Battery Life

[huytung]

Hmmm just curious that's all, some Droid user above got more than me with the same usage

 

[takeshi]

I didn't realize how much battery GPS tracker sucked down. You should get a extended battery.

Any use of the GPS receiver (not just GPS Tracker) will quickly kill your battery. I don't use Google Nav without plugging in.

The problem with battery discussion threads is that they can rarely account for all the variables that can affect battery life. Without all that info, discussion are pretty pointless except for method for troubleshooting battery life issues. Coverage, usage of things like GPS, WiFi, BT, 3G, etc can greatly impact battery life. Stating "heavy" or "light" usage is pretty meaningless IMO.

 

[crankerchick]

instead of arguing over what is heavy and what is not, why don't you all get an app that will allow you to see your complete usage. something like spare parts, or batter left widget, i'm sure there are others. they allow you to see the statistics already in Android (just not accessible for some reason) of your usage (time running, time with wifi on, time using wifi, time with bt on, time in calls), partial wake usage, gps usage, cpu usage, etc. then you will actually have REAL numbers of how much the phone is being used in a time frame.

39 hours idle, wow that seems not very long. I can leave mine on the stand over night for 8 hours and it will have depleted ~10%. One would think it should make it double the 39 hours, of course the battery doesn't deplete linearly even under constant load.

ETA:
http://www.droidforums.net/forum/dr...9-before-you-complain-about-battery-life.html

 

[brihan]

OK, speaking of extended life batteries...


I'm confused between the battery life of these two 2600mAh Extended Life Batteries.

This one says:
http://www.seidioonline.com/product-p/bacy26mtdd-bk.htm
It has up to 87% more capacity than the original and comes with a black replacement door featuring Seidio's signature soft touch coating.


and this one says:
http://www.seidioonline.com/product-p/bacy26tmg1-bk.htm
It is up to 125% more than the capacity of the original and comes ....


but they are both 2600mAh Extended Life Batteries.

Please explain the difference so I can decide.

Any pros/cons to either or other recommendations?

Thank you,

Brian

 

[mtbhk44]

I use to get horrible battery life like your describing until I took Pete's advice and wiped everything 3 times, I didn't think it would help but low and behold it did.

Please elaborate on this?

I notice that typically, when I wipe and then sparingly reinstall apps, I get battery life in the high 20 hours. The more apps I add, the worse my battery life gets. Ultimately I always end up back in the 15-17 hour range, which is usually fine, but ya know, I'd rather be in the 30 hour range

 

[Aldo Junior Ao2]

OK, speaking of extended life batteries...


I'm confused between the battery life of these two 2600mAh Extended Life Batteries.

This one says:
http://www.seidioonline.com/product-p/bacy26mtdd-bk.htm
It has up to 87% more capacity than the original and comes with a black replacement door featuring Seidio's signature soft touch coating.


and this one says:
http://www.seidioonline.com/product-p/bacy26tmg1-bk.htm
It is up to 125% more than the capacity of the original and comes ....


but they are both 2600mAh Extended Life Batteries.

Please explain the difference so I can decide.

Any pros/cons to either or other recommendations?

Thank you,

Brian

Ones for the t-mobile(1150mAh oem) g1 and ones for the droid(1300mah oem) That's the difference because the t-mobile battery is less mah hence why you get 125 percent increase on a 1150mah oem compared to droids 1300mah which if you got a 2600mah extended battery would give you a 87 percent increase, so buy the one for the droid .

 

[ZBoater]

I am only getting about 4-5 hours of battery life. It may have something to do with the fact I haven't been able to put the thing down for a single minute since I got it...

 

[Fadelight]

instead of arguing over what is heavy and what is not, why don't you all get an app that will allow you to see your complete usage. something like spare parts, or batter left widget, i'm sure there are others. they allow you to see the statistics already in Android (just not accessible for some reason) of your usage (time running, time with wifi on, time using wifi, time with bt on, time in calls), partial wake usage, gps usage, cpu usage, etc. then you will actually have REAL numbers of how much the phone is being used in a time frame.

Even though I already realize GPS would be at the top for usage... second being 3G (the way my GPS works.. it requires both)... I think getting some posts with usage percentages would be a good idea. I'll download it tonight before I go to work and post the results when I get home.

I didn't realize how much battery GPS tracker sucked down. You should get a extended battery.

Thought about it, but it just wouldn't work out. When I am working, the phone is in a car dock the entire night. There is only one seat in the car I use for work, so putting it anywhere else isn't an option. lol. The only other time I use the tracker is when I'm out walking/hiking, and I just bought a dedicated tracker that I can use for that roll instead. (I bought it for geotagging pictures.)

I originally was testing battery life when not in use because I am leaving for AZ for 8 days, and I won't be using my phone much at all out there. I want to leave my GPS tracker on so my friends at home can see where I am, though. Step 1 was getting the baseline... ie: how much life the phone would be using when not in use at all... then starting with battery testing on different settings with the GPS. I've found that if I set it to update every 10 minutes, my batter life is close to 35 hours, since it sleeps when not updating. It will toss the GPS on long enough to get a fix, then shut it off and upload the coordinates to instamapper, then go back to sleep.

If I set it to update every 5 minutes, it appears I'll still be getting somewhere more than 16 hours, but I think 10 minute updates are more than enough.

I am interested in seeing what other people are getting for percentages using a monitoring app, though. I'll be posting my results as soon as I get home from work tonight. (2am tomorrow, roughly.)

 

[Aldo Junior Ao2]

So you get 39 hours when not in use and when using gps tracker you get around 35 hours. Can you set it to say 15 mins. But 39 hours seems really low for not even touching it, how is your signal or connection. If anyone here left there phones untouched it would get way more then 39 i think it has to do with your signal. Also what is your wireless connection set to home only or roaming if needed. I have mine set to home only. Do you use a task killer. ?

 

[edge]

How did you go 39 hours without using your phone?

 

[Fadelight]

So you get 39 hours when not in use and when using gps tracker you get around 35 hours. Can you set it to say 15 mins. But 39 hours seems really low for not even touching it, how is your signal or connection. If anyone here left there phones untouched it would get way more then 39 i think it has to do with your signal. Also what is your wireless connection set to home only or roaming if needed. I have mine set to home only. Do you use a task killer. ?

Signal is 4 bars constant. Network is 3G. Roming/home is a moot point since the test was done with the phone not moving. No task killer.

How did you go 39 hours without using your phone?

Easy. I have two Droids.

 

[mhome]

Just skimmed this thread, but did anyone even mention the ROM you're using?

Or is everyone stock?

 

[Fadelight]

Just skimmed this thread, but did anyone even mention the ROM you're using?

lol actually, no. I'm using ChevyNo1's SS 2.02 ERE53 ROM at the moment. The battery life actually went up a bit when I started using the newer custom ROMs from what it used to be. The GPS is definitely the killer, though.

Here are some screenshots that I took tonight while my battery was at 10%.

There isn't a screen in spare parts that gives a time since the phone was unplugged (only since the last boot), so I couldn't screenshot it, but that was after about 4.5 hours.

 

[kratos]

I just noticed that on the stock ROM, you can see the exact amount of time (down to the seconds) that your phone has been unplugged.

Go to: Settings > About Phone > Battery use. In the top left corner, it shows the amount of time that has elapsed since last unplugged.

If this was already known, I apologize for repeating it. I just never knew this and found it last night while trying to figure out what was draining my battery.

Kratos

 

[Slug]

I'm opening this thread back up as there's way too much useful info in it.
Please try to keep it on-topic as I'm sure it will be a big help to many people. Oh, and let's try to get along.... it's okay to disagree but do it nicely and don't take it personally.

 

[radikal]

i am so confused, mine probably gets 6 -8 hrs before battery dead. I browse the net. I have twidroid in the background, i use foursquare, music sometimes its the app sometimes its pandora. i have facebook running in the bg, i get texts and gtalk messages.

some people either don't use their phones much or have a genie! dunno how ya can go that long.

 

[djkeller3]

I have a career history in business to business sales in the wireless industry and have lots of experience selling Motorola phones, so I knew going into my Droid experience that I would need two batteries right from the start... so that's what I did... I bought two batteries. I rarely make it to the end of the day on a single battery. No big deal at all with the 2nd battery. Granted, I'm a heavy user, knew I would be. I'm either on the phone, playing music on Tunewiki, checking my gmail or web browsing. My Droid is almost ALWAYS doing something all day long, so I can't complain.

 

[Aldo Junior Ao2]

Here is the bigest question who is overclocked. If you are at what and hence the higher your overclocked the faster you drain battery. Also what are the brightness level at on your screen. I am at 550mhz on 2.1 and i just listened to 2 and a half hour of music and gtalk all day and was having fun browsing on the opera 5 beta and by 5pm i was at 70 percent. I have gps and any location turned off with the brightness set to 25 percent. That's why we are all going to have different results because we all have different settings with different signal strength. Also after you write a msg do you turn off the screen or leave it on until it turns off and if so what is your delay timer. Oh there are soo many factors. Mine is set to 15 seconds but i always turn off the screen when i finish what i am typing.

 

[flbb2007]

lol @ 59 hours.









Are you bad at math? there aren't 59 hours in a day.

Yeah, my post was serious. Under "Heavy usage"... that is GPS tracker running and updating ever 5 seconds... typical phone/text activity, mild to moderate browsing, my battery dies in 3.5 hours, so I HIGHLY doubt you can get "Heavy" usage and still have 59 hours of battery life. It would appear from the other responses here that I'm not alone in thinking this.

.

 

[flbb2007]

With "Heavy" Use, continuous e-mail,talk,web browsing, this thing is kaput at about 3.5 hours. I bought an extra battery to carry along, but on a full day trip with no access to electricity, it wouldn;t be enough. Maybe I am naive, but I am totally NOT impressed with 3.5 hours.

 

[Aldo Junior Ao2]

With "Heavy" Use, continuous e-mail,talk,web browsing, this thing is kaput at about 3.5 hours. I bought an extra battery to carry along, but on a full day trip with no access to electricity, it wouldn;t be enough. Maybe I am naive, but I am totally NOT impressed with 3.5 hours.

Maybe you should looking into buying a extended battery from seidio on top of carrying your extra battery. That should last you awhile.Also your not naive, but at the same time how long do you expect a phone to last with you touching it for three and a half hours straight. People here call me a liar(fade) for having a great battery life but i am a married man who works five days a week and have a busy social life. If i am not working, i'm with my wife and kids. I think alot of people here have to understand this is not a laptop or gps even though it has those features. Ask yourself this when going for a long drive 3 to 6 hours with your gps do you plug it in your car. When using a laptop is it plug into a wall during the day. Its a phone with a small battery and people expect it to be your laptop,gps and on top of that a phone at the same time. I have a tomtom,dell laptop and my droid. What more battery life do i need. Going out to smell the flowers = Better Battery life. Back to work i go bye ya'll

 

[flbb2007]

Maybe you should looking into buying a extended battery from seidio on top of carrying your extra battery. That should last you awhile.Also your not naive, but at the same time how long do you expect a phone to last with you touching it for three and a half hours straight. People here call me a liar(fade) for having a great battery life but i am a married man who works five days a week and have a busy social life. If i am not working, i'm with my wife and kids. I think alot of people here have to understand this is not a laptop or gps even though it has those features. Ask yourself this when going for a long drive 3 to 6 hours with your gps do you plug it in your car. When using a laptop is it plug into a wall during the day. Its a phone with a small battery and people expect it to be your laptop,gps and on top of that a phone at the same time. I have a tomtom,dell laptop and my droid. What more battery life do i need. Going out to smell the flowers = Better Battery life. Back to work i go bye ya'll

Thanks for your reply. I will have to buy the extended use battery. My naivety stems from expecting a product to do more than it is capable of. I too have a gps/laptop and they are both plugged in all the time. Sometimes I need a reality check and your post was perfect. Thanks for taking the time.

Going out to smell the roses.

 

[Aldo Junior Ao2]

Thanks for your reply. I will have to buy the extended use battery. My naivety stems from expecting a product to do more than it is capable of. I too have a gps/laptop and they are both plugged in all the time. Sometimes I need a reality check and your post was perfect. Thanks for taking the time.

Going out to smell the roses.

Wait wait its raining outside use an umbrella. The extended battery will help with an 87 percent increase so then maybe it will last you let say about 6 hours which is kinda sweet if you ask me. The one thing i will say don't tell fadelight, but my battery does drain faster when i am watching youtube shhhh he might read this. Back to work oh please lord i want to leave.

 

[Fadelight]

People here call me a liar(fade) for having a great battery life but i am a married man who works five days a week and have a busy social life.

See, there you go again. I said I didn't believe your battery lasted that long under heavy use (as you originally claimed), and you keep changing your story to adapt to what you said about battery life. First it was "heavy use means different things to different people", and now you are saying you don't use it because of family. If you don't use your phone much, that is fine. But you can't say "heavy use" and then claim it lasts that many hours without expecting someone to call you on it, and changing your story doesn't change the facts here. Heavy use is pretty standard... so either it was or was not heavy use when you got that much life from the battery. At this point I am going to guess that you were right about battery life, but you are mistaken by what "heavy use" means, since that is what your stories push the readers toward believing.

In any event, you shouldn't take what I say so personal. I have a bad habit of posting when I'm tired, so my posts are usually very blunt. No offense is ever meant by it. (usually, anyway.) I just suck at candy-coating things.


But, to bump the thread... would someone around here with an extended battery be willing to test out the battery life under heave use? (Heavy: Google maps turned on and left on for the duration... internet, etc...) I am considering buying an extended battery for hiking, but I don't want to pay nearly $55 for something that is only going to jump the usage up by an hour over the stock battery.

 

[djkeller3]

Just bought battery #3. Now I have 3 batteries in rotation, giving me ample power to max out my screen brightness all the time, stream music on Slacker, surf the web and talk all I want and not have to worry about having enough battery left at the end of the day.

I learned long ago that carrying Motorola product means having at least 1 extra battery on hand. Now that we use our phones not only for voice, but to surf the web, stream music and video, play mp3s and games, and have very attractive displays at full brightness, I'm not surprised that one - even two - extra batteries are not enough for me.