Help Battery life and charging habits

[mrcaptain]

Had my note 3 just over a month, and am finding the battery life very disappointing. I charge it before going to sleep, unplugging it around midnight. It's always 100% when unplugged and when I wake up at 6:30, it's dropped to around 80-85%. Whilst in the shower I stick it back on charge and it's up to 100% by the time I leave.
I use it a fair bit, mostly Internet and emails. By around 6 pm, it's dropped to around 20%, sometimes less.
My screen is always on auto, and minus 5.
4G is always on. Sync is always on. Apart from that, not much else is on.
It gets worse if I listen to spotify, it generally uses about 10% every 25-30 minutes.

What length of charge are you guys getting? And what are your charging habits?

I really need another battery, but don't want to pay

 

[jptsr1]

Had my note 3 just over a month, and am finding the battery life very disappointing. I charge it before going to sleep, unplugging it around midnight. It's always 100% when unplugged and when I wake up at 6:30, it's dropped to around 80-85%. Whilst in the shower I stick it back on charge and it's up to 100% by the time I leave.
I use it a fair bit, mostly Internet and emails. By around 6 pm, it's dropped to around 20%, sometimes less.
My screen is always on auto, and minus 5.
4G is always on. Sync is always on. Apart from that, not much else is on.
It gets worse if I listen to spotify, it generally uses about 10% every 25-30 minutes.

What length of charge are you guys getting? And what are your charging habits?

I really need another battery, but don't want to pay

 

[mrcaptain]

I have very few apps installed and my screen is set to auto and minus 5.
Do you just keep your phone charging constantly at night?
Checking the battery use in the settings and there is nothing out of the ordinary.

 

[ScandaLeX]

I have very few apps installed and my screen is set to auto and minus 5.
Do you just keep your phone charging constantly at night?
Checking the battery use in the settings and there is nothing out of the ordinary.

I don't know what minus 5 means but my first thought is syncing intervals. What do you have syncing & how often?

 

[mrcaptain]

Checked syncing intervals. Gmail gets pushed as soon as a mail comes, same with Facebook. Hotmail gets synced every 2 hours.
Can't see the interval setting for anything else.
I had the note one and the battery life for that was decent for the first 6 months or so then gradually went downhill.

 

[ScandaLeX]

I'm stumped not having a 3 of my own yet. I do recall on my Note 2 turning off syncing for FB & I believe Gmail was at a minimum also. Wow! It's been so long it's hard to recall everything when a newer phone comes out.

Checked syncing intervals. Gmail gets pushed as soon as a mail comes, same with Facebook. Hotmail gets synced every 2 hours.
Can't see the interval setting for anything else.
I had the note one and the battery life for that was decent for the first 6 months or so then gradually went downhill.

 

[mrcaptain]

I'm stumped not having a 3 of my own yet. I do recall on my Note 2 turning off syncing for FB & I believe Gmail was at a minimum also. Wow! It's been so long it's hard to recall everything when a newer phone comes out.

Can you individually set the syncing interval for different apps? I need Gmail to push my mails, as I use it for work. Not bothered about Facebook or any other app being auto synced. Had a look and couldn't see any way to disable individual apps.

 

[jptsr1]

Do you just keep your phone charging constantly at night?

Yes. While i'm sleeping its either on the charger or attached to my computer.

 

[hdradaza]

Im also always keeping track of my battery. I leave house at 6AM at 100%. I surf a lot. No GPS. Bluetooth sometimes for music. By 5PM im down to about 10%. This is the Note 3. Are you guys getting similar or longer battery life?

 

[Simon_Gardner]

As a newcomer to smart phones in general, I remain appalled that the batteries don't last maybe five days between charges. Something like that. It's a complete PITA.

 

[mrcaptain]

As a newcomer to smart phones in general, I remain appalled that the batteries don't last maybe five days between charges. Something like that. It's a complete PITA.

Not sure if you are being sarcastic or not. .. However, there is no reason why a smart phone can't last at least 1 full day.
My galaxy tab 2 7.0 has a 4000mAh battery and with similar use that my note gets, I easily get 2 days charge from it.
I honestly wouldn't mind a thicker phone for the sake of a longer battery life.

 

[jptsr1]

Im also always keeping track of my battery. I leave house at 6AM at 100%. I surf a lot. No GPS. Bluetooth sometimes for music. By 5PM im down to about 10%. This is the Note 3. Are you guys getting similar or longer battery life?

its hard to compare because everyone's usage will vary. this thread got me curious about the battery so this morning i did my commute without plugging in my phone. at full screen brightness with GPS and Pandora running i lost 15% battery over an hour and a half. at that rate a full charge wouldn't last till lunch. with my normal routine charging overnight and in the car i have no trouble making it through the day.

 

[Simon_Gardner]

Not sure if you are being sarcastic or not. ..

Not in the slightest.

 

[Hazerade]

I'm having an issue where my phone drops around 30 percent while I'm sleeping off charger(8 hours or so). I'm new to android so I don't know how to set up background work but is there a way to mass change settings for apps to work in the background or not? What could possibly do this much work to suck my battery down? It's a Verizon black model.

 

[RickSchlegel]

For what it's worth, I can get two good days out of mine. I power the phone completely down around 8 PM on day 1, and power back up around 6 AM on day 2, when everything gets synced/pushed all at once. I'm at around 15% at the end of Day 2; I power down again a couple hours before bed, give it a complete charge, unplug the charger and leave it powered down overnight. Then back on again at 6 AM the next day, etc. I've done it this way for about three weeks --- so far, so good.

 

[menmyjeep]

i lost 15% battery over an hour and a half. at that rate a full charge wouldn't last till lunch.

Not sure what time you start your morning commute,but in the numbers and percentages you state here, you would get about 10 hours before the battery dies. Sounds about right to me based on your useage.

 

[ovrrdrive]

You can check the usage stats in the battery menu to try to figure out what's using most of the battery, and if you need to narrow it down further there are plenty of apps in the store that will try to help you figure out what's eating the battery up. You can also check the wake time in the battery stats to make sure you're not getting a wake lock from something.

Your usage doesn't sound too extreme to me. You should be getting better than that.

 

[Methos1979]

First up, a couple quick questions - or - one question for the couple of people it pertains to: Why do you charge up to full and then disconnect while you sleep? Just curious.

I connect mine when I go to be at around 2 a.m. It's 100% charged in the morning when I get up at around 9 a.m. I use an app called Dock Clock which shuts down the screen and gives me a low-light clock. I use the stock Blocking Mode to let in calls from important people like family for emergencies.

In the morning the first thing I do is Restart the phone while it's still on the charger! This is critical. A daily reboot is a must with Android devices as it shuts down little things that might be unnecessarily draining your resources (RAM and battery) and leaving on the charger is key since that way you don't use battery doing it. This will give your phone a fresh start each day, quite literally.

Once that is through I use my phone all day. I check my email, social media, surf daily sites, text, make calls, chess moves etc. as needed until I get to work at 4 p.m. Once at work I usually still have between 70 and 80% battery.

I do NOT use the auto-brightness feature. I don't think it does a good job and I think it also uses more resources. I suggest you pick the lowest screen brightness you can live with and stick with that.

I use a great little app called Brightness Level Disc widget that gives you a nice little four position button for quick screen brightness changes. I use position 2 which equates out to 49% screen brightness and I still get great battery life. It's a free app and works great.

At work I continue to surf, make chess moves, calls, text, and typically stream music from the phone's SD card or from the cloud but in offline mode (not from data) which is also basically from the SD card. This is key. Streaming music or video from the cloud will definitely use a lot more battery. I also do this to keep my data usage down. I use about 2 GB a month.

I use a program called Tasker to automate turning off wifi at work (no access) and silence the phone. I always leave GPS on as I don't find it's a big enough drain. I hook up to blue tooth to my car when driving to and from work, I also use BT to stream to my Bose SoundLink speaker at work. When I get home Tasker turns on wifi and the sound.

I get home just after midnight and usually have around 30% battery left although there have been days when it gets lower. I'll then play with the phone for another hour before bed. I've never broken 10%.

The most important things here are the morning reboot and the screen brightness program, and of course limiting streaming over 4G whenever possible. Use wifi if you can or offline modes if possible for any music or video streaming. Try these little things and you should see an increase in life.

Your phone will slowly bleed off power even if you are not using it, if it is on. Things are still going on in the background even if you are not using it. So you might just as well use it. I have well over 200 apps installed, I'm using Nova Prime, HD widgets, several other widgets, the usual email/social medial snycing and pushing. I don't do anything special for those things.

Try a couple of my tweaks and see if that helps your battery life. I have been very impressed with this phones battery life considering how much I use it.

 

[jptsr1]

Not sure what time you start your morning commute,but in the numbers and percentages you state here, you would get about 10 hours before the battery dies. Sounds about right to me based on your useage.

there you go with all that math! my battery drains on par with the I-phone 4S i switched from. i'm not dissatisfied with the performance. i certainly haven't run up against any issues in terms of power when i need it.

 

[Joshuah22a]

I normally unplug my phone around 9am.. I even charger it while driving to work so I stay at 100.. when I get to work I unplug which is usually 930 or so.. by 2p-3 I am usually around 60% but it depends on how hard I been using it..i always have the brightness set at around 45-50% i'll always recharge it around 3-4 just to get it back up to 100 then I leave home with a full battery...but I will be restarting my phone in mornings now just to give it a fresh start..i consider myself a extremely heavy user..also consider this is me running with a live wall paper..i love them too much to go back to a picture

 

[Joshuah22a]

also noticed that my battery seems to only go down a lot when it's lit which is obvious.. but if im on the phone I try to turn the screen off and I rarely waste any batt.. or if im not using it which is hard not to the battery lasts awhile

 

[ovrrdrive]

In the morning the first thing I do is Restart the phone while it's still on the charger! This is critical. A daily reboot is a must with Android devices as it shuts down little things that might be unnecessarily draining your resources (RAM and battery) and leaving on the charger is key since that way you don't use battery doing it. This will give your phone a fresh start each day, quite literally.

That's actually a great tip. I did it this morning just for grins and my battery drained noticeably slower all day. Thanks.