T_I

Hello,

Last Wednesday I received the new company phone, or at least my choice of the set, being the lightest, (after ditching the previous Samsung windows mobile for a Nokia 6310i and later E51) and I have to say, it's a nice phone. Kinda bulky, but hey, that's what you get when they stuff all kinds of nice extras into it.

I however won't be using anything regularly, except for the dialer. Even messaging won't be used, as I have a private phone for this. What can I completely turn of or even better, remove, without rooting and thus violating warranty the device.

I've seen weather, stock exchange, email, browser. All can be default off or even removed. I've tried an app starter blocker, but the apps are getting started anyway. (which would probably drain battery this way, so kicked it of again)

At this moment i have:

• switched net usage to gsm only (no reception at home on the other)
• disabled packet data
• disabled background sync
• disabled wifi, bluetooth, gps, vibrate

The first charge lasted 1 day, but I've been installing via wifi and playing a bit with it. Is there any chance the device will reach the 610 hours standby time Samsung is advertising?

As I've seen complaints about 3-10 hours battery life, I guess I've been lucky with 1 day, but it would be very nice to get it up to 5 days, a work week, as I'll turn it of in the weekends anyway. It would be very nice to be able to charge it on Monday and use it till Friday.

I'm now draining the battery completely (put it in the laptop bag, sound off). With the Nokia N900 the device refuses to charge when the battery is completely dead. Is this a problem on the GS2?

Also, I was wondering, is there a way to immediately lock the screen and turn the screen off, instead of waiting for the time-out?

Greetings,

Jan Huijsmans

Last edited by T_I; June 18th, 2011 at 02:31 AM. Reason: Haven't found a way to add signature... yet. (so included)

novemberwhiskey

5 days would be nice, but i don't know of any smartphone at this level that gets anywhere close to that.

My personal best on the Dx is 2 days, and I consider that amazing.

I think 2 days is perfect, because it gives you the ability to make to to an overnight charge, and more in case you have to miss one night. I see no reason to go days without charging if you can just plug in every 1-2 nights.

T_I

Over night charging is no option, the phone will be in my bag overnight.

So to get the best out of it is to just turn it of when I go home and on when I arrive at work. If this is needed to get through the week I'm fine. (every day charging at work is a pain, as all USB ports are in use and the main outlets are almost impossible to reach)

stokesd3

You can lock your phone manually by pressing the button on the right hand side of the handset.

Unfortunately 5 days will always be pipe dreams. Keeping your display brightness low will help as that's the biggest killer but with light usage 3 days will be your lot I'm afraid. Additionally, try switching to flight mode if you're not bothered about using calls or data at that time. I personally use that at night so that I can use the alarm still.

Finally note if your company has enforced encryption settings on the phone that will also sap the battery dry

Tinderbox (UK)

You might get 4 days with the extended battery in the link below, but it defeats the point of the SGS2 being so light.

[BATTERY] Extended Battery 3500mAH with Back Case - xda-developers

T_I

I'll test the button, thanks. Using flight mode is also an option. Is there an app to set the phone to sleep mode or something like that and wake it up when needed? I can also just let is die and charge it the next morning at work. (which I did with the Nokias)

Investing in hardware for a company phone I won't be using outside company hours is not what I was planned, but I guess the link is useful for some colleagues who are willing to invest.

I'll keep records on the batterylife I'll get with the stock 6.11 Wh battery.

Tinderbox (UK)

There is an app called "Green Power" , I bought the full version myself , if has an night mode, that you can turn of all wifi gps and alike or you can use flight mode.

It gets good reviews

https://market.android.com/search?q=green+power&so=1&c=apps

loony

get an extra battery (or 2)? they dont cost oo much and some come with a little charging dock for them too. might be a pain to swap them around but you wont have to wait for the charge

Tinderbox (UK)

Have you seen how flimsy the battery door is, I can just see those clips breaking off

I love how light the SGS2 is though.

T_I

Green power is nice, but it toggles wifi on and off, i want is really of. It could be a nice tool, but it's not 'off till I turn it on'.

Switching batteries is not something I would like to do often if it's my phone. The back cover is just to flimsy. I'll try if my boss is willing to pay for the battery. When I'm going to invest it's going to be a dual sim phone. (non smart )

loony

over here you could just right the expense off on tax, as for the battery cover, once again, ive seen replacement which i would go for AFTER hassling samsung for a new one,
until then =

YouTube - ‪??? S2 (Galaxy S II) - ?????(Battery Cover)‬‏

Tinderbox (UK)

Nice video loony, I did not realise the back cover was that strong

loony

yeah, put my mind at ease when choosing what phone i wanted. but im not gunna test it out like that guy lol

T_I

Good to see the backcover is flexible enough to withstand this kind of usage.

BTW the battery is stil not empty, after 2 days. (less then 30% remaining after I stopped playing with it on Friday ) Looks like I got the trick to save battery power.

greggebhardt

I remember the first time I removed the back from my new SG2 and heard those horrible clicks as I pulled it away from the body. Was really unhappy about how flimsy the back was till I put it back on and saw how well the whole thing worked.

I can not complain about any of the build quality on the SG2, it is as good as it gets.

T_I

At this moment I'm pretty pleased with the phone, it fit's in the side pocket of the laptop bag, and at the moment It's been on from 30% charge down for over 2 days and 14 hours. (This was after finally getting a backup from it via Kies)

Baines93

Could you not just remove the root and flash the "flash counter" in the phone so that it appears to never have been flashed before, if and when you need anything warranty related?

I reckon if you rooted it you could freeze tons if you only want basic usage... that would probably more than double your two/three days.

ajh94

My record is 3 days and 13 hours... I had just about everything off unless i was using it at the time

__________________
Devices:
- HTC One X (Stock on Orange UK)
- Samsung Galaxy S II (Running D4 ROM on giffgaff)
- HTC Desire (Running GingerVILLAIN, with no SIM )

TheHoodedClaw

WOW, that's great and reassuring about the battery cover! I won't be able to try it myself until Sprint gets the S II in the USA....but maybe not even then....

T_I

I've disconnected the phone from the charger last Monday, 7:00 (local time) and just now (16:30) it passed the 70% charge level. Also everything of, phone limited to gsm only. This is with installing 2 apps via data packet service and a very short time playing with the mobile wifi AP.

I'm pretty pleased, It could even last 2 weeks with my usage. (approx 1-2 calls per working day, completely ignored otherwise)

I noticed the background sync being the biggest power consumer. Even with all data connections turned of it still tried to sync. (costing lots of power for not)

Scainer

I discovered the same thing. Its crazy how much android eats when left unrestrained.
Its a little inconvenient to always do manual updates, e.g. weather, mail,etc
But....the battery life gain is staggering.

The reason I discovered this was because my speakers wouldn't shut up, due to the data connection sound.
I believe that even when the data is switched off the android OS tries to connect. It may try several times until it gives up. This in my opinion is why the battery gets eaten by the android OS.
By switching off background sync, the OS doesn't try to sync and this saves battery.
In a way i'd love an option for sync intervals directly for the OS, just as apps have.

mrvirginia

yes, i believe what you're referring to is this Samsung Galaxy SII I9100 USB Jig-RESET FLASH COUNT TO 0 | eBay

apparently, though, there's another hidden counter on top of this one lol

__________________
Galaxy Nexus i9250 unlocked and rooted

Last edited by mrvirginia; June 23rd, 2011 at 10:26 AM.

T_I

Indeed. The manual updates aren't a problem here. It's the company phone and I use the phone to be called by colleagues or call them. However, I just discovered the wifi hotspot option and it's usefull, when needed. I guess it'll eat lots of battery life, but when needed, it's useful. (due to the unlimited data pack on the phone)

I'm going to try to reach next Friday afternoon with the charge it has now.

Randy

I used "Timeriffic" on my Hero and it worked seamlessly. Really helped battery time...

Gonna download it for My S2

loony

thanks randy, looks good.
i got "tasker" and "llama" but still havent figured them out yet :/ this looks very good for what i was chasing.

Last edited by loony; June 25th, 2011 at 08:22 PM.

sjedwardz

There is a good thread on this over at XDA developers. Seems like widgets are causing the problem - not necessary themselves maybe more like how Samsung are managing them.

Try removing ALL widgets - shortcuts are OK. Reboot and then see how you get on.

This really worked for me. Plus I disabled background data. Apps can still access internet if you launch them. You will have to reenable this to use the Marketplace for some reason - but just switch off again later.

Hopefully doing this you won't need to root.

mfj197

Just thought I'd share my experiences with this one. I too had awful battery life with the phone struggling to make it through the night. The phone kept on waking up of its own accord and consuming significant amounts of power, and Android OS and Wifi sharing were large power hogs. My inital steps were:

• Turned off bluetooth and GPS (although if they are behaving themselves properly this shouldn't make much difference)
• Set a Network SSID and WPA2 password for portable Wifi hotspot. Not that I was using tethering, but it was set to be open.
• Disabled "Use wireless networks" and "use GPS satellites" in the Location and security menu
• At some point I also set the "USB debugging" mode to on, but I can't remember when. I note that in another thread a user noted this may have helped. Incidentally I have it turned off now.

That resulted in a definite improvement, with the phone running for 1 day and 3 hours with reasonable usage. Not great, but not too bad (I was used to recharging my iPhone every night). The phone still woke up in the middle of the night and remained on for quite a while (according to the graph) but interestingly didn't appear to consume any more power when it did.




I then turned off Background data. This was the most significant improvement, leading to the phone running for 2 days 3 hours with moderate usage. Note that push emails still come through, but the phone no longer wakes up at inopportune times at night.




That sort of battery life is more than enough for me, and I haven't noticed the limitations of not having background data. My weather widget still refreshes, my calendar is still updated - no problems. I'll try re-enabling GPS and bluetooth and see how the next run is.

jimmur_2000

Battery issue (AndroidOS "bug") - tests & workaround (3% loss over 9 hours!!!) - xda-developers

I've removed all my widgets and the battery life is a hell of a lot better. Easily on par with my old 3gs.

T_I

First testrun was ended this morning. Somewere between 8:00 en 9:00 the phone died. (I was in the car and sound was disabled) So it managed 14 days + approx 1 hour on the first full charge. It's good enough for me. It's usable as a phone and I can even use it for other 'stuff' without it dying on me within 1 day/ (or even 1 week)

Prabhudev

By the way can anyone please suggest me the best free battery saving application available on the android market. I have been trying several applications but in vain.

heshanj

green power is good. i dont use it, but if u want an app to turn off stuff when it thinks ur not using it, green power is the best ive tried. better than juice defender, i think

__________________

Twinn

Hi, i would deffo recommend You app called Juice Defender! its free but in basic ver theres not much u can change in settings... but buying Ultimate ver (cost 5e) is worth it! i had serious battery drain before using this app and since then i see significant change for better IMHO it`s the best battery saver on the market!! (trust me... i tried a lot of this type of apps)

TobesEtc

Can I just add a comment for people who may be reading this and trying to decide what phone to buy. In my opinion...if you genuinely just want a phone with long battery life and don't need messaging, email etc: buy a regular phone from Nokia. If you need a portable email handset and no other "smart phone" apps, then buy a Blackberry. If you are going to use apps, then think smartphone. Personally I cannot abide Apple but if your main criteria is music and you already have a large iTunes library and you are lazy then an iPhone might be worth considering (did I really say that?). However, if like me you want more...then the SGS2 is an awesome phone. It has replaced my HTC Desire, iPod Touch (used for car music) and TomTom satnav with a single integrated unit that does it all. With bells and whistles! Just my opinion - don't shoot me! )

T_I

Sorry to say, but a smartphone could be a useful tool if you just want a phone with long battery life. They designed the thing to survive heavy usage for 1 day with a battery to match. When you turn all gadgets off, you get a very long battery life. How do I know? Well, just tested it. I'm about to charge it for the forth time since I have it. (15th of June)

As stated in another thread, numbers don't prove anything without pictures...



Yeah, 12% leff after 15d14h48m52s. (just click on the image for the bigger picture)

The photo's were taken with a Samsung camera, before fiddling with the phone to figure out how to make a screen-shot. (which cost me 3% battery in 15 minutes) As I discovered, you simply don't without sdk and windows (why would I have a Linux phone and have windows at home? ) or rooting it. (employer owned phone). The only way I could find is with dxtop, but that app requires an phone button or a scroll wheel. (both not on the phone) I also found holding down back button and press home or power, which both don't work with the S2.

I could get it to 16-17 days, but after dropping below 10% charge, the display becomes very dim, so I need the screen-shot feature. Any tips to save a screen-shot on this phone without sdk or rooting it?

Wullie

The S2 has a screenshot facility built in. Press 'Home' and 'Power' at the same time.

suhailmoghul

Very impressive stats. The best SMARTPHONE out in the market at the moment(and yes I do have a Galaxy SII).

T_I

That is what I found, but all this does at my phone is lock the screen.

It gets even more impressive. This morning I finally had to charge the phone and it gave the total time it had been on battery since the last charge. (yeah, it was really empty)



17d13h16m26s

I have to be honest, it's used as a phone, not as a smartphone. I could have chosen to use my own phone, but then the employer would have demanded it to be able to sync email and contact, which I don't use. So I accepted the phone and turned everything that I don't use of and switched to the lesser used GSM network.

This batterylife was generated with everything off, GSM network selected (lot better coverage overhere) and minimal use. (30 min - 1 hour call time) I'm impressed, they can produce phones with decent battery life, but they'll only sell it as a smartphone.

The biggest powerconsumers I found were in (suspected) order:

• Background sync
  Will even try to sync with data usage, wifi etc turned off
• Positioning junk
  Positioning via network, gps,... the lot
• Wifi
  Keeps on scanning
• Bluetooth
• UMTS network
  Or the non gsm one, it keeps on scanning and at my house with HR++ glazing I have barely gor gsm coverage of this provider, no UMTS coverage

My advise for everybody trying to get the most out of the battery would be, disable all you don't actively use. (so when you don't read email, the sync is not needed, only when installing via market and afterwards it van be disabled again)

Subscription prices in The Netherlands are rocketing (from 10 euro unlimited to 80 euro limited to 1.5 GB per month), so limiting your data usage is cost effective. (when coughing up the cash yourself )

T_I

Hmmm, was pressing back and power, not home and power. That's working for a screenshot.

loony

*let go of the power button a split second first before the home.

MikeP0001

I usually charge my S2 once a week. I use JuiceDefender.

renee0986

Although the battery door may appear flimsy it's difficult to damage. When I was first considering an S2 I made the same observation to the technician working in the store. He promptly removed the battery door and bent it in half and it flexed back to it's original shape. If your phone is made the same way as mine I don't think you have to worry about breaking the battery door by removing it frequently to swap out batteries.