Help Battery discussions, maintaining battery life

[2strokenut]

what is a baseline for GOOD battery life? I've seen Earlymon make the case that what our phones do compared to a laptop is pretty amazing but we expect our phones to have 10x time better battery life.

 

[novox77]

Any given action requires a certain amount of processing power (aka battery life). If your phone is not draining much when you're not using it, then you're getting good battery life. If you think you aren't, your expectation of power consumption probably needs adjustment. Like someone else said, these phones are doing a lot of work. When you compare the same work to a laptop, these phones are almost an order of magnitude more efficient.

From my experience, the people with true battery life problems are the ones that can claim they just have the phone in their pocket the whole day, and it's dead before night.

The problem with quantifying battery life is that everyone's definition of usage is subjective. My moderate usage won't be equal to your moderate usage. Some functions use more power than others, so even if your phone usage is short, you could end up with a dead battery faster than someone else.

 

[EarlyMon]

what is a baseline for GOOD battery life? I've seen Earlymon make the case that what our phones do compared to a laptop is pretty amazing but we expect our phones to have 10x time better battery life.

I would submit that we're not driving anywhere near the display size or a hard drive. And there's a big difference in battery sizes.

I get about 5 hours of hard use (by any measure) from a laptop.

I expect moderate use of a phone to exceed a day, and moderate / heavy to last nearly a day.

I agree that moderate and heavy are strictly subjective, but I take the same position as the Supreme Court did on porn - I know it when I see it.

Social networking syncing is a battery hog. So are instant messaging apps. It's tempting to have an instant messenger running and have no messages go in or out, and call that low use (because the observer saw no action) but that's not true. And that's an architectural issue beyond Android - but the phone is always blamed.

Were we to see improvement in push technology for all areas of weather, stocks, mail, messaging, social stuff, etc etc, we might more quickly agree on these definitions of use. Too many apps work in processor and network intensive loops seeing if new information is available to be pulled in, and these are the battery hogs.

Let me put it this way.

If you run nothing, just idle, you can do it for a very long time, yet never miss an incoming call, or SMS.

That is an example of perfected push technology.

Other apps need to behave like that.

 

[RichboyJhae]

I don't think we have that much to worry about when it comes to battery thus far. The one x and one s have been getting pretty good battery reports and standby results on 3G. With the bigger battery on el tevo, along with hopefully a fix on that misplaced apk, it should be pretty impressive.

 

[NeoteriX]

I don't think we have that much to worry about when it comes to battery thus far. The one x and one s have been getting pretty good battery reports and standby results on 3G. With the bigger battery on el tevo, along with hopefully a fix on that misplaced apk, it should be pretty impressive.

FYI, misplaced APK is a non issue for the LTEvo, as it will be using the Qualcomm S4 Krait and not the nVIdia Tegra 3 (for which that issue is specific to).

 

[NeoteriX]

It's official: consumers have voted and that's why the One X/LTEvo has a sealed battery. Thinness is in.

HTC: customers prefer thin phones to better battery life | The Verge

At an event today, HTC's vice president of product strategy Bjorn Kilburn noted that the company had conducted research last year to find out whether customers preferred thin smartphones to those which compromised thickness for better battery life. The answer, interestingly, was that they generally preferred thinness, at which point its plans for 3,000mAh-plus devices were removed from the roadmap.

It's not particularly surprising though, as the most popular smartphone of all time, the iPhone has had a sealed battery since forever, and that fact has not stopped consumers from buying them in droves. It's too bad however that the standardized design of the iPhone means plenty of battery packs/battery cases/battery chargers to choose from. We won't be as lucky.

 

[SamuraiBigEd]

It's official: consumers have voted and that's why the One X/LTEvo has a sealed battery. Thinness is in.

HTC: customers prefer thin phones to better battery life | The Verge



It's not particularly surprising though, as the most popular smartphone of all time, the iPhone has had a sealed battery since forever, and that fact has not stopped consumers from buying them in droves. It's too bad however that the standardized design of the iPhone means plenty of battery packs/battery cases/battery chargers to choose from. We won't be as lucky.

The problem with "market research" is the cross sections are quite often not an accurate representation of the public or device users. Many of these studies are a general at large study and can miss the target, what the general consumer wants as opposed to the business or power user can make a huge difference.

Everybody I personally know has gotten all excited when I mention the LTEvo until I tell them about the battery then they all say the same thing, forget it. Granted we all fall into the latter categories but not one of us ever had any communication from HTC about market research and I have been with them since the Mogul and am a member on the HTC forums.

My hopes are that HTC will wake up and make a Note size phone!:thumbup:

 

[i.have.droid]

My EVO loses battery life doing nothing, but whatever. It's almost time for a new one.

Main question, in the sticky there is a linked review where the poster states that the lte battery is 7.5 hours. What does this mean compared to the EVO original in comparison?

 

[Sauske]

My EVO loses battery life doing nothing, but whatever. It's almost time for a new one.

Main question, in the sticky there is a linked review where the poster states that the lte battery is 7.5 hours. What does this mean compared to the EVO original in comparison?

We have a someone in this forum who actually gave a review of the One X and said he got 15hrs out of the phone. Granted this is not LTE included as the One X doesn't have LTE, but I think that good and could give us a round-a-bout guess where the LTEvo can do, and also considering that the LTEvo has a larger battery!

 

[Lord Vader]

My EVO loses battery life doing nothing, but whatever. It's almost time for a new one.

Main question, in the sticky there is a linked review where the poster states that the lte battery is 7.5 hours. What does this mean compared to the EVO original in comparison?

That's nothing. My sister has the 3500mAh extended battery on her rooted phone. Within 2 hours of unplugging it from its charger, it drops from 100% to 60%. It goes completely dead within the next 3-5 hours. She has double-checked and stopped every app or unnecessary process that she doesn't need running, too, but that hasn't helped. I told her odds are that it's her battery--a bad one.

 

[2strokenut]

That's nothing. My sister has the 3500mAh extended battery on her rooted phone. Within 2 hours of unplugging it from its charger, it drops from 100% to 60%. It goes completely dead within the next 3-5 hours. She has double-checked and stopped every app or unnecessary process that she doesn't need running, too, but that hasn't helped. I told her odds are that it's her battery--a bad one.

"rooted" tells us nothing. If shes rooted and getting terrible battery life even with a huge ass battery then it is her fault and she needs to figure out a better Rom and Kernel combo.

 

[Lord Vader]

She's using the same ROM and kernel combo I and many others are using. That's not the problem. It's most likely a battery gone bad.

 

[rcubed3r]

Will LTE be a battery killer like 4G?

 

[Sauske]

Will LTE be a battery killer like 4G?

Yes! America wants fast and it will come at a cost! The LTE chipset is new, and in the future they will make it more efficient and consume less power. Think of it like the PS3 they had the fat model and later on they built the slim version that consume less power and more efficient!

 

[NeoteriX]

That's nothing. My sister has the 3500mAh extended battery on her rooted phone. Within 2 hours of unplugging it from its charger, it drops from 100% to 60%. It goes completely dead within the next 3-5 hours. She has double-checked and stopped every app or unnecessary process that she doesn't need running, too, but that hasn't helped. I told her odds are that it's her battery--a bad one.

Something is very, very wrong there.

 

[Lord Vader]

Yeah, no kidding.

 

[i.have.droid]

Sauske you are in my neck of the woods..maybe we will get LTE pretty quick like with the 4g.

The problem with 4g is it sucked my battery so fast that I could never use it.

Also until I rooted my phone I would lose range super fast with even 3g.

My coworker has an Iphone and we went to a convention..browsed the web a little..called people..texted and my phone was dead by 3pm. She was at 20% before we turned in for the night.

So im a little bitter over the battery life from the EVO..lol. And this is with multiple kernel/ROMs and a new battery purchase as well.

 

[Sauske]

Sauske you are in my neck of the woods..maybe we will get LTE pretty quick like with the 4g.

The problem with 4g is it sucked my battery so fast that I could never use it.

Also until I rooted my phone I would lose range super fast with even 3g.

My coworker has an Iphone and we went to a convention..browsed the web a little..called people..texted and my phone was dead by 3pm. She was at 20% before we turned in for the night.

So im a little bitter over the battery life from the EVO..lol. And this is with multiple kernel/ROMs and a new battery purchase as well.

Yes the 4G zap the life out of the battery! I'm rooted as well, but every once in a while I would get signal issue! At home I actually get one bar in a certain spot !

 

[mak916]

That's nothing. My sister has the 3500mAh extended battery on her rooted phone. Within 2 hours of unplugging it from its charger, it drops from 100% to 60%. It goes completely dead within the next 3-5 hours. She has double-checked and stopped every app or unnecessary process that she doesn't need running, too, but that hasn't helped. I told her odds are that it's her battery--a bad one.

What brand is the battery? Where did she get it from? I had an extended battery on my old EVO and it lasted over 18 hours with moderate to heavy use. I bought mine on ebay.

 

[mak916]

Do you mean using extended batteries? The Evo 4G 3500 extended battery adds 6mm. That a little too much for me.

HTC could easily make a case like this for it. mophie juice pack plus

 

[Lord Vader]

What brand is the battery? Where did she get it from? I had an extended battery on my old EVO and it lasted over 18 hours with moderate to heavy use. I bought mine on ebay.

It's a Seidio, the best ones out there.

 

[mak916]

HTC posted this on Facebook.

You’ve Spoken, We?re Listening ? Improving Battery Life

 

[Sauske]

EarlyMon or novox77; I have a question! I've heard people mention it, but I never actually took it serious!? When you first get your phone, should you let it charge for a specific amount of hours or until it's just fully charged (greenlight)! Does this method help improve your battery life in the long run!?

 

[NeoteriX]

EarlyMon or novox77; I have a question! I've heard people mention it, but I never actually took it serious!? When you first get your phone, should you let it charge for a specific amount of hours or until it's just fully charged (greenlight)! Does this method help improve your battery life in the long run!?

How to optimize one's battery will always be a touchy topic filled with lots of differing opinions, anecdotal evidence, and such.

So, with that said, I'll throw my 2 cents in

In my view, most "battery conditioning" tips for lithium ion/polymer batteries are not necessary. The only things to know are: 1) lithium ion batteries age over time as a natural consequence; 2) lithium ion batteries will slowly lose their maximum capacity with every charge/discharge cycle (you cannot avoid this, this is just using the battery); 3) completely discharging your battery will damage it (though all modern electronics shut down devices before that); and 4) many/most devices will "float" charge a battery, meaning that when you hit 100%, it will shut off charging and wait until some set battery level (90 or 95%) until it starts charging again to maximize the life of the battery.

I'll close with one of my more controversial thoughts -- 5) though battery life calibration is important, I think it's not necessary or not a feature on Android phones (though my opinion differs for laptops)!

Other wise people here have differing opinions, but in a nutshell, for lithium ion batteries, the point is, just use it normally and don't sweat the small stuff.

 

[i.have.droid]

HTC posted this on Facebook.

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