VERY BAD battery life - HTC Desire 'not fit for purpose'

[nx1977]

10% drop an hour indicates something is running excessively.

What does spare parts show for other and partial wake? Flickr is a known killer

 

[trick202]

I don't use flickr, I use photobucket (one of the best things I've discovered so far with android is that when I take a snap, PB uploads it automatically. I love that).

 

[nx1977]

Then spare parts is the only help you have in finding the cause

 

[trick202]

Is that an app I can DL from the market?

 

[Jammy]

You could buy a second battery.

Amazon

 

[tuatha]

@trick202 - yeah, rogue app from the sounds of it. you shouldn't be losing more than a couple of percent overnight.

To find out what's keeping your phone awake, just dial *#*#4636#*#* and select battery history. Then select partial wake usage from the drop down menu.

 

[trick202]

I'm not even going to dignify that with a response.

A second battery? Lets fix the problems with the existing battery first eh? I've NEVER had to carry a second battery on any phone I've had, and I would consider it a sad day when I did.

 

[Jammy]

I've NEVER had to carry a second battery on any phone I've had, and I would consider it a sad day when I did.

The OP did say "I'm having to take my charger if I'm going out.". I figured a second battery would be a better solution.

 

[trick202]

But that would be treating the symptom, not the illness.

There's a reason the battery life is so poor. THAT needs addressing - not just accepting.

 

[tuatha]

But that would be treating the symptom, not the illness.

There's a reason the battery life is so poor. THAT needs addressing - not just accepting.

Did you miss my above post?

Check your partial wake usage and report back.

 

[oldnick]

Battery life is not a problem IMO. Lasts 2 days easy.

 

[Crafty]

But that would be treating the symptom, not the illness.

There's a reason the battery life is so poor. THAT needs addressing - not just accepting.

In your case I would agree, but then there is some issue with the setup on your phone. Mine loses virtually nothing overnight, even leaving mobile and wireless on.
Mine has lasted 2 days with normal usage (bit of browsing, several phone calls, texts etc). To be honest I was trying to run the battery out and switched everything on to run the battery out, I reckon it would of lasted 3 days.

I think you need to do some investigation as to whats causing your problem before giving up.

 

[carbonara]

But that would be treating the symptom, not the illness.

There's a reason the battery life is so poor. THAT needs addressing - not just accepting.

I had exactly this problem last weekend. Charged the phone up, went to bed and by the time I got up it only had 50% left, despite everything being turned off data wise. I did some experimenting over the last week using Juice Plotter to see a graph of the battery decline. I also used Task Panel to shut stuff down. Made the battery last 5 days with light texting and calling use but no data.

In my opinion Android isn't as efficient as they say it is and people think it is and it's something that needs to be worked on.

 

[tuatha]

I had exactly this problem last weekend. Charged the phone up, went to bed and by the time I got up it only had 50% left, despite everything being turned off data wise. I did some experimenting over the last week using Juice Plotter to see a graph of the battery decline. I also used Task Panel to shut stuff down. Made the battery last 5 days with light texting and calling use but no data.

In my opinion Android isn't as efficient as they say it is and people think it is and it's something that needs to be worked on.

There's absolutely no question whatsoever of losing 50% charge overnight unless you have one of two things going on:

1. A faulty battery
2. An app preventing your phone from sleeping.

Since you say you're getting better performance now, we can rule out the faulty battery.


So this isn't representative of normal behaviour on an android phone and isn't an android issue. There's a bug with HTC's flickr syncing (possibly - there are conflicting reports over this) that could be causing it in your case. Or, as stated, it could be another app causing it.


The one area that really is a problem with android is the lack of quality control in the market. There are far too many dodgy, poorly tested apps out there that are causing issues like the one you guys are seeing.

They really need to get it sorted out, because most users won't know any better and will just assume that losing 10% charge an hour when you're not even using the phone is normal on the android platform...

 

[carbonara]

There's absolutely no question whatsoever of losing 50% charge overnight unless you have one of two things going on:

1. A faulty battery
2. An app preventing your phone from sleeping.

Since you say you're getting better performance now, we can rule out the faulty battery.


So this isn't representative of normal behaviour on an android phone and isn't an android issue. There's a bug with HTC's flickr syncing (possibly - there are conflicting reports over this) that could be causing it in your case. Or, as stated, it could be another app causing it.


The one area that really is a problem with android is the lack of quality control in the market. There are far too many dodgy, poorly tested apps out there that are causing issues like the one you guys are seeing.

They really need to get it sorted out, because most users won't know any better and will just assume that losing 10% charge an hour when you're not even using the phone is normal on the android platform...

Indeed, it does need sorting, I totally agree that a lot of people won't even realise and will think the phone has really bad battery life. It's for this reason I use Task Panel though. Not an automatic task killer as I don't think that's necessary, I've just added all the essential stuff to the ignore list and once I'm finished with a session on the phone I just press a single icon once to kill all the apps I've been using. That way I know nothing rogue is still running.

 

[gazcarts]

I've stopped using the HTC widgets (eg calendar, clock, friendstream) and selected GSM only and my battery life has improved greatly. I also leave the screen brightness set to auto.

My phone has been unplugged from the power for 8 hrs. My wifi has been on all day today, and I've made over 1hr 10mins of calls, used the browser several times, sent numerous texts and my battery life is still 68%.

Live wallpaper doesn't seem to make much difference.

Regards

 

[jaz5100]

I can get about a days use out of my desire, i think people just need to have realistic expectations. you can't expect to have a small phone that does everything AND has 100's of hours of standby time!

make sure all updates are set to off or reduced.

 

[crazy4ker]

Ok, I've been having problems too, but I think I've sorted my one out. I'll first go through the symptoms (apart from the obivious that the battery life is poor).

1. Go to Menu>>settings>>about phone>>battery. If your "awake time"="up time" then your phone isn't sleeping.

2. Type *#*#4636#*#* into your phone dialler. This will bring up the testing menu. Go to Battery History, then press "other usage" and select "partial wake usage". This shows what is causing your Desire to remain awake (even though the screen is off). More likely than not, this will show "calendar" as the biggest use. If this is the case go to the next step.

3. Go to Menu>>Settings>>Accounts & Sync. Now select the flickr account and then "remove account". Hopefully this should sort it. I don't use flickr and only logged in once hence why it's here.

Hopefully that should sort out 90% of you. If you have the "awake time"="up time" problem then at least you know that the problem is your Desire not going to sleep. And then the 2nd step will tell you what the problem is.

 

[Stretlow]

I stll think somethings eating mine so ive done the above steps and indeed the calendar does top the list.

However, I removed Flickr when i got the phone as I dont use it..

Any other ideas what could be causing it.???

Stret

 

[Stretlow]

Im pretty annoyed now people are reporting more than a days usage and im cutting no-where near it...


Ive recharged.

Forced closed calender + Disabled the syncs in it.

All ive got on is my mobile network.. (H)

I've literally only unlocked the phone to check the battery and after one hour, yes one hour i'm already down to 93%.

What am I doing wrong????

 

[Sybex]

Had my Desire for 3 weeks now, at first I thought the battery life was really bad but now I'm getting 2 days out of my battery, I class myself as an average user...
The battery does seem to get a lot better after a few charges

 

[tuatha]

Im pretty annoyed now people are reporting more than a days usage and im cutting no-where near it...

[...]

I've literally only unlocked the phone to check the battery and after one hour, yes one hour i'm already down to 93%.

What am I doing wrong????

Well, I suspect anybody claiming to be getting two days out of their phone while actually using it is bullshitting.

In fact if anybody is going to claim that from now on, I'd suggest they post accompanying screenshots of their usage statistics.

Nonetheless, 7% in an hour is a lot if you genuinely haven't been using it.

How often are your various accounts syncing? ie Twitter, Facebook etc. Check this in accounts and sync.

Do you have any other apps that regularly connect to the net to update their data?



If you're sure that this isn't the issue, check out the partial wake usage again before your next charge and see if there's anything unusual in there.

And don't forget to check your awake time vs running time too.


edit: probably still be the calendar causing it... if that's the case, have a read through this thread on XDA for suggestions:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=666404

 

[Stretlow]

Well, I suspect anybody claiming to be getting two days out of their phone while actually using it is bullshitting.

In fact if anybody is going to claim that from now on, I'd suggest they post accompanying screenshots of their usage statistics.

Nonetheless, 7% in an hour is a lot if you genuinely haven't been using it.

How often are your various accounts syncing? ie Twitter, Facebook etc. Check this in accounts and sync.

Do you have any other apps that regularly connect to the net to update their data?



If you're sure that this isn't the issue, check out the partial wake usage again before your next charge and see if there's anything unusual in there.

And don't forget to check your awake time vs running time too.

Thanks for your help pal..

Facebook is on manual, dont use twitter or anything else... I have my googlemail set up thats been given permission to use backround data as I need to see my emails as they're sent to me.

Admittedly I do have the screen on 100% as I love the look of it however i've hardly used it in the last hour so it cant be that.

As I type this its 10 minutes from two hours and is only dropped another 1% sanding at 92%.

And to be honest, calendar has gone to practicly nothing.... Maps has the tinyest bar (how i dont know though as been no-where near it) and had a brief look at face book...

So maybe as there is no trickle charge id already lost some...

I'll continue to monitor and report back..

Stret

 

[tuatha]

Just from my own experience, over the course of a day I expect an average of 4-5% battery usage an hour on my phone. For about 20 hours total.

But I wouldn't expect it to drop by more than maybe two percent an hour when I'm not using it.

 

[oatikodi]

I am struggling to get a days worth of battery life out of my HTC desire.

I turn off wifi when not using it; rarely turn on GPS; use it in flight mode and I've just started using it on on request synchronisation rather than continuous updates for gmail, facebook etc
(and I don't use a live wall paper).

I've bought a spare battery which I carry round with me. For example today I was using my HTC desire and used 2 batteries during the day.

The battery is certainly not as good as the one I had on my previous Nokia smartphone.

I am using this phone more than any phone I've used previously (camera, browsing...). However, it definitely needs a better battery. The Desire is a brilliant phone. The battery is its achilles heel.