Help Battery life vs. usage

[Boredfatman]

Ok, here goes guys.

There have been a lot of posts on here re poor battery life.

However, this simply has not been my experience at all, I get a couple of days out of my SGS whereas some others report only getting a day.

I just thought it would be interesting for us to post in here how much battery life we are getting for the amount of use we put the phone to.

There must be some sort of pattern.

My usage:

anywhere between 10 - 30 texts per day.
Several emails - sending and recieving.
a few phonecalls.
30 Minutes of gaming.
Twitter.
Live wallpaper running.
BBC News widget running and Weatherbug widget running.
I also listen to some music but this varies day by day.
3G and HSPDA are left on constantly as is my wireless.
GPS is turned off.

Thats my usage and i get at least a day and a half.

Would be interesting to compare...

 

[spasm]

i get a day, if not about 10hrs. ive learnt that turning off 3G saves loads of battery too.
my usage is pretty much the same as urs except i do more voice calls by far, i dont play games as im worried it'll kill the battery, and also music, i have tons of tunes on it but don't play any cos it drains the battery. i also only turn on wifi wen im using it as its a fairly quck thing to do

 

[mac93]

The battery life on my S has got severely worse over the last week (I've had the phone about 3 weeks now).
I removed it from it's charger (fully charged) at midnight - it's now 0830, and with no use at all, the battery is down to 43%.
Users are:-
Android OS - 51%
Display - 22%
Cell standby - 14%
Phone idle - 10%
Android system - 2%
WiFi - 2%

I have removed all apps I had previously downloaded, (only Market left on it), switched off GPS and sync and have the screen right down.

Can anyone explain why Android OS seems to be eating my battery? Especially when it doesn't have anything to do......

Also - the battery use monitor seems to be faulty - it thinks the phone was unplugged 55 minutes ago.

Anybody else got anything like this?

Cheers

 

[mac93]

It's now 1215 and the phone is telling me to recharge (battery at 13%).

I've used it for 10mins of surfing this morning and nothing else. Energy culprits now are :-

Display - 41%
Android OS - 35%
Cell standby - 12%
Phone Idle - 8%
Internet - 2%
Android System - 2%
WiFi - 2%

Is my battery knackered (I've totally discharged and fully recharged it 3 times now) or is it the phone?

Oh, and the battery monitor now believes it's been unplugged for 4 1/2 hrs (in reality 8 1/2 hrs)

Help!

 

[deviant]

after having battery issues with my Samsung Galaxy S it only lasted a 24 hours max without much use i.e. mostly stand by few text and small amount of browsing . After seeing a thread suggesting getting a new sim card I have replaced my very old sim car with a brand spanking new one and it has made a massive difference to my battery life. Currently been on 1 day and 7 hours since last charge and I still have 72% battery remaining, and this is with some moderate use posting pictures to facebook going 70mph on the motorway with cell towers handovers.

 

[-Ollie-]

One thing that can also make a significant difference is if there is a base station very close to your home/work place, or on the contrary, very far.
The closest the phone is to a base station, the less energy it uses to communicate with it, and vice versa.

 

[Sleuth]

I live in a basement flat in an area of London with an awful lot of 3g users. For whatever reason, even though I get a decent signal (in terms of bars - great for phone calls) my phone is forever polling the local tower for 3g data - which absolutely kills battery life. My solution is very simple. I turn Wi-Fi on when I get home. I used to find a full battery almost completely drained overnight, now it'll last all weekend without any bother.

I know it's counter-intuitive, but if you find you get poor battery life in a specific location, then turning on Wi-Fi may just be the answer. Give it a try!

Oh and by the way, I've found playing audio doesn't use much juice at all. HSPDA / 3G data up and down is what drains your batteries.

 

[-Ollie-]

In general, for people having battery issues, if you do NOT need high speed data transfer permanently, do use 2G instead of 3G.
2G is good enough for background sync and it is saving the battery.
If you want to switch to 3G/HS(D)(U)PA, easily, there are a few widgets for this, such as "2G-3G OnOff" (available for free on the market).
You can leave your phone on 2G most of the time, and switch it to 3G when you want to surf the web/stream videos/send and receive big emails attachments for example.
Most of the operators have a better 2G coverage than a 3G coverage anyway (not always true, but valid most of the time).

 

[ironman666]

I used to do what ollie said. And only use 2g, and deactivate data transfer with APNdroid widget. Then activate when i surf for some minutes, then deactivate it when i'm done.

But recently i thought, what the hell, i will try and set it to HSDPA, still with data transfer diabled with the APNdroid widget.

Based on my use, i cant see any different in batterylife in EDGE vs HSDPA in terms of just using cell phone radio.

If you are a small surfer like me, then you can use H.
If the datatraffic is on all the time, i think you will save some battarylife, setting it to 2G only