HTC Desire battery life. Power Savers.

[Tuanyboy]

Hey, I'm thinking of getting the HTC desire when it releases in the US and I know it has already in Europe. I'm one of those people that would use the phone for internet, texting, probably not emailing. I'm interesting in what you guys' batter life is. Like if you had 3g off and all those battery saving tips. Like manual switching 3g on when needed etc. Since I want an accurate time to go by because I'm going to do the exact thing when I get mine. Using battery saving tips for max. As well if any hardcore power saving iphone users can post their times as well since I can't find anything on the web relating to that. Thank you for your time.

 

[Dromineer]

The desire is a bit of a power hog if you ask me. When I was on the iphone, the battery life would last practically all day, but on the desire after three hours I begin to see the battery going down. What I try to do is go to the task manager and switch off those apps that are running in the background. But keep in mind I am a music lover and when am on my desire am listening to music, while scrobbling to last.fm, while am connected live via my wifi - I am also on my web-browser checking up on my website, etc, so those are three or four tasks running simultaeously.

I am convinced that if I use my phone mainly for texting and calls it may be different - "may"! I sometimes have to charge my Desire twice daily, but remember the phone is new, so the initial excitement is there so am practically living on the thing.

But like I said, try to check your tasks in your settings > applications and switch off those apps which you are not using, also read what you are disabling before doing it.. It might just help. lol

 

[brownie1111]

Apart from the normal turning off and on connectivity like mobile and wireless, the other thing that's made a big difference to my Desires battery life is turning the screen brightness down.

 

[lekky]

The phone will last a couple days easy with 3G turned off, it lasts over a day with WiFi on instead of 3G.

 

[FC360]

I find the battery life is a little disappointing but after reading the specs of the phone I'm not surprised. I was thinking of buying a extended life battery for the phone but not sure if it will be any good. I have noticed that having wifi on does drain the battery alot, I had my wifi on for a couple of hours and the battery went from full to half empty by the time I turned the wifi off. I have also checked what things are using the battery and disable the ones I don't use and ones I could which seems to have worked.

 

[400ixl]

I leave wifi, 3G and bluetooth on all day. Use it to browse a bit, use twitter, sync with both gmail and exchange, send a few texts and make a few calls. Throw in an hour or two per day of music.

The battery will last at least 2 days per charge.

One of the biggest changes I made to get this was get rid of the active background and just went with the plain black one.

 

[bazza]

I've had my phone on for 50hrs now and with normal useage, and still at 30%

i did have probs to start with but running it down to zero a couple of times has sorted my issues. with heavy usage it will get you through 12hrs easy i would think.

 

[shkermaker]

Battery life on the desire sucks even with 3G turned off.

I've tried all the usual stuff I did on my hero and it just doesnt seem to cut the mustard. really disappointed as i've lusted after this phone for so long and couldnt wait to rub it in my iClone friends...

Still love it though

 

[FC360]

i did have probs to start with but running it down to zero a couple of times has sorted my issues.

I'm going to try that, never had the battery completely empty yet so maybe thats the problem. I wish HTC would include tips like this with their phone instead of a useless quick start guide.

 

[Smg]

Using a dark background especially black rather than a light background especially white will boost your battery life thats Amoled's for you.

 

[FC360]

My wifi has been on all day today, according to system info the up time is 12 hours 05 minutes and the battery is at the beginning of the 9th power block under battery status. It makes me wonder if the battery doesn't fully charge for the first couple of times or it's setup to take a few days to reach it's full potential.

 

[fatriff]

it lasts over a day with WiFi on instead of 3G.

Sorry but your talking nonsense, Yeah maybe if you've got the wifi set to turn itself off after 15 mins of inactivity or when the screen goes off.

I leave wifi, 3G and bluetooth on all day. Use it to browse a bit, use twitter, sync with both gmail and exchange, send a few texts and make a few calls. Throw in an hour or two per day of music.

The battery will last at least 2 days per charge.

Well, since it can only use either Wifi OR 3G.. not both at the same time.. so only 1 will ever be on. And you say you do a bit.. so it sounds like your wifi gets auto switched off when the phone has been inactive for 15 minutes or so, Mine does it.

Battery life on the desire sucks even with 3G turned off.

Yes indeed it does, with everything turned off and screen set to the dimmest setting and in areoplane mode, I've managed a poxy 12 hours and i'm down to 25%. That's with only 30 minutes of wifi usage.

My wifi has been on all day today, according to system info the up time is 12 hours 05 minutes and the battery is at the beginning of the 9th power block under battery status. It makes me wonder if the battery doesn't fully charge for the first couple of times or it's setup to take a few days to reach it's full potential.

If that's the case then why aren't I seeing improvements after 9 days of draining it to zero and then charging it fully while it's turned off?

Someone else mentioned that you can use the app to control the cpu speed if you root the device.. As far as i'm concerned it already auto speed steps the cpu, I've checked the speed with multiple apps and it goes as low as 245mhz.

I was under the impression that my rubbish t-mobile reception was to blame for my lousy battery life but since doing a test and starting the phone from scratch after a hard reset and putting it in areoplane mode and screen off 90% of the time and only getting upto 12 hours before I hit 25%, That is barely any different to when I have reception switched on and a process list as long as your arm.

 

[Anthony1]

If that's the case then why aren't I seeing improvements after 9 days of draining it to zero and then charging it fully while it's turned off?

Because regularly draining your battery to zero is actually bad for it.

You only ever want to do this about once a month, and even then it's just to calibrate the battery level monitor rather than increase battery life.

 

[nx1977]

I was under the impression that my rubbish t-mobile reception was to blame for my lousy battery life but since doing a test and starting the phone from scratch after a hard reset and putting it in areoplane mode and screen off 90% of the time and only getting upto 12 hours before I hit 25%, That is barely any different to when I have reception switched on and a process list as long as your arm.

Yikes, that's some battery usage!

Sounds like you've got an app eating it. If you install the spare parts app, what does it say is the offender under partial awake time?

 

[matttye]

I have twitter, facebook and mail updating every hour and weather updating every 3 hours.

WiFi on for half an hour in the morning before work, then data connection (GPRS/Edge/3G/HSDPA) on until I get home at 5:30pm. Send about 15+ texts during the day, a few facebook/twitter comments. By 5:30 when I get home my battery is about half full.

If you charge every night you have absolutely nothing to worry about!

 

[lekky]

Sorry but your talking nonsense, Yeah maybe if you've got the wifi set to turn itself off after 15 mins of inactivity or when the screen goes off.

Thats actually worse, it costs more battery life searching for and connecting to wifi than being connected to wifi. make sure it doesn't disconnect wifi when screen off for better battery.

 

[galfwender]

As someone else has already said, the biggest battery killer is the screen.

I was shocked with the battery life at first, but JuiceDefender helped a lot - enableding wifi/3g for 1 minute every 15 when not in use, and leaving it enabled while in use (screen on) - this got it to the point where an overnight charge would last me until the evening with moderate to heavy usage.

I was using the Power Control widget to set screen brightness which cycles between 1 (backlight off), 4 and 10 (full), with it mostly set at 4 while in use, and 10 if outside in bright light.

The past few days I've kept the screen brigtness on 2 (using Extended Controls widget from the market) instead of the 4 that the Power Control widget uses as the minimum and battery life has improved even more.

 

[fatriff]

Thats actually worse, it costs more battery life searching for and connecting to wifi than being connected to wifi. make sure it doesn't disconnect wifi when screen off for better battery.

Wherever did you draw that conclusion from, it's a known fact that wifi drains batteries.. Look at any laptop or any mobile for that matter.. Laptop with a 3 hour battery, will last about an hour with wifi switched on..

A fine example is my old HTC S170, with normal usage it lasts allmost a week!! but switch that wifi on and you get about 3 hours browsing before the handset is dead.

I have this app on my desire and it shows you how much time the phone has for individual things and for wifi it has 6 hours listed from a full charge and that sounds about right as that's about what i'd expect if i was browsing constantly for 6 hours on wifi... using 3G or H on the other hand consumes allot less power.

If you have some evidence to prove otherwise then i'm all ears but I don't believe you can get anymore than 6-7 hours of browsing out of the desire using wifi before it dies.. if even that!! My own tests are showing much less, more like 4 of continuous browsing and downloading things (and i dont mean update the weather every 3 hours and check your balance on a site) I mean full on browsing.

Update, here's a thread about battery life on the hero and the anwsers are all the same.. turn off wifi, wifi is the biggest battery killer etc

http://androidforums.com/htc-hero/8372-htc-hero-battery-drain-question.html

 

[bonerp]

mine lasts a full day (24hrs) plus with normal usage (phone, text, email, browsing, music). Follow the suggestions repeated regularly on this site and give it a chance in the first few weeks to get to capacity and it will be fine. Dont run it flat before recharging as it may damage the cells if this is done repeatedly before it gets to capacity.

 

[fatriff]

I have followed the advice, but my experience with HTC phones I already knew what was needed, I believe my phone isn't quite upto par, I've been doing tests on my girlfriends desire, Hers goes on forever, using the same configuration as mine.

Using identical configurations on my phone and hers, We get identical output on the app usage but my screen is dimmer than hers on the same setting, mine isn't as vibrant.. Her phone is on 80% after 7 hours and mine is on 59%, the biggest noticible difference is when i turned mine on after a full charge, it was on 90% straight away just from turning the phone on even though it clearly said 100% before i switched it off and the green light was displaying! And hers stays on 100% for ages after switching it on.

 

[fatriff]

LOL, I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier.. I put my girlfriends battery in my phone and an hour later it's on 98% !! I knew something was up with my battery after the 1st week of use becuase of the way my girlfriends phone was and we only got them a few days apart.

I'm ordering a new battery, If anybody knows a good place to get one could you post it here please?

Thanks

 

[craigcrawford1988]

U2O: i-UP 6400

Have one myself, plug it in whenever you're hammering the CPU

 

[GSMGuy]

Well, we can't have it all lol - I'm sure they could have made the battery last longer by upping the capacity, but then we'd all moan about it being thicker and heavier (than the Crapple Iphone??)

There is always going to be a compromise, especially when you consider what you are actually holding in your hand with the Desire..

I for one, am firmly in the "Wi-Fi is a big drain" camp, after all - When using Wi-Fi the back of the phone gets physically warm, and the only way of creating that heat is by using battery power!

I have found the app "Y5-Battery Saver" really helps me, as I was previously always turning Wi-fi on and off when I was in/out of the house - The app "remembers" authorised networs and the local cell ID's and turns the Wi-Fi on and off accordingly - When I get home, or to my office my Wi-Fi turns on, when I go out of the door it turns off...

Simples....

Mike

 

[nx1977]

I have this app on my desire and it shows you how much time the phone has for individual things and for wifi it has 6 hours listed from a full charge and that sounds about right as that's about what i'd expect if i was browsing constantly for 6 hours on wifi... using 3G or H on the other hand consumes allot less power.

Been experimenting for about a week now on browsing and using until it dies.

In order of biggest battery drain, screen at level 5 for tests on T-mobile and only used where signal levels were above 75%.

Constant use:
Wifi - 1% per 6 minutes
3G - 1% per 6 minutes
HSPDA - 1% per 10 minutes
2G/GRPS/EDGE - 1% per 9 minutes (but soooooo sloooow)

I didnt kill all the apps I had, as really wanted a real world semi-scientific test. Mobile data was left ON at all times, with permanent connection left on.

Even on standby over night with data left on and weather sync (3 hours) only uses 3%

 

[jauhari]

I leave wifi, 3G and bluetooth on all day. Use it to browse a bit, use twitter, sync with both gmail and exchange, send a few texts and make a few calls. Throw in an hour or two per day of music.

The battery will last at least 2 days per charge.

One of the biggest changes I made to get this was get rid of the active background and just went with the plain black one.

Wow, you run 2 days in single charge? That's incredible, I use little bit Twitter, FB and GMail and occasional photos, my battery will 10% in 12 hours in single charge

Any solutions?