Help Battery Life Questions

[mjs2011]

Hi, I am a new Optimus/Smartphone user, and I have some basic questions regarding battery life:

1. Should I use a program like Juice Defender? Does it actually work?

2. Does turning on USB Debugging actually work?

3. Should I only turn on 3G or Wifi when I want to go on the internet and leave it turned off the rest of the time?

4. Any other general tips?


Thanks, this forum has been extremely helpful so far. I absolutely love this phone, but the battery just drains so quickly. After charging all night Saturday night, the battery had drained to below 40% by around 1pm on Sunday.

 

[rvamx]

Hi, new here, but can vouch for a few of your questions. I'll preface my post by saying that I usually get 3 full days out of my standard LG Optimus before needing a charge. This is with "average" (I think) daily usage, ie: 150 texts (sent + received), 30 minutes of talk, 20 minutes of applications or web.

1) JuiceDefender: I installed this soon after purchasing the phone. After a few days, I compared it's results to my own settings. (My settings: turning 3G off when not in use using Quick Settings app). The results were the same. I uninstalled JuiceDefender because I found it easier to switch 3G off/on using Quick Settings. Saved some app space and gives me a more "I'm in control" feeling.

2) 3G: I keep it off most of the day. I only turn it on when I want to check email, etc, then back off. Of course those who need real time email notifications will want to keep 3G on all the time. I can get by with checking email when I want to.

 

[mjs2011]

Thanks. I downloaded Juice Defender and am thinking about uninstalling it. I've seen some people say it's a great app, but I'm not sure.

 

[rvamx]

That's the great thing about these phones and smartphones in general. You can pretty much customize them to whatever suits you best. Try a few apps, see what they do, uninstall them and try a few more. It's a great way to learn different things that the phone can do and soon enough you'll have a smooth running little machine that does everything that you want it to (realistically).

 

[Raig]

I don't use JuiceDefender, but I do use a different app by those same developers named "JuicePlotter." This tracks your battery level minute by minute, showing when the radio frequencies are accessed (gps, wifi, data). You can really see how leaving data and wifi on will start the drain, even if you're not using the phone. After a few days the home screen widget will give you a pretty reliable estimate of how many hours are left in the charge, though of course it starts to fall as soon as you start using stuff intensively.

The key to longer battery life is to disable the radios so that no app will keep making inquiries while the phone is in your pocket. I use the "Data Enabler" widget to turn off data just before I put the phone to sleep, and then when I wake it up the setting is sitting there waiting for me to turn it on again. During the night I only lose about 1% of the juice. I can easily get 3 or more days out of a charge unless I'm using the browser intensively, or listening to a baseball game. Even so, when I'm sitting down for long periods of time -- at home, in the car, at the office -- I always leave it plugged in.

 

[fightingirish]

Juice Defender essentially turns off 3G and other networks when the phone is not in use (or goes to the lock screen). So in theory, it does help conserve battery life between charges, and works automatically. I do suggest disabling it when running a streaming program like Pandora (as I finally realized after wondering about the 2 minutes of silence between songs).

 

[syav]

I disable GPS and switch to airplane mode when I'm at work or at night when I'm asleep. Wi-Fi is always off.

I didn't like Juicedefender. Currently I'm using Battery Monitor Widget. My suggestion, go to market and type 'battery manager' on the search bar. Download 1 or 2 apps. If u don't like what u see, uninstall and download another. After a couple try-outs you'll find a app that suits u best

 

[Thorsten]

Should I only turn on 3G or Wifi when I want to go on the internet and leave it turned off the rest of the time?

Only if conserving battery power is an absolute priority for you. When you leave both Wifi and 3G off, you won't get email notifications, e.g. While YMMV, as always, here is what I have found

 

[mjs2011]

Only if conserving battery power is an absolute priority for you. When you leave both Wifi and 3G off, you won't get email notifications, e.g. While YMMV, as always, here is what I have found

 

[djs7566]

I use Quick Settings to manually manage my 3G, WiFi, and GPS radios. I keep them all off until I need them, and my phone will still have 50% after 15 hours of occasional texting. The nice thing about Quick Settings is it also makes your WiFi hotspot easily accesible without rooting. I recommend it.

 

[mjs2011]

yeah, i think i'm going to continue to keep my 3G off until i need it. at work today, when the phone was sitting in idle, it dropped from 99% to 97% over a 4 hour span. i tested it by then turning on 3G after lunch (after lunch my battery was at 89% because i went on the internet). my battery dropped from 89% to 78% in under 3 hours. note that i didn't change any other settings.

it's not a huge deal because i have a car charger, but if i'm ever going to be somewhere without access to a charger for a long period of time, i will definitely have wifi and 3G turned off.

 

[lizm]

It's also worth buying 1-2 extra batteries. The ones I got on ebay work just as well as OEM, at least for awhile, were dirt cheap ($10ish for two batteries and charger), and serve me well when I'm camping over a long weekend without access to a charger.

 

[Leslie Ann]

If you truly want to increase your battery life, root and remove the junk or better yet install another rom.

Compared to stock, you can double the battery life.

 

[Chris951]

I'm running the stock rom not rooted and I've had my phone off the charger for 5 hours now and my battery is currently at 81%. I never turn 3g off and I've been using my phone for the full 5 hours (texting, browsing the internet, checking my email).

One thing I noticed is those stupid task killer apps kill my battery. And I've never used that juice defender app. I am pleased with my battery life. I can go all day using my phone and not have to worry about my phone dying. Pretty good for a touch screen android smart phone.

My girlfriend has an HTC Droid Eris and she has to constantly charge that damn phone. And she hardly uses it during the day because she's at school. She even has the backlight set to go off after 5 seconds and turned the screen brightness all the way down lol

 

[mjs2011]

If you truly want to increase your battery life, root and remove the junk or better yet install another rom.

Compared to stock, you can double the battery life.

i've debated on rooting but i just don't know that i'm comfortable doing that. it seems very risky. i don't want to break the phone.

 

[lou61166]

i've debated on rooting but i just don't know that i'm comfortable doing that. it seems very risky. i don't want to break the phone.

Actually rooting the phone does not harm the phone,it just gives you SU # if you ever worked with Linux you would understand better,where you would run a risk of screwing the phone up would be installing one of these custom Roms,where you are flashing into the firmware and or boot-loader,and basically becoming a beta tester,but you can be assured that plenty of no it alls have bricked android phones and got an exchange for them even though they voided the warranty.

 

[mjs2011]

Actually rooting the phone does not harm the phone,it just gives you SU # if you ever worked with Linux you would understand better,where you would run a risk of screwing the phone up would be installing one of these custom Roms,where you are flashing into the firmware and or boot-loader,and basically becoming a beta tester,but you can be assured that plenty of no it alls have bricked android phones and got an exchange for them even though they voided the warranty.

Thanks. And I'm not even sure that I would install a new ROM. Is there any benefit to rooting if I don't install a new ROM? I'm asking in regards to internal phone storage and battery life.....or anything else cool that I could do.

Thanks!

 

[lou61166]

Thanks. And I'm not even sure that I would install a new ROM. Is there any benefit to rooting if I don't install a new ROM? I'm asking in regards to internal phone storage and battery life.....or anything else cool that I could do.

Thanks!

Sure is, you can create 2 primary partitions on your SD card,and then use a market app called link2SD to move all but the stock apps to the SD card,including the Dalvik-Cache.you can also remove stock apps i for one have just about 100 apps linked to my SD card,and still have 50 MB of internal storage,i have tried some basic custom roms and other then being able to overclock the cpu do not see any other benefits,if you deiced to do any of these tricks read into it,and understand the risks,more so when flashing custom Roms.

 

[Thorsten]

How do I disable dropping Wifi when the screen goes off?

Wi-Fi Settings (you already know how to get to those) → Menu (left-most hardware button) → Advanced → Wi-Fi sleep policy → Never

 

[mjs2011]

so taking a step back, this may sound really dumb, but what button do you normally press to exit applications? one of my coworkers told me that she presses and holds the far left button when exiting any app. she states that it completely closes the app instead of leaving it running in the background.

at the moment, i normally hit the home button when exiting out of an app. my coworker also told me that she goes to Settings -> Applications -> Running and then force stops any apps that running but not in use.

thoughts?

 

[lizm]

I tend to use the back button if i want to close the app. I use home to switch to something else, thinking to go back.

 

[adam97202]

one of my coworkers told me that she presses and holds the far left button when exiting any app.

That doesn't seem to have any effect at all.

 

[mjs2011]

so i think i found the root of my problem. i'm going to leave 3G on and test this process today:

http://androidforums.com/lg-optimus-v/293583-3g-drops-standby-battery-drain-solutions.html


edit: i guess there's some concern about messing with the network settings....not quite sure if i should use this. i did check the battery usage and i am at 50% of time without signal.

 

[rubyiris]

I get about 10 hours of life out of EXTREMELY heavy use. We're talking GPS constantly on, Latitude refreshing every 15 minutes/Wheres my droid, using the internet CONSTANTLY for Meebo/Amazon Cloud Player/Pandora/Last.FM/Facebook/Weather.

 

[tranova]

its definitely the 3g. I turned mine off yesterday and i still haven't had to charge!!! i've been at home for most of the time so i've just turned on my wifi. amazing the battery used by 3g!!