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Help EVO Battery Life vs. Hero (?)

apollomaker

Well-Known Member
Oct 28, 2009
168
8
Northern California
Howdy All --- hey, to you new EVO owners, especially those that had Heros before....how is the battery life comparison between the two?? ... assuming normal, day-to-day operations.

I do not have an EVO (yet) but downstream, maybe. Wondering what the maH rating of the EVO battery is as well(?)

Comments? Reviews? --- Thanks --- Bob --- :D
 
I believe its 1500mah and the battery life depends on what you have on. I have gtalk running and listen to slacker one hour to work and hour from work and it last me all day.
The battery life can't be compared just for the fact of this massive screen compared to a 3.2 hero screen. But i say go for it people make it sound like the battery sound worse then it is. Some live in a bad coverage area or just have everything enable mail,twitter,facebook,gtalk and run sprint NAV and go ahhhh my battery is dead. If your a moderate user you will last the whole day.
 
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I believe its 1500mah and the battery life depends on what you have on. I have gtalk running and listen to slacker one hour to work and hour from work and it last me all day.
The battery life can't be compared just for the fact of this massive screen compared to a 3.2 hero screen. But i say go for it people make it sound like the battery sound worse then it is. Some live in a bad coverage area or just have everything enable mail,twitter,facebook,gtalk and run sprint NAV and go ahhhh my battery is dead. If your a moderate user you will last the whole day.

Hi Aldo J --- hey, thanks for the feedback. As I expected. There is not much you can do about the larger display. It takes power. But it still sounds like you are getting good general charge lifetime. Beyond that, it is usage and transmit power required that will be the "culprits". IIRC, the processsor clock is faster as well but I don't know if it has variable demand clock rate built in or not. Too bad they could not have put a larger battery in it, but that just takes more room.

Thanks again for the info -- at least it provides a ball-park idea.

:D
 
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My battery lasts almost as long as hero. I set my evo up just as I did my hero and maybe have to plug it in an hr or less earlier before my hero would need to be plugged up...its all good on my end

Thanks Dose -- another good data point!!! ;)

Viking J --- guess it depends on how you use your phone. True for the Hero as well. Still a bigger battery would have been a plus.
 
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My Evo is not getting close to the battery life my Hero had. On my Hero I could go all day and when I put it on the charger at night it the indicator was still green and probably still had close to 30-40% left on an average day. With my Evo I have to plug it in when I get home from work. No bashing the phone, its awesome. The battery life however has room for improvement. A Spare battery would for sure be a nice add on.
 
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I'm at 15 hours with 50 percent left. Again it all depends on coveage and use of phone. I charged it last night on my laptop for about one hour and it was 80 percent charged and the bad boy is still running. I think if you used a android phone before you know how to maintain a good battery usage. For the new folks they will figure out the right settings . Some have the the display brightness all the way up some all the way down and so on. This battery debate can go all day. If you want me to tell the truth you will be all good especially since you know the android system.
 
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My experience is pretty similar to Dose. I came from the Hero, and would say the battery life is slightly shorter than Hero, although, to be honest, I'm running all my Hero Apps PLUS a few more, so it might simply be the extra apps. Also, the fact that I never put the phone down lol. I'd say my usage of the EVO is considerably more than my Hero just because its so nice to use. I took my EVO off the charger this morning @ 8:15, and it is now 5:15. 9 hours in, and I"m at 50% battery. That is with GPS on, 2 very active Gmail accounts syncing, eBuddy signed in to a couple accounts, I've taken a few minutes of video, several pictures, streamed a couple youtube videos and been on Facebook, several websites, etc. So yeah, I have no complaints about battery life.
 
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Mine is at least as good as my Hero. The Hero started out pretty crappy for me, but it got better after about 2 weeks. My first day of use it was pretty much out by 2pm ( turned on @ 6am) I was not pleased. But it definitely got better. The EVO had used up over 60-70% of the battery by 10:00 am, WOW. It got better the second day. And now i am @ 70% and i unplugged it at 6:00 am, not too much use today though. I am real happy with is so far.
 
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I dont know if I had a bad Hero or I just didn't understand how to tweak android yet, but I am getting BETTER battery life with my Evo than I ever did with my Hero. Did a full discharge test yesterday and ended up with 21 hours 43 minutes on a full charge. That is WITH GPS and WiFi toggling. WiFi on at the house and 3g off and vice versa. Moderate to heavy use...Awake time was almost equal to Up time for the first 2 hours due to me playing with it and trying to set up my "scenes". On and off FB all day, SMS and MMS and a few lengthy phone calls. Doing two more test, one today with EVERYTHING I can have running that would normal have on had I not tweaked my settings. And one tomorrow, strictly on standby (that ones gonna kill me lol). Will post pics if anyone is interested.
 
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My hero would last 13 hours on a charge. The evo might make it 8 hours. I have to bring my charger to work bc it never makes it through the day. That being said, I'm still happy I got the evo.

you either have crap running or some services turned on that need to be turned off. 8hrs and i'd rip my hair out. i got 18.5hrs last night and still had 40% battery left...
so not only am i smoking your Evo's battery, but your Hero's as well.
 
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you either have crap running or some services turned on that need to be turned off. 8hrs and i'd rip my hair out. i got 18.5hrs last night and still had 40% battery left...
so not only am i smoking your Evo's battery, but your Hero's as well.

How do you have yours set up? I'm still trying to figure out how to tweak mine for improved life. I installed a Task Killer but it doesn't seem to make a difference, and just yesterday after all that mine was dead after about 9 hours. Any advice? I'm running 3G (don't live in a 4G area), bluetooth off, wifi on, gps on, and all my apps are only updating every 3 hours. Checking mail once an hour. Screen brightness probably on about 25% of full brightness.
 
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I dont know if I had a bad Hero or I just didn't understand how to tweak android yet, but I am getting BETTER battery life with my Evo than I ever did with my Hero. Did a full discharge test yesterday and ended up with 21 hours 43 minutes on a full charge. That is WITH GPS and WiFi toggling. WiFi on at the house and 3g off and vice versa. Moderate to heavy use...Awake time was almost equal to Up time for the first 2 hours due to me playing with it and trying to set up my "scenes". On and off FB all day, SMS and MMS and a few lengthy phone calls. Doing two more test, one today with EVERYTHING I can have running that would normal have on had I not tweaked my settings. And one tomorrow, strictly on standby (that ones gonna kill me lol). Will post pics if anyone is interested.

Some great experiments -- keep us posted. Thanks to all for the inputs as well. It shows what a wide range you can realize just based on your usage features which is not unexpected. Thanks Again ;)
 
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I don't understand some people's battery ratings. Me personally when I'm talking about battery life, I'm usually referring to constant heavy usage with 4G, GPS off.

What's the point of having a smart phone if you cant use it? Which is why I only rate it under heavy use. Under heavy it lasted about 8 hrs.
 
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How do you have yours set up? I'm still trying to figure out how to tweak mine for improved life. I installed a Task Killer but it doesn't seem to make a difference, and just yesterday after all that mine was dead after about 9 hours. Any advice? I'm running 3G (don't live in a 4G area), bluetooth off, wifi on, gps on, and all my apps are only updating every 3 hours. Checking mail once an hour. Screen brightness probably on about 25% of full brightness.

alright, let me see if i can remember every single thing i've done here...

disable wifi and 4G network notifications by:
menu > Settings -> Wireless & networks -> Wi-Fi settings
uncheck the network notification box.

menu > Settings -> Wireless & networks -> 4G settings

disable always on mobile data by:
menu > Settings -> Wireless & networks -> Mobile networks

change your wifi sleep policy for when you are connected to wifi by:
menu > Settings -> Wireless & networks -> Wi-Fi Settings
press the menu button again, hit advanced, then wi-fi sleep policy. choose "never" from the pop-up menu.

change GSM auto prl to CDMA auto prl by:
hit Phone (to get into your dialer) > dial *#*#4636#*#*
wait a second (no need to hit dial) and a new window will pop up.
then hit phone information. change what says "GSM auto prl" to "CDMA auto prl"

you can also disable background data and auto-sync but this is not necessary. i'm currently averaging about ~38hrs on one single charge, no joke (with my auto-sync and background data still running.)
to disable background data and auto-sync: (again, not necessary)
menu > settings > accounts and sync > uncheck "background data"

also, turn off all haptic feedback. i hate it personally and it just drains the battery.
menu > settings > sounds and display > uncheck haptic feedback
menu > settings > language and keyboard > touch input > text input > uncheck "vibrate when typing"

oh, with my auto-sync and background data still on, i have my accounts set to sync every 4hrs. email still pushes in a timely manner, though.

but yeah, these are my settings. no task killer, no battery widget. you can find out how much battery is left just by typing in the *#*$4636#*#* into the dialer and then going to the phone info.

i'd consider myself a moderate user. i do texts, download crap from the market, make a few calls here and there, and sometimes i'll randomly just turn the screen on to look at it haha (actually, this is very frequent now that i think about it). it's a nice screen so i can't help myself.

edit: useful app
http://www.appbrain.com/app/com.vesperaNovus.app.StartupAuditorFree - kills things like gtalk and sprint services at reboot so you don't have to go into your running services everytime you reboot just to kill these things off.
some useful shortcuts i put on my screen were "accounts and sync" and "running services". you should def go into your running services and kill off anything sprint related. only things i have running in there right now are:
calendar : obexservice
calendar: connectivityservice
google: gtalkservice
voicemail: cm_service
HTC DM: htcdmservice
HTC IQAgent: agentservice
com.smithmicro.DM: DMServiceApp
Touch Input: touch input
gmail unread count: monitorunreadservice (self installed app)

nothing else should be running unless you're actually using it.

edit:
disabling gtalk will cause gmail to stop syncing if you're using the gmail app. not sure about the native mail app, but i do know that killing gtalk will cause your gmail to stop syncing in the background.

i think that's everything. if someone would like to add anything please feel free to and i'll edit this post. pictures later tonight (prob 2AM EST or later if i'm still up) as proof.

but i pretty much think those are all the tweaks you need to make and you'll be getting similar battery life as myself. hell, if you're a heavy user, you should get no less than 20hrs on one charge. unless you're streaming pandora the whole day or something haha.

and feel free to PM me if you still have questions, as i don't subscribe to every thread i post in and miss things from time to time.

edit: currently at 68% after 12hrs and 3min. since being unplugged.
this is still on track to hit a run time of ~38hrs.
awake time is at about 4hrs and 50min.

battery3.png


battery2.png


battery.png


it's too late for me to try and explain this. the important thing to know is that you can almost double my awake time (which means more of a power user) and last a full day (~19hrs).
 
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This may be a dumb question, I'm a little new to android but how exactly is this done:

change GSM auto prl to CDMA auto prl by:
Phone > *#*$4636#*#* > phone information > cdma auto prl

I don't quite understand how to get to the phone information part.

if you're on HTC Sense, hit the phone at the bottom. if you're on stock Android, you would hit the phone icon. then just type that in (*#*#4636#*#*). wait a few seconds and a new menu will pop up. you don't need to hit call or anything. then hit phone information. scroll down. then change what says "GSM auto prl" to "CDMA auto prl"

edit: sorry, i just noticed i made a typo in the number. it was a lot to type, so sue me :p
try that in bold now

edit: i read that GSM prl enables your phone to search for a GSM signal, which it can't pick up, so it just constantly keeps searching, in turn draining your battery. not even sure why GSM would be anywhere on a CDMA phone. i got this step from the xda developers site, btw.
i'm currently trying to locate the article there but am having no luck. plus, i gotta finish up my work before i leave here in another 20min
 
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