimonyER]

Welcome to the GNex family!

 

[Skydivingcows]

Anyway, I am looking for a phone for similar type battery life for my wife's phone. I've been looking to get rid of our home phone for quite some time, but before my wife will let me cut the cord, she must have a phone that rings overnight in an emergency without all of the data or text messages waking me up. I am told there is a "Profile" setting in Jelly Bean that will allow this. Basically telling the phone to only ring on phone calls when it is being charged and ignore sounds on any text or data related sounds (without having to do it manually each day). I had this setting on my Blackberry years ago, but am surprised it hasn't carried over yet. They called it "phone calls only" on a ring setting.

I know someone will mention that you can just shut off data, but knowing my wife, that will happen about 20% of the time. I have yet to find an app that will do the same thing. Anyway, is the battery life really that bad?

I'm not too certain on the JB settings but there is one APP that can accomplish both of the goals you are seeking, and do it all automatically. It can be a bit tricky to understand at first but it is a very powerful APP. It cost a few $ but you can try it free for a week from the developers site, it's called Tasker.
I have it turn email sync on for 5 minutes every 2 hours during the hours of 7am-11pm. I block all text messages from 1am-7am and you can even have it send an autoreply message that you are sleeping and reply with the word urgent in your message if they want it to go through on text, which is just another profile within the app to respond to the word urgent. I had it setup to block all phone calls from numbers not on my contact list from 1am-7am as well.
There are many ways to set it up to your liking and here is a good thread to look into for other ideas.
http://androidforums.com/tasker/158265-what-tasker-profiles-everyone-using.html

 

[metal571]

If you want to track your wakelocks that prevent the phone from going to sleep, you need to go and grab Better Battery Stats from either XDA or the Play Store. That will help you a lot. It helped me find out that NetworkLocationLocator was using a lot of cycles while the phone was sleeping and waking it up every so often. My battery life seriously improved after turning the screen off after I disabled location services.